By Tafida Sabo Akilu.
It has been on record that several attempts had taken place on how to establish an institution that would coordinate the entire world and simultaneously prevent global conflicts. Such attempt can be dated back to 17th century, ie the Vienna conference which as a result brought the end of napoleon war and at the same time led to the unification of European societies.
There were also attempt by the Europe such as Russia, Australia, Prussia and Britain to maintain peace in europe.
However, the eruption of the WWI of 1914-1918 hindered all such strenuous effort. Despite that, still international communities didn’t despair but pushed more efforts in order to initiate world body that would solely foster peace and stability in the international arena. This necessitated the establishment of the league of nations as suggested by the then US leader Wilson. League of nations was emanated from the treaty of versailles in 1919.
The above institution was unable to last long nor it had achieved her goals. Thus, WWlI erupted due to inability of the aforementioned institution. At the end of the WWII, nation states decided to replace league of nations with United Nations Organization (UNO). It has been reported that on 25th April 1945 at Francisco (USA), that China, Britain, and Soviet submitted the draft charter for the organization that is toady known as UNO. The UNO aimed at the following goals.
1. To maintain international peace and security, prevent threat to peace and punish aggressors.
2. To develop friendship among states and to treat all states equally
3. To promote and achieve international cooperation in solving economic, social, diplomatic, and cultural problems, and promote & respect for human rights and freedom for all people irrespective of their race, gender, language or religion.
This paper will examine objective number one of the above goals. That’s maintenance of international peace and punishment of the aggressors. Since the inception of UNO, there were many international crises witnessed by international communities. These included Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria , Yemen , Israeli-Palestine Libya, Sudan ethiopia-Tigrayan wars to mention just few.
World has witnessed number of aggressors such as Muammar Ghaddafi of Libya, Sadam Hussein of Iraq, George W Bush jr, V. Putin of Russia, Al-Bashar of Sudan etc. However, some of these aggressors were faced consequences of their actions by united nations while others escaped.
In march 2009, Al -Bashar of Sudan became the first sitting head of state to be indicated by international criminal court ( ICC) , for allegedly directing a campaign of mass killing, rape, and pillage against civilians of Dafur.
On 30 December 2006, Sadam Hussein was sentenced to death by hanging after being convicted of crime against humanity. He killed 148 shi’tes in the town of Dujail in 1982, in retaliation for an assassination attempt against him.
On 21 October 211, Muammar Ghaddafi of Libya was found west of sitter after his convoys were attacked by NATO aircraft. He was then captured by national transition council (TNC) forces and killed shortly. Reuters. 21 October 2011
Week after Al-Qaeedah attacked the US on September 11, president George W Bush jr announced the US invasion of Afghanistan. In spite the fact that invasion of one country by another is strictly against the charter of UNO which guaranteed sovereignty and territorial integrity of member states. According to the coast of war project, the invasion of Afghanistan by US under the aggressive George W Bush claimed 176,000 people lives in Afghanistan; 461,319 civilians, 69,095 military and police at least 52,893 opposition fighters. Despitefully, United Nations refused to hold Bush accountable for his flagrant violation of international law.
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In February and March 2014, Russia invaded and subsequently annexed the crimean peninsula from Ukraine. The invasion claimed the lives of six people, 3 protesters, 2 pro-Russian, 1 pro-Ukraine, two soldiers and one crimean SDP trooper( google). Meanwhile , for the past three months, Russia has amassed more than 100,000 armed forces on Ukraine border and it began to invade Ukraine three days ago.
According to the president zalensky of Ukraine substantiated that about 100 people lost their lives which included civilians , both Russian and ukraine armed forces. , United Nations did nothing to President Putin in 2014 and perhaps this emboldened him to start another invasion three days ago.
Concerning the current invasion of Ukraine by Russia, United Nations security council (UNSC) summoned emergency meeting so as to condemn Russia’s aggressions on Ukraine. This meeting ended off with a voting in which 11 members voted in favour of Ukraine, China, India and UAE abstained while Russia who’s part of the permanent member states vetoed the resolution and called it anti -Russian.
Lastly the UNSC vowed to take the issue to united nations general assembly (UNGA) for further resolution. Note , Russian has a veto power and it may likely veto any resolution against her.
I call on international communities to re-think about the settings of united nations and come up with a better international institutions that will favour world leaders equally since it’s apparent that united nations is just a mish-mash and balderdash.
Tafida Sabo Akilu, Is a Student at Yusuf Maitama Sule University Kano, Department of History And International Studies.
