What should the role of the United Nations (UN) be? Discuss.

The United Nations (UN) begin on October 24, 1945; in San Francisco United States signed the contract of “charter of the United Nations” to marks the United Nations was established. United Nations are now headquartered in New York United States. The United Nations is committed to promote the countries in the international law, international security, economic development and social progress, human rights and realize the cooperation between the world peaces.

Maintain International Peace and Security

Tang Cheah Ying

Image 1: An Indian UNIFIL peacekeeper watches over the "Blue Line", which demarcates the border between Israel and Lebanon, from the town of Shab'a, Lebanon, in 2012.

So, how does the UN maintain international peace and security? The United Nations to unrest in parts of the world sent a total of 69 peacekeeping mission and observer mission, to establish peace. Peacekeeping has proven to be one of the most effective tools; the United Nations helped the host country in a tough road from conflict to peace. Today's multidimensional peacekeeping operation is not only to maintain peace and security, also promote the political process, protect civilians, assist the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former combatants. In addition, they support the constitutional process and the election organization to protect and promote human rights and to help restore the rule of law and the expansion of legal state power. Peacekeeping operation also get the authorization of the United Nations Security Council, their troops and police are contributed by Members States; and they are managed by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and supported by the Department of Field Support at the UN Headquarters in New York. There are 16 UN peacekeeping operations currently deployed and there have been a total of 69 deployed since 1948.

By the way, The United Nations peacekeeping costs, basically sharing by member states, but using different allocation proportion method instead of using regular budget. Peacekeeping costs are collect from the basis regular budget allocation method. This method will divided member states into four groups, group A is composed of the five permanent members state, group B is composed of developed countries, group C is composed of economy underdeveloped countries, group D group is specified the most economically developed countries. According to regulations, group B countries according to the normal budget allocation proportion pay, group C according to its normal state budget allocation proportion 20% pay, group D state the 10% pay according to the regular budget, and the five permanent members in addition to their regular budget according to the proportion of pay, also have to bear the rest part.

Image 2,3 :Soldiers from the Mercian regiment are heading off to Cyprus as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force.

Last but not least, it’s good to mention, since the 1990 s, the United Nations take action to stop a lot of conflict including Sierra Leone, Liberia, Burundi, and Sudan conflict with Nepal. The results showed that, since the 1990 s, the world conflict reduce at least 40%. Preventive diplomacy of the United Nations and other preventive action avoid a lot of war that might occur.

References

Maintain International Peace and Security. United Nation. [ONLINE]  [Accessed 5 May 2016]. Available from: http://www.un.org/en/sections/what-we-do/maintain-international-peace-and-security/index.html

The Role of the United Nations in Maintaining International Peace and Security [ONLINE] [Accessed 5 May 2016]. Available from: https://sites.google.com/site/walidabdulrahim/home/my-studies-in-english/21-the-role-of-the-united-nations-in-maintaining-international-peace-and-security  

September 18, 2014.Soldiers from the Mercian regiment are heading off to Cyprus as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force. [ONLINE] [Accessed 5 May 2016]. Available from: http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2014/09/18/mercians-head-to-cyprus-in-un-peacekeeping-force/

Promote sustainable development

Ong Beng Fung

The roles of United Nations supposed to be is promote the sustainable development on global. Sustainable development is the international community’s most urgent priority, and the core aim of the 2030 Development Agenda for sustainable development. ECOSOC operates at the centre of the UN system’s work on all three pillars of sustainable development which is economic, social and environmental. There are one of the United Nations main priorities is to achieve international co-operation to solve the international problems including social, economic, culture, humanitarian character and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, religion, language and sex. Improving people’s well-being also is the one of the main focuses of United Nations. Although the global was understand the development has changed over the years, but the countries now was already agreed that sustainable development. United Nations should development that promotes prosperity and economic opportunity, protection of the environment and greater social well-being. They should offers the best path forward for improving the lives of people everywhere. Nowadays our global has faced many problems such as the climate change, disaster, women and girls’ discrimination and violence in every part of the world, so United Nations will focus on the issue and solve the problems. For the climate change problems sustainability is an important part of counteracting climate change. UN is supporting efforts to assess the climate science, facilitate negotiations under the UN Framework Convention for a climate agreement, and provide assistance to countries and communities to reduce emissions and to build climate resilience. About the disaster problems, they have the United Nations Office for Disaster Rick Reduction (UNISDR) works with governments and other stakeholders to ensure the reduction of disaster losses in lives and assets of communities and countries. Besides that, while the world has achieved progress towards gender equality under the UN Millennium Development Goals, but a lot of women and girls continue to suffer discrimination and violence in happen in the work place everywhere. So UN Women works to eliminate discrimination against women and girls, empower all women, and achieve equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development.

