The United Nations and Kant
The United Nations failure to prevent war is based on its flawed structure. This structure
includes two different levels of power. The first part of that is the General Assembly. This allows
each of the 139 nations the power to equally each have one vote. Because everyone has equal
power, if used correctly, this should be every effective at preventing war. However, this is not
possible because of the second part of United Nation, the Security Council. The Security Council
is composed of two groups of nations who have the power to veto laws bought up in the
General Assembly. These groups include permanent and non-permanent members. The
permanent members of this are always China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom
and the United States. The non-permanent members currently include Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Germany, Portugal, Brazil, India, South Africa, Colombia, Lebanon, Gabon and Nigeria but these
members change every 2 - 4 years. The way this is setup is a problem because every member of
the Security Council has the power to veto laws with bias to benefit their own interests. For
example, America will veto a law that has many benefits in total but may hurt their trade or
economy because of their self-regard; every nation in the Security Council is like this. In
addition, the fact that there are permanent members and non-permanent members can create
tension within this organization. The use of permanent members on the Security Council labels
certain nations more powerful or important than the other nations. The permanent members
have never changed, and new permanent members have never been added which is appalling.
These actions state that permanent members were the most powerful nations when the United
Nations was created more than 60 years ago, and still are, making other nations insignificant in
comparison. In addition, the use of permanent members from many years ago does not take
into account the changes in the power status of nations from that time. This also allows the
members of the General Assembly, who are not in the Security Council to have a disadvantage
of not being able to have a powerful vote when compared to other nations in both the General
Assembly and the Security Council. This is because at any time another nation in the Security
Council can veto a law that may have been important or wanted by the majority of the General
Assembly for personal reasons. For example, America would never allow a law to be passed
that might hurt or stop its current actions, for example the war in Iraq. A major problem in the
United Nations that Kant warns about is the interference of one county and their military in
another country because of the belief that others human rights are being violated. Kant states
that interference should only happen if a nation is in a state of anarchy, and there is no longer a
government. However, the United Nations does not interfere for those reasons; they interfere
when they believe human rights have been violated, which is thought of often. This is a
problem Kant discussed and is very bad because the help the United Nations provides does not
help but makes things worse. He states that the countries should be able to figure things out on
their own, and maybe they don’t want help. The United Nations causes a problem that mutes
the voice of the citizens because they are trying to fix things within a country that they should
not worry about. A country is like a family, and in real life if a family is having problems, the
family works it out; this is much like what Kant is saying, let them work it out for themselves
and if they should happen to have a state of anarchy where there is no government and they
need help, lend help but don’t come and try to fix a problem that they can potentially fix. The
United Nations does not listen to this and instead, interferes all the time when they believe it
morally right to. An example of this was them approving military actions against Libya. Libya did
not need their need because according to Kant, they were not yet in a state of anarchy. The
things Kant said in the Perpetual Peace that need to happen in order for world peace is not
happening, and so there is no world peace. While the structure and actions of the United
Nation does not help with world peace, world peace is not currently achieved because of most
of the factors Kant states needs to happen. Perpetual Peace in the preliminary articles, Kant
states many things that need to happen for there to be world peace. The use of “standing
armies” for the reason of self-defense is a major problem. It needs to be eliminated because it
creates an idea that the army is there for protection for future wars, so other nations begin to
build military powers for this reason. With everyone creating military weapons, for just in case
hypothetical wars of course there is no world peace. If you are preparing for a war, of course
when a war is presented, you are not thinking about world peace. Because we have not
abolished the use of armies and military weapons being build, this is a problem Kant talked
about, and has not yet been fixed. These numerous problems can easily be fixed if the terms of
the Security Council changed. The use of the permanent members in the Security Council is
abolishment. With the end of permanent members, everyone will truly be equal. There will be
no deemed powerful nations having advantages over other nations, such as the veto that can
affect any nation so greatly. To create justice and equality, instead of allowing members to veto
on all purposed laws from the General Assembly, they should only be able to use their power
only to end a gridlock vote by considering both sides argument on whether to vote for or
against the law, and then select which side should win. This would mean that if a law was
purposed to the General Assembly and there were close results on whether to support or
oppose the purposed law, the rotating different nations in the Security Council with equal
power could decide on the result with the possibility of actions based on self-interest
eliminated. This would solve the structure problem because everything would be a group vote.
In addition, members in the Security Council would hold position for a year or less, instead of
the current time frame non-permanent members hold. Although the structure of the United
Nations is very weak, and they do not do their job of establishing world peace well, not
everything can be blamed on the structure of the United Nations. This is because there are
many other factors that affect the lack of world peace. The governments that do horrendous
acts such as the genocide of citizens or ban of human rights from their governments, whether
because of tyrant rulers or secondary factors, are not because of the actions of the United
Nation. It is their passive and physical aggressive actions that cause the current state of
worldwide conflict to continually happen with numerous battles and problems arising
constantly. The use of treaties after wars only hurt future generations because the losing nation
is made to suffer with conditions that leave them powerless. This then creates feelings of
resentment in the losing nation which causes wars in the future. Instead of creating treaties
that agree that everyone will stop fighting, treaties make provisions for future wars. These
treaties fuel wars for the future. Kant states that world peace is something every generation
needs to contribute to, because he understands that no one nation or generation can make it
happen overnight, but the United Nations was founded to make this happen. After more than
50 years in existence, it is clear that the United Nations is not the only problem. The lack of
world peace and numerous wars is because of the factors Kants originally talked about in
Perpetual Peace. From the time that it was written, nothing has changed. Some of the problems
he predicted would happen, are happening, it is only a matter of time before human
annihilation he said would occur in worst-case scenario. In the primary article, Kant states that
each generation needs to make an effort to contribute to world peace. This is currently not
happening. The United Nations was originally created to end current wars, and prevent new
wars. During that period, people understood that swift action needed to be taken to prevent
world obliteration, but the steps that need to be done have not yet been started. Current and
past generations have built war arms to protect themselves in hypothetical wars, taken over
other states and created treaties that do not agree to end future wars, but agree to certain
situations and retributions that make losing nations suffer. The structure of the United Nations
is very weak, however, it is not only the United Nations’ job to fix this important problem, it is
the job of every generation. If every generation did a small part to contribute to world peace,
then by the year 3000, there would be world peace or at least a step closer to it. Until this
happens, the idea of pending doom from the violent actions of the current and past
generations
is
leading
us
to
an
explosive
end.
Works
Citied
“General Assembly of the United Nation.” No author given. The United Nation. Dec 3 2011.
http://www.un.org/en/ga/
“Membership in 2011.” No Author
http://www.un.org/sc/members.asp
Given.
UN
Security
“United Nations Security Council.” No Author given.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council
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Dec
3
2011.
Wikipedia.
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3
2011.