United Nations: A Failure?

Pros :
1. The main objective of the United Nations at its founding was to
prevent future wars and suffering on a mass scale. As millions have
died in hundreds of conflicts around the world in more than fifty
years since the UN’s establishment, it must be condemned as a
failure.
2. Another key objective of the United Nations has been to promote
human rights worldwide, yet these continue to be violated by many
regimes, often on a horrific scale, as in the genocidal civil wars in the
Balkans and Central Africa in the 1990s. Given that voting rights in the
UN General Assembly are not linked to a regime’s human rights
record, and that gross human rights abusers such as China sit on the
UN Security Council, it is no surprise that the UN has failed in this
part of its agenda
3. The UN suffers from a bloated bureaucracy, in which seniority is not
linked to ability, resulting in painfully slow decision-making and
operational failure in such crises as Rwanda and the former
Yugoslavia. Some UN organisations, such as UNESCO have been
viewed as so corrupt countries such as the USA and the UK have
withdrawn from them, while the US Congress has long withheld part
of the dues it owes to the UN in protest against corruption and
money-wasting.
4. There are also institutional problems associated with the General
Assembly and the Security Council, whereby GA resolutions with
widespread support can be stymied by a single veto from one of the
Permanent 5. This has led to unilateral action by countries such as the
USA and organisations such as NATO, undermining the authority of
the UN, and to a lack of credibility for the UN in dealing with issues
such as Israel and Palestine, where the USA among the P5 has strong
interests.
5. Much of the international progress made since 1945 has not involved
the UN at all. The Cold War and mutually assured destruction kept
the peace between the great powers, while institutions such as the
IMF, World Bank, GATT and the WTO have functioned independently
of the UN in promoting greater prosperity.

Cons:
United Nations: A Failure?
1. Despite horrific suffering in many countries, the world has avoided
another devastating global conflict in which tens of millions might
die, and for this the UN can take much credit. It has also resisted
aggression in regional conflicts in Korea and the Middle East, helping
to deter future invasions, and acted as an intermediary in making
peace in many other conflicts, e.g the Iran-Iraq war. Consider how
much more violent the world might have been without the United
Nations.
2. Human rights abuses usually take place within states, often in civil
wars, so the UN has no mandate to intervene directly against them –
as it was explicitly set up with a policy of non-interference in internal
affairs it is unfair to count this a failure. Nonetheless, it has placed
human rights on the international agenda, making billions of people
aware of what are considered norms and shaming many regimes into
improving their policies. Even China makes great efforts to claim its
human rights record is better than that of countries such as the USA,
albeit differently defined.
3. Errors in strategic decision-making are not the fault of the UN
secretariat but of its masters in the Security Council. There have been
past abuses, but these are used as a stick to beat the UN with by
those, principally in the USA, who are against the UN for other
reasons. In recent years considerable progress has been made in
improving the efficiency and meritocratic nature of the secretariat,
although this has been hampered by the failure of the USA to pay its
dues, which are needed to compensate those made redundant by
restructuring
4. Since the end of the Cold War UN decision-making has been much
improved, as key votes in the Security Council are no longer likely to
result in deadlock between eastern and western blocs. In any case, P5
countries try to avoid using their veto power if at all possible, due to
the negative image this creates at home and abroad. Instead the
Security Council acts as a forum in which positions can be explained
and compromises hammered out, even if action is not necessarily
collectively authorised. Clearly the workings of the Security Council
could be changed to diminish the importance of the P5, and to make
action easier to take, but this does not in itself render the unreformed
UN a failure.
United Nations: A Failure?
5. Other organisations have also been important in bringing greater
peace and prosperity to the world, but none have the authority the
UN derives from the participation of almost every state in the world.
In international crises the Security Council is the forum for discussion,
deal-making, arbitration and understanding. The UN has also made
huge contributions to global progress through its agencies,
particularly those dealing with refugees, the World Health
Organisation and Unicef. By its efforts smallpox has been eliminated,
healthcare improved and education promoted. Such programmes are
not often noticed, but the UN’s responsibility for them should be
seen as a key part of its success.

Source : https://debatewise.org/2554-united-nations-a-failure/