I do not think the United Nations is as effective as it could be. I believe there is a huge flaw in the system. That flaw is their veto system. There are five countries that can veto anything major being passed. These countries are the United States, China, Russia, United Kingdom, and France. These countries were basically the main winners of World War II. The primary reason the United Nations was made was to stop the world from going into another world war. You might be asking yourself, “What does this have to do with the veto system being flawed?” Well, what would happen if there were a disagreement among these countries that broke out into war? The United Nations would be powerless to stop it. If they picked a side and tried to help, the other countries would veto that order and nothing would happen. Even if most of the countries in the UN voted for the UN to do something, the opposing countries could just veto it, and nothing would happen.
Think about that. The main mission of the UN, the reason it was made, was to protect against a huge war, and it would not be able to stop that war. We can sort of see an example of this in the Ukraine. The Ukraine wanted to be more like Western Europe and less like Russia, and Russia invaded them. The UN can do nothing about this to help Ukraine because Russia will just veto it.
You might be saying, but it keeps the five primary countries safe from having their interests hurt in any way. That is true, but it is too safe. It does help those countries, but it also hurts them. None of those countries can have a vote go against them, but also it makes it super hard for those countries to pass a vote they want because it would probably get vetoed.
I think there should be a two thirds majority vote to over-ride a veto. It would still be hard to over-ride a veto because usually not that many countries would agree to do so, but it would be a step in the right direction. Another option would be to get rid of the veto all together. These options would be almost impossible to get passed in the UN because, if someone suggested something like this, at least one of the five countries would probably veto it. Do you think the UN veto system is broken? If so, how would you fix it? Would you get rid of the veto system all together or just make an adjustment?
This is part of the student blog challenge. http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/