Uphold International Law

Loo Yi Huan

On 4 Novemver 2009, the Goldstone Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict is scheduled to be tabled before the Plenary of the UN General Assembly in New York. On 21 October 2009, the Report’s endorsement at the Human Rights Council, but now, it is falled to the General Assembly to ensure that the Report is endorsed and its recommendations acted upon. The General Assembly must promote and support the primacy of international law in the necessity of ensuring justice and accountability for the war crimes and other possible crimes against humanity that characterized Israel’s assault on Gaza in December 2008 to January 2009. The Palestinian human rights community fully endorse the Report and urge the General Assembly to adopt each of its recommendations.

The UN Charter has set an objective in its Preamble, which is aim to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained. Ever since, the development of international law, and respect for international law has been a key part of the work of the organization. This work can be carried in several ways, such as by courts, by tribunals, by multilateral treaties, and also by Security Council. When there is a threat to international security and peace, this work can also approve peacekeeping mission, authorize the use of force, impose sanctions, if it deems this necessary. These powers are given to it by the UN Charter, which is considered an international treaty. In addition, it is an instrument of international law, and the UN Member States are bound by it. The UN Charter has codified the major principles of international relations, from States' sovereign equality to the prohibition of the use of force in international relations.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. Its seat is at the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands. This main body of the UN settles legal disputes submitted to it by States in accordance with international law. As such, it also gives advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it from authorized UN organs and specialized agencies. The Court is composed of 15 judges, who are elected for terms of 9 years by the General Assembly and the Security Council. 

References

United Nations. (n.d.). Uphold International Law. [ONLINE] avaliable at: http://www.un.org/en/sections/what-we-do/uphold-international-law/index.html Accessed 4 May 2016.

Joint Press Release. (2009). The Goldstone Report at the UN General Assembly: States Must Uphold International Law to Ensure Accountability for the Victims of War Crimes in Gaza. [ONLINE] available at: http://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/targets/united-nations/265-the-goldstone-report-at-the-un-general-assembly-states-must-uphold-international-law-to-ensure-accountability-for-the-victims-of-war-crimes-in-gaza- Accessed 4 May 2016

UN Chronicle. (2012). Upholding the Rule of Law at the International Level: The Role of the International Court of Justice. [ONLINE] avaliable at: http://unchronicle.un.org/article/upholding-rule-law-international-level-role-international-court-justice/ Accessed 4 May 2016

Deliver Humanitarian Aid

Kang Sing Yee

The United Nations Organisation (UNO) is the global international organisation of sovereign independent states. The UNO was designed to save the future generations from the scourage of war by promoting International peace and security.

What the role of United Nations be? It’s to maintain international peace and security has been the prime responsibility of the UN. During about 64 years of its existence, it has done a valuable work in this direction. It has done a fairly good amount of work in the settlement of several controversies, which could have posed serious threats to the world peace. Along with it, the UN has contributed greatly in the field of decolonization, human rights, disarmament and also delivers humanitarian aid. There are four UN entities which have primary roles in the delivery of relief assistance are the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP)

Furthermore, I will provide with few examples of UN entities. The first role of UNHCR is to helping refugees. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) emerged in the wake of World War II to help Europeans displaced by that conflict. The agency leads and co-ordinates international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Next, for the role of UNICEF is to helping children. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has strived to reach as many children as possible with effective, low-cost solutions to counter the biggest threats to their survival. UNICEF also consistently urges governments and warring parties to act more effectively to protect children. Besides, the role of WFP is feeding the hungry which is provides relief to millions of people, who are victims of disasters. It is responsible for mobilizing food and funds for transport for all large-scale refugee-feeding operations managed by UNHCR.

Reference

YourArticleLibrary.com: The Next Generation Library. (2014). United Nations: Objectives and Roles of United Nations. [online] Available at: http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/uno/united-nations-objectives-and-roles-of-united-nations/40332/ [Accessed 4 May 2016].

Un.org. (2016). Deliver Humanitarian Aid | United Nations. [online] Available at: http://www.un.org/en/sections/what-we-do/deliver-humanitarian-aid/index.html [Accessed 4 May 2016].

Protect Human Rights

Goh Fang Yi

Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status.  Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more.  Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.

Promoting respect for human rights is a core purpose of the United Nations and defines its identity as an organization for people around the world. The United Nations works actively to define, monitor and assist Member States with the implementation of international human rights standards.  The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has lead responsibility for the promotion and protection of human rights, and for implementing the human rights program within the UN.

