By :Hani Chibli.
The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945. It is currently made up of 193 Member States, the mission and work of the United Nations are guided by the purposes and principles contained in its founding Charter.Due to the powers vested in its charter and its unique international character, the United Nations can take action on the issues confronting humanity in the 21st century, such as peace and security, climate change, sustainable development, human rights, disarmament, terrorism, humanitarian and health emergencies, gender equality, governance, food production, and more.
The UN also provides a forum for its members to express their views, whether in the General Assembly or in the Security Council as well as the Economic and Social Council, and other bodies and committees. By enabling dialogue between its members, and by hosting negotiations, the Organization has become a mechanism for governments to find areas of agreement and solve problems together.
Establishing of peace and International Security is concerned as the main focus of the United Nations work, it is one of the goals which are included within its charter, it involved multiple mechanisms which facilities the way for achieving this goal. The United Nations working methods in management of international crises varied and involved many means with the rise of a set of variables that imposed their impact on the reality of their work.
The United Nations developed its working mechanisms, which resulted in their quest to adopt multiple concepts which are linked to establishing international peace and global security and their integration in the framework of its work, the most prominent of these concepts is "peace-building" which would deal with the data phase following the armed conflict , reaching a peace agreement often requires follow-up efforts to maintain this achievement, according to The Preamble to the Constitution of UNESCO which declares : "since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed".
Let us here take a brief look at the “Peacebuilding” term ,this term belongs to Wilson's fourteen points, the Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918 speech on war aims and peace terms to the United States Congress by President Woodrow Wilson. These fourteen points was seen as the pillars of the sustainability of the peace after World War I, and a means to maintain gains that has been achieved on the road to peace, and by the establishment of a compromise peace and ensure its permanence by establishing international organization which will preserve its presence, and this done through founding a League of Nations , But this concept is beginning to take its shape institutionally with the report of the Former Secretary General of the United Nations Boutros-Ghali, issued in 1992, known as “Agenda for Peace”, which provided his vision of promoting and increasing the UN's ability to achieve an integrated overall concept for establishing Peace and International security , it included four key terms constitute a virtuous circle begins with preventive diplomacy and continue with the peace-making and peace-keeping to reach peace-building phase , and since that date, the concept is well known in the literature of international peace and international security. Ghali’s report in 1998 on the causes of conflict and the promotion of durable peace and sustainable development in Africa, he said:" What I meant by peace building and post-conflict is the actions that taken at the end of the conflict to promote peace and prevent a recurrence of armed confrontation ".
The report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, issued in 2004 entitled "A more secure world ;our shared responsibility" has relied too much on the concept of "peace building" they believe that " peace building" achieves harmony between the United Nations work with the new challenges of international security which has become vulnerable to them , this report launched the idea of establishing an independent body in the United Nations system entrusted with the task of building Peace, this idea reinforced with the world summit report in 2005 and in the same year in December The Peacebuilding Commission was established by the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council acting concurrently. It is an inter-governmental advisory body, in order to provide recommendations in post-conflict peace building, recovery, reconstruction and development, as well as serve as a coordination and exchange of experiences forum on issues regarding peacebuilding.
United Nations structure in the field of peace-building:
The United Nations involvement in peace-building has been forced it to develop sub-devices within the organizational structure to deal with the requirements of this task, which in its turn emerged the Peacebuilding Commission, as well as two others, the Peacebuilding Support Office and the Peacebuilding Fund .
1-THE PEACEBUILDING COMMISSION (PBC):
Peacebuilding commission has been established jointly by the Security council and the General assembly ,but with separate resolutions: S/RES/1645920050 by Security Council, and A/RES/180/(2005) by the General Assembly, this committee is supervene by the both devices (general assembly and security council), the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) is an intergovernmental advisory body that supports peace efforts in conflict affected countries, and is a key addition to the capacity of the International Community in the broad peace agenda .Countries currently on the PBC agenda are :Burundi, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Central African Republic.
• The commission tasks’ includes:
-Propose integrated strategies for peace-building and post-conflict recovery.
- Aiding to ensure predictable financing suppliers for early recovery activities and sustained financial investment ranged from medium to long term.
Internally the commission consists of an Organizational Committee as well as private collections of countries which are listed on its agenda, the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council decided that members of the Organizational Committee shall serve for renewable terms of two years, as applicable.
