This might be considered analogous to a situation in which the police are unable to intervene to prevent a crime because they find themselves outgunned. The situation is quite different from one in which the police are never called.
The latter, however, has been the situation with respect to the civil war in Yemen. To briefly outline the situation, following the end of British colonial rule, Yemen experienced a civil war which ended with the division of that country into two independent states. A few years ago these countries agreed to reunify under a government of national unity. Most recently this government of national unity broke down, and Yemen was plunged back into civil war. This was an appropriate situation for intervention by the international community to resolve the differences between the warring factions and seed to re-establish peaceful conditions in Yemen. The strategic position of Yemen, controlling the Bab el-Mandib, the sea lane between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, made stability in Yemen of particular concern to the world at large.
Unfortunately, the United Nations has failed entirely to take energetic action in response to the Yemeni civil war. It is not a question of the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of a military intervention; no such intervention was ever proposed or considered. The United Nations failed even to intervene seriously on the diplomatic level, to seek to bring the warring parties to the peace table. This constitutes a striking failure of the United Nations to address its mandate. We do not know whether diplomatic intervention would have been effective, and still less do we know whether military intervention would have been possible or even necessary. In this important instance, the United Nations failed entirely to address the problem.
This failure to respond calls into significant question the ability of the United Nations to fulfill its mandate under current circum...
Effective Actions for Potential & Difficulties by the UN. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 09:52, November 01, 2014, from http://www.collegetermpapers.com/viewpaper/1303751075.html