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  • Essay / False promises and failures of international organizations

    A brief introduction Throughout history, the world has witnessed many conflicts between nations and states – some of these clashes were only battles of words, while others turned into immense, even global, wars. This is why some statesmen, like Woodrow Wilson, understood the importance of power over the states, which would settle disputes and promote peaceful and friendlier interactions. This became the basic idea of ​​an international organization (IO). IO is an organization with international membership, reach and presence. There are two types of IOs: international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and international governmental organizations (IGOs). In theory and practice, maintaining the IO mechanism is a very difficult process and therefore, without proper maintenance and precision, it may fail. A failed IO is an institution that cannot solve its problems, is unable to enforce its objectives, is either corrupt or disunited. With reference to these criteria, I would like to analyze three of the world's best-known IOs – the League of Nations, the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund – explain their failures with the help of provided case studies and provide probable solutions to the problems of these IOs. League of NationsThe first international organization I would like to analyze is the very first international organization created – the League of Nations. It was an independent international body of state delegations, founded in 1919. The idea of ​​​​creating such an organization was raised by American President Woodrow Wilson in his famous fourteen-point program at the Peace Conference of Paris, after a great event at the time – the Great War – which only proved the importance of this difficult issue, but that does not mean that the UN had the right to malfunction. One of the best case studies of false promises of peacekeeping is that of the United Nations Assistance Mission to Rwanda in 1994. This mission was unable to stop the genocide of the two belligerents – Tutsi and Hutu – which resulted in a total of around one million deaths. The UN was supposed to protect civilians from such inhumane actions, but due to lack of protection capacity and unclear resolutions regarding the use of force, this operation failed. The UN denied the mandate to use force and requested reinforcements and other personnel slowly provide personnel when they were most needed. The culprits for the ineffectiveness of the UN lie with both the General Assembly and the Security Council and still remind us, twenty years after this catastrophic massacre, of the imperfection of this IO and its false promises...