Is the United Nations a failure?

According to the 1945 founding treaty of the United Nations, the organization’s purpose among other things is to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”  However, 70 years later, unresolved conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Ukraine have lead to the greatest migration crisis since World War II with more than 15 million refugees who have fled their home countries as a result of these crises.

Jeffrey Laurenti, a board chair of the U.S. U.N. Association, says most of the unrest in the world today is a result of civil wars and internal conflicts which isn’t what the U.N. was founded to police. Although, he adds, it has taken on a bigger role in this area in the last half century.  Instead, he says, the organization was created to prevent a third world war.  “That there has been a global acceptance of the non-admissibility of countries' conquest of others, big fish swallowing up small fish, is a huge advance.”

Ambassador Richard Butler, a former Chief Iraq Weapons Inspector for the U.N., says it would be absolutely wrong to declare the U.N. a failure, but to the extent that it is failing it’s because the body’s most powerful members are breaking the very rules that they say they support. “That’s particularly true of major powers such as the United States and Russia.”  He points to the war in Syria and the United States 2003 invasion of Iraq, which was illegal according to the U.N. charter, as examples.

The U.S. and Russia along with the U.K., France and China make up the five permanent members of the Security Council. According the U.N. Charter, the council is given primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security and all other members of the U.N. agree to accept and carry out its decisions. These five nations have veto power while ten others are elected by the U.N.’s administrative body for a two-year term.  Laurenti and Ambassador Butler agree that this imbalance of power is a major problem, but Butler takes it further and says the U.S. and Russia should give up their veto power.  “That would be true leadership.  They don't need it.  No one's going to attack them.”

Sunday on Third Rail, we ask: Is the United Nations a failure? Ambassador Richard Butler, Jeffrey Laurenti and Peter Gallo, a former internal investigator for the United Nations, join us for the debate.  Tune in at 6PM ET/3PM PT on Al Jazeera America.

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