Besides, the UN Security Council, , which has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, also deals with grave human rights violations, such as the use of child soldiers  and the use of rape as a weapon of war. In addition, The Human Rights Council play the role as strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe by addressing situations of human rights violations and making recommendations on them, including responding to human rights emergencies. Furthermore, “Special Procedures” of UN are examine, monitor, advise on human rights situations in specific countries or areas, such as child prostitution, safe water, torture, educations, and so on.

For example, Sexual violence is a hallmark of the conflict in Eastern Congo. Astonishingly though, many of the sexual violence victims are now seeking medical care and some are going further and pursuing justice through the courts. The Medical director at Walungu hospital Dr Jean Mukingeka says increasingly women and girls are seeking medical help. “Not all women victims of sexual violence seek help, out of shame or fear of stigmatization. But we are seeing more women come to seek treatment.” “Violence against women is a weapon of war in armed conflict,” says UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay. “We work to combat sexual violence and to bring perpetrators to account.

References

Un.org. (2016). Protect Human Rights | United Nations. [online] Available at: http://www.un.org/en/sections/what-we-do/protect-human-rights/index.html  [Accessed 4 May 2016]

The current tax system is unfair to the middle class and lower income groups. Do you agree?

Tang Cheah Ying (Eva)

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) implemented in Malaysia since April 1st has already taken its toll on many Malaysian citizens especially those belonging to the lower and middle income class. According to the research by MOHD RIZAL PALIL, the consumers are worrying of the significant price increases on basic needs when the GST has fully implemented. With the relatively high living costs particularly in main big cities like Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Johor Bahru, significant price increases due to GST is considered as another burden for middle income earners. 

What is GST? GST is the tax charged by government for the taxable items and service, including all imported goods and services. Besides that, the entire registered manufacturers are going to assistance government to impose GST from consumers. Compared with the existing business tax and service tax, GST is a broader concept, it will also charged for production and service-oriented business line together at the same time. It will make our country’s tax policy unification, and reform the government tax. For Malaysia, GST is going to replace existing business tax and service tax (SST). A lot of people are actually lack of cognition to GST. I’m also being one of them. Therefore, the consumers worried about will the prices of all service and products go higher?  The low income group of people will be more burdens. Our income is actually being bad, so will GST let people life more badly? People might be changes their consume habit because of GST; also indirectly affect the demand of the dealer sales. 

According to the research by MOHD RIZAL PALIL, Goods and Services Tax (GST) was in traduced in France in 1950s and has been adopted by more than 120 countries, including all member states of the European Union (EU). Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a percentage tax on value added (the difference between sales and the cost of purchased material inputs) at each stage of production. There are three basic types of value added taxes (VAT) depending on how the investment is treated in the tax base, GDP-type GST, consumption-type GST, and income-type GST.

References:

                          

MOHD RIZAL PALIL, MOHD ADHA IBRAHIM.  THE IMPACTS OF GOODS AND SERVICES TAX (GST) ON MIDDLE INCOME EARNERS IN MALAYSIA. Pp16. Online available at: http://www.wbiconpro.com/213-Rizal.pdf [accessed 3May 2016] 

June 9, 2015. Getting Over the GST in Malaysia. Online available at: http://cmcf.org.my/getting-over-the-gst-in-malaysia/ [accessed 3May 2016]

Loo Yi Huan

I agree that GST is unfair to the middle class and lower income groups, especially the poor families in Malaysia. The poorer households will feel the effects of GST because there would be a higher proportion of their income will be spent on GST.

According to the report of Malaysian Insider, it defined those Malaysian in the high-income bracket would pay more on taxable items, however, they will hardly find the pinch while middle-income or lower-income families would be able to cope. These findings emerged from a survey of 12 families in Klang Valley to gauge the impact of GST.

The survey has stated there are three families who made RM5000 or lower were have to worry about the impact of GST on their ability to make ends meet, despite the fact that they would not to pay that much GST if they bought the same items. In addition, the survey has also emerged there are most of the five families in the middle-income group with the salary between RM5000 to RM12000 per month were also quite worried about but they are still confident that they would be able to get it through.

On the other hand, based on the survey, it has analyzed there are most of the higher income families would purchase the processed food which have been taxed, such as chicken nuggets, potato chips, branded chocolates, fruit juices or yogurts, biscuits and so on so forth. These processed food are made up 40% to 48% of all food which purchased by the high-income families. 

Conversely, lower-income families are also purchase processed food, but they only buy the processed food in lower price, and probably lower quality but which would be taxed as well. Those processed food may be instant noodles, soy sauce, butter, fruit jam, coffee and others. For the low-income families, the process food is comprised 35% to 45% of all food where compare to high-income groups, that is consider low.

