I don’t understand what is point of the UN, what role they have in the world?
Let’s say the security council decides something on some country, how they enforce it? Who can enforce it? And who really cares?
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The UN is an organization set up by the victors of WW2 to try and ensure and end to such devastating wars. Unfortunately the organization itself is essentially powerless and relies on the goodwill of powerful countries to actually accomplish anything. Of course those powerful countries also turn out to often be the aggressors in many conflicts so in practice the UN is essentially impotent and has basically devolved into political theater and not a meaningful force for peace.
I disagree pretty strongly with /u/10133960bbb .
The UN can be considered a place — basically the only place — where the countries of the world come together to collectively solve the biggest problems with words and plans instead of guns and bombs.
Yes, in times of conflict, it works mostly through persuasion rather than through edicts. This is known as “[soft power](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_power)” and it is hard to measure its efficacy compared to hard power. One argument that it does have an effect is that people DO NOT ignore the UN. They go there and make their cases to try and persuade the world that they are correct. If it was irrelevant, they wouldn’t need to bother. Their delegate could just stay home and say nothing. Is it always enough to prevent war? No. Is it sometimes so? Perhaps. How do you list the wars that didn’t happen?
But it is also important to remember that the UN does not just act during war. It is the home for [UNICEF, UNHCR, WFP, UNDP, UNEP, UNFPA, UN-HABITAT](https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-system) and many, many other organizations that reduce the suffering of millions or billions of people around the world. How many additional people are tending farms instead of picking up guns right now? Here’s an incredible story about how the UN is rolling back the [Sahara desert](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCli0gyNwL0).
There are 35.3 million refugees in the world and UNHCR is responsible for trying to get them to safety. Millions of them are directly housed in [camps](https://www.unrefugees.org/refugee-facts/camps/) run by UNHCR. And that’s just one of the dozens of agencies run by the UN.
There are 11 UN [Peacekeeping operations](https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/where-we-operate) right now. Once again, we’ll never know how many wars they prevented…because they didn’t happen.
The main argument for it is that it is better than nothing and the one who can enforce it really is only the US and that is a bit of a stretch. That is regarding conflicts and such.
It does have a use though for things like the regulation of aviation and shipping, ICAO is an example. For what it’s worth many parts of it are very corrupt and is just there for formalities.
The UN is the HR of the world.
Outside looking in, it seems like they are this powerful gatekeeper who you need to blow away to gain entry.
Inside looking out, you realize it’s just a layer of buercracy passing along the decisions made by someone else.
The problem people have in understanding the UN is that they think it is supposed to function like a world government. It doesn’t, and it was never intended to. The UN was established after WW2 to prevent another world war between the great powers. It is a forum for discussion. It was understood in its design that it could never actually bind the great powers, and it makes no attempt to do so – they’re explicitly given vetos.
The biggest benefit to the existence of the UN is that it’s a place where countries can just… talk. It may not seem a lot but an exchange of words always go a long way, and the UN provides a place where that could occur even when guns are already drawn.
As for who can enforce what the UN decides, that’s something countries do that themselves. Voluntarily.
It may seem improbable or even insane, but countries generally want to be in good terms with each other. So when they enter an agreement, they generally adhere to the provisions of that agreement unless they want nobody to ever enter into an agreement with them, ever. You don’t want to be known as the untrustworthy guy, unless of course you’re too delusional or up your own ass that you can’t see just how important the rest of the world is to your own country.
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