• Seven members elected by the General Assembly:
Colombia, Egypt, El Salvador, Kenya, Indonesia, Mexico, Montenegro
• Seven members selected by the Security Council:
China, France, Russia, Senegal, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay
• Seven members elected by the Economic and Social Council (one seat still vacant)
Argentina, Belgium, Estonia, Nigeria, Republic of Korea, South Africa
• Five top providers of military personnel and civilian police to United Nations missions
Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, Rwanda
• Five of the top providers of assessed contributions to United Nations budgets and of voluntary contributions to the United Nations funds, programmes and agencies, including a standing peacebuilding fund which are: Brazil, Canada, Germany, Japan, Norway.
2-peacebuilding support office:
Peacebuilding support office is an office staffed by qualified experts to assist and support the Commission”. The office comprises the Peacebuilding Commission Support Branch, the Policy, Planning and Application Branch and the Financing for Peacebuilding Branch.
3- the Peacebuilding fund (PBF):
Peacebuilding Fund was established in 2006 by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to secure the immediate needs For countries emerging from conflict .The PBF constitutes an essential component of the enhanced UN architecture to provide for a more sustained engagement in support of countries emerging from conflict and will support peacebuilding activities which directly contribute to post-conflict stabilization and strengthen the capacity of Governments, national/local institutions and transitional or other relevant authorities.
Over 73 years, the United Nations performance was characterized by the contrast between failure and success, but it still has a presence on the international stage and here I will briefly clarify the most success and failure of the United nations.
achievements:
the international organization it is managed to maintain international peace and international security by deployment of 42 peacekeeping forces and observer missions in its history, and currently 16 forces of the peacekeeping operations in presence in several countries over the world. Since 1945, the United Nations has succeeded, through negotiation, in the settlement of regional conflicts, including an end to the war between Iran and Iraq, and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, and in putting an end to the civil war in El Salvador, this done as the United Nations has used quiet diplomacy to avoid wars which was on the verge of erupting. Recently, Between 2013 and 2016 the International organization did a great efforts concerning the refugee issue of the Syrian displaced citizens ,the UNHR contributions in this regards included many countries near the Syrian borders to the Europe content. The most important of what was done well, strengthening democratic of free and fair elections in 45 countries, and the dissemination of human rights culture, and nuclear non-proliferation, and promote self-determination and independence, and to strengthen international law, and the issuance of judicial rulings in major international disputes, and an end to apartheid in South Africa, and to provide humanitarian assistance to the victims of conflict, and aid to Palestinian refugees since 1950, through the United Nations agency for Relief and Works agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Failures:
It is evident that the United Nations has so far failed to settle ongoing Syrian crisis for more than six years. In addition, to the Palestinian issue, which reflect in stark conflict of international interests in more than 70 years with the failure in implementing the United Nations resolutions on resolving the issue fairly and to ensure the rights of Palestinian refugees.The other failure, with the United Nations mounting sanctions which failed to stop Tehran's nuclear program and the increased likelihood of military intervention of one party, while Iran is making steady pace towards achieving its aspirations , this in light of double standards in the Middle East concerning a blind eye to the Israeli nuclear programmer in the Middle East since the sixties. During a decade as Secretary General. Interventions: A Life in War and Peace is his personal account of an extraordinary career as an international diplomat and an accomplished world leader.Kofi Annan presented in his memories an account of "flagrant violation" of some United Nations errors through his work, which lasted for decades ,especially in the field of peacekeeping missions in the nineties in Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia, which he described as "cases of major failures."Recently, Saudi Arabia recently refused to accept a seat on the UN Security Council in protest at the work mechanism and the failure to resolve the Syrian crisis and its position on the Palestinian issue. in the last yeas many countries calls of the need for drastic reforms in the United Nations and in all its institutions, for its credibility away from the domination of some countries in the hope to have this international organization the largest roles in ending the scourge of wars, famine and move toward a better world.
In the end, the current international actions of major Member States of the United Nations is only a reflection of the current international developments experienced by the international community at the present time, which is a clear indication on the break up of the International community and Delinquency of the members of the current international regulation to the decomposition of the values established international principles Charter of the United Nations and the international norms and ethics, which urged peace instead of war and worked hard to develop friendly relations among nations and to achieve international cooperation in various fields, thus towards achieving the two ends,the first, the protection of the international national security and the second is to achieve prosperity for all the peoples in the world.