Reference

FMT Reporters. (2015). Poor families have little to cheer about GST. [Online] available at: www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2015/03/18/poor-families-have-little-to-cheer-about-gst/

Goh Fang Yi

 

I agree that GST system is unfair to the middle class and lower income groups.

The main issues concerning about the implementation of GST is the costs of the goods will increase which will burden the people in the country. Although the government claim that the implementation of GST will not hurt the businesses and people as the tax paid on the inputs at the previous stage is claimable or deductible, but overall the cost of goods will still increase as the producers-pass the full value added to the end consumers at the final stage. Consequently, there might have inflation effect since the GST is applied to the prices of all goods, at every stages which result in inflation as the general products prices may go up and the hyperinflation might occur from the continuously of inflation.

Under the GST tax, all the goods and services will charges more 6% on the products or services the consumers buy. It seems that 6% of the GST is not too high or too low to the consumers with middle or lower income of consumers in Malaysia, but when the things comes to the end of the month, the 6% of the tax that the consumers received is a large amount. For example, when we buy a RM10 of prepaid card for telecommunication, there is another RM0.60 charges to the prepaid card u have bought. Let say u need to buy 4 times a months for the prepaid card, it already an extra charges that costs u about RM2.40. This is only one of the daily supplies need for a consumer, there are many others of living goods and services that we will purchase in a month.

There might have continuously effect from the products prices go up. The demand of the market might substantially decrease due to the limited purchasing power of households. Many people argue against the GST is that the people would not have the ability to pay for it as the high cost of living cannot be met by their current income needs and GST would unduly burden the low income working group.

References

Esther Ko, 2012. GST Malaysia Disadvantages( Government, Business, Consumers). Available at: http://gstmalaysiaguide.blogspot.my/2014/12/gst-malaysia-disadvantages-government.html.

  [Accessed 3 May 2016]

Ong Beng Fung

I agree that current tax system is unfair to the middle class and lower income group. Because it is big impact to both of this income level groups especially is the low income group. According to a report, 45% of the undergraduates from institutions of higher learning were offered a salary less than RM1500 after graduation. Compared to the national average income of Malaysians, this group would be placed under the category of the lower middle group. There are forty eight percent of Malaysian workers earn less than RM1,000 per month. Thus the impact of GST on the low income earners especially those who had no financial mean and depending on study loans or family finance would incur a higher monthly expenditure. If low income earners could not shoulder the financial burden, they would transfer the load to the family. At present our national domestic debt had reached 87.1% of the national gross domestic product (GDP). A big chunk of the family expenditure was financing loans. Once they could not manage their financial debt, more and more people would chose bankruptcy as the last resort. You can think that the costs of the goods all is increased and their salary just only can afford their living expenses. GST combined with inflation in Malaysia has created a burden for the people of Malaysia who struggle to keep up with the rising cost of utilities, groceries and petrol The low income group would not have the ability to pay for it as the high cost of living cannot be met by their current income needs and GST would unduly burden them. Besides that, according to “FMT news, Joe Fernandez, 2015” the income inequality in Malaysia will also not be able to tolerate the regressiveness of the GST system which burdens the poor proportionately more than the rich,” reiterated Pua.



Kang Sing Yee

The current tax system is unfair to the middle class and lower income groups. Yes! I totally agree with that. The current tax system which is Good and Services Tax (GST) and is a consumption tax imposed on the sale of goods and services. With the relatively high living costs particularly in main big cities like Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Johor Bahru, significant price increases due to GST is considered as another burden for middle income earners and lower income earners as well.

After the implementation of GST, the public will spend less in order to save their money. Let’s talk the categories of restaurant involve with GST towards middle class and lower income groups when they are having meal or dinner in a restaurant. Since the government implement with the 6% GST charge and it is too much and as a result, food prices at restaurants have increased. All the food and drinks sold in a restaurant or to be eaten or drunk at the place they are sold are taxable but also have some restaurant do not involve with GST as well. GST is essentially a tax on consumption, and not production; hence, the tax burden ultimately falls on the consumers.

In conclusion, the implementing GST and to gain the benefits from the system established, the Malaysian government shall look after all the effect of the tax system changes. They shall consider from the bottom up of all the parties involved the implementation of GST since it will involve not only the rich people, but also the low and middle income earners who have been suffering with a high living cost especially in the urban area.

Reference

Ramachandran, S. (2016). What? Six per cent GST on food price and service charge too!. [online] Theantdaily.com. Available at: http://www.theantdaily.com/Main/What-Six-per-cent-GST-on-food-price-and-service-charge-too [Accessed 3 May 2016].

Quora.com. (2016). GST. [online] Available at: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-good-sides-and-the-bad-sides-of-GST-goods-and-services-tax [Accessed 3 May 2016].