5.7C - The United Nations
The UN (Security Council, International Court of Justice, and peacekeeping missions and climate change conferences) is important to global geopolitical stability. (A: actions and attitudes of global IGOs)
The United Nations was set up in 1945. With other global IGOs, it was part of an attempt to create a new world order of peace, prosperity and stability, and avoid further world wars.
The most powerful decision-making body within the UN is the Security Council. It makes decisions on issues such as:
- taking military action against countries seen to be breaking international law or persecuting people
- applying economic or diplomatic sanctions to countries, to try to force them to change their behaviour
The Security Council's five permanent members tend to act as two blocs, which gives the 'Western' powers a 3:2 advantage. The USA, France and the UK (all NATO members) tend to vote together. Russia and China often vote the same way, or abstain from some votes.
The UN is important in other ways:
- The International Court of Justice upholds international law; its legal framework is a Western one, reflecting the fact than the UN was set up by the USA and European powers
- Peacekeeping missions can be set up by the UN, sourcing armed forces from member states. These have had some success at ending or preventing conflict, e.g. the Bosnian conflict in the 1990s
- The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its scientific advisory panel the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change are important in informing the debate on global warming, and thus international agreements such as the COP21 agreement in Paris in 2015 where many countries pledged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
- the IPCC is a group of scientists that reports on global warming roughly once every five years.