The United Nations: A failure of maintaining peace?

Is the goal of peace really possible? One of American President Woodrow Wilson’s fourteen points was a plan to achieve a just and lasting peace. The Treaty of Versailles created the League of Nations in 1919. In the end, the League of Nations failed to preserve peace in 1930s in Europe, but Allied leaders became determined to create another more efficient international security organization. This organization is known as the United Nations, an international organization of sovereign nations. As its predecessor, the United Nations also has failed to bring about a just and lasting peace. In 1943, American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (called the Big Three) met in Dumbarton Oaks, a Washington, D.C., mansion. They began the exhausting process of developing a new organization’s structure. Its purpose would be to maintain international peace, seeking to create a forum in which all nations can resolve differences peacefully. At the Yalta Conference in February of 1945, the three leaders continued their agreement on resolving the most controversial issues of veto power and UN membership. The Big Three agreed on the voting plans that would be used in the United Nations. The war was coming to an end, in which representatives of over 50 countries met in San Francisco at the United Nations Conference on International Organization to create a United Nations Charter. In June 26, 1945, the Charter was signed by those 50 countries and officially came into existence on October 24, 1945. The conference established six basic parts for the UN: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat. Any nation in the United Nations is able to have one vote on issues. Self-governing states in the British territory- such as Canada- also have one vote. Nevertheless, the Big Three could veto any decisions made in what is called General Assembly. The five permanent members of the Security Council are France, China, the USSR, Great Britain, and the United States. The Security Council investigates any disputes that threatens peace and security, and recommends how to resolve the conflict in a rightful manner. Each Council member has one vote which decides on procedural matters. The decisions are then made by an affirmative vote of at least nine of the 15 members. The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) is responsible for: promoting higher standards of living, full employment, economic and social progress, identifying solutions to international economic, social and health problems, providing international education, and encouraging universal respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. The Trusteeship Council has the task of supervising the administration of Trust Territories placed under the Trusteeship System.                                       Major goals of the Trusteeship System are to promote the advancement of the inhabitants of Trust Territories and the development of their self-independence. The International Court of Justice, like any other court, has cases but only may entertain two types of cases: legal debates between States submitted to it by the States involved, and requests for advisory opinions on legal questions.  The Secretariat administrates peacekeeping operations that intervene in international conflicts, surveys economic and social trends, and prepares studies on human rights and sustainable development. Now with all these councils the United Nations has, why hasn’t the United Nations kept peace? “The United Nations has been an extraordinary failure of late,” said Republican White House Mitt Romney.  It’s due to fact that these members in each council are just human beings, meaning their goals are personal and maybe for their own greedy needs. Many of these leaders don’t want everlasting peace because they are still totalitarian or communist.  Today, the United Nations is considered the “solution” that has never worked for example its failure to curb North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and testing. And Iran is keeping a close eye on what the world does to North Korea, since Iran has similar nuclear ambitions for their non-peaceful agenda too. There are many people out their that have the desire for peace, but that peace won't come until people change and our leaders. Leaders won't change, they all want to reach a goal never knowing what might even if ti gets worse.