The United Nations (UN) has been in existence since June of 1945. Since then, the world has come together to work on and solve some of the harshest problems that face the Human Race. Be it children in societal ills like Human Trafficking, natural issues like Deforestation, or issues of extreme poverty, the UN has worked together in an attempt to make it a better place for us all. It's the only organization in the history of the world to bring people together in a willing, peaceful way; a feat that not even the League of Nations could do in the Post- WWI era. Why was it that one organization failed, and the other one is still going strong, 72 years later?
Well, one could argue that it was and is United States involvement that has kept it afloat for so long. The League was created in the Paris Peace Conference following WWI at the urging of President Woodrow Willson as the first Intergovernmental organization who's sole purpose was to maintain world peace. However, when the charter was presented to the US senate for ratification, it was shot down due to extreme isolationism. Because of this, the LON was never able to gain the political traction that it needed to be an effective force in the world and ultimately led to WWII.
Through the horrors of WWII, it was revealed that the world needed to unite more than ever. Towards the end of the war effort, 51 nations signed the charter of the UN, though, it did not come into power until after the ratification of the charter by the P5 (Russia, China, France, UK, and the USA), as well as a majority of the remaining countries.
Since that time, the UN has done incredible things to make the world a better place. They created the Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, which affirms the basic rights of each and every individual on the planet, the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which went into effect in 1970, banning the manufacture of nuclear weapons technology, countless Peacekeeping missions (we can debate the effectiveness of the peacekeepers at a later date), UNICEF, and lots of other things.
So, this brings me to the reason why I am writing this. In recent weeks, President-elect Donald Trump has been less-than-friendly to the Intergovernmental organization. Calling it a club for people to go to and "have a good time" and calling it a "waste of time and money." If the President-elect continues with this dangerous rhetoric, the dangers would be astronomical. The risk with this rhetoric is the possibility of the U.S. drawing out of the UN, which would have domino effects. It would effectively remove us from all the UN treaties that we are a part of, like the NPT, which would put us in the same league of North Korea as the only two nations to withdraw from it. Our support of peacekeeping ops, various UN programs, and risk the stability of the entire nation.
Now, I am far from biased in writing this. I have participated in Model UN for the past 2 years, this year will mark my third conference, and I have fallen in love with what the UN stands for. It brings people together, from throughout the world, to fight common problems. Yes, it may not be effective, or the best organized, or well oiled like smaller organizations, but neither is our government. Why would we not support something that has kept the world from full scale war for the past 70 years?
