United Nations

Today we went to the United Nations Vienna International Center for the majority of the day to speak with employees at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, as well as some interns so we could learn a little more about what it’s like to intern at the UN and the qualifications it takes to get in.

Upon arriving at the UN, I had done some research on the organizations we were going to be talking with and I had a pretty good understanding of what there functions were. It is interesting to note that although the VIC is located within the city limits of Vienna and within the country of Austria, it is not part of Austria. We had to bring passports to get onto the premises because it is international territory. This also means that the VIC has there own police, their own fire department, and they don’t have anything to do with the Vienna or Austria, except for the location of it all. First we had a 45 minute tour some of the buildings and some background information on the UN. The basics of the UN are that there are 193 member states, who are all part of the UN for one reason, to maintain peace. The VIC has 5 sub-organizations located on the premises. Our guide Petra asked us an interesting question; Why would the UN decide to put a headquarters in Vienna if they already had one in Geneva, Switzerland? The reason she told us was that Vienna is the furthest most eastern capital city in Western Europe which meant that it was a prime location for meetings and conferences because it was easily accessible, similar to how our study abroad is called “Vienna: At the Crossroads of Europe.” Effectively, it’s location to the former Iron Curtain is important. The UN needs money to run and function, so each member state pays a percentage of their GDP for the services of the UN, which means that the United States pays 18% of the total UN budget, and the top 5 budget supports account for around 50% of the budget. Last logistical item regarding the UN as a whole is that there are 6 officials languages, English, French, Chinese, Spanish, Arabic and Russian.

After the tour and after lunch we had a lecture from an employee of the IAEA. In 1957, the International Atomic Energy Agency started with the goals of providing safety in the form of preventing accidents, security by preventing malicious acts, and safeguards by promoting non-proliferation. When I though IAEA, I immediately wanted to think straight to the nuclear weapons and not to all the other benefits of atomic energy. For example, X-rays and radiation equipment are forms of atomic energy that benefit people. There is a huge discrepancy in the number of radiation machines per country, in the United States there is 1 radiation machine for every 100,000 people, which means that need this machine can get access, but in Tanzania, there are 3 machines for 40,000,000. So the UN has the task of trying to spread the benefits of these machines. Radiation also proved helpful to Mediterranean Fruit Flies, which were laying larvae in fruit and then the larvae eat the fruit from the inside, but the UN was able to create a fruit fly that could not reproduce so the number of fruit with fruit fly larvae decreased significantly. So although it is easy to jump to conclusions and say atomic energy is bad, it is a important and growing sector of the world. But back to nuclear weapons; in 1970 there was the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which said that the first 5 states that had tested nuclear weaponry were allowed to keep them, but nobody else could gain them. These 5 were the US, Great Britain, Russia, China, and France. The treaty has been successful in creating an atmosphere of peace regarding nuclear armaments but there are still 4 countries with nuclear power that have yet to agree with the treaty, those are North Korea, India, Pakistan, and Israel. The most interesting take away from this lecture for me was the fact that the UNIAEA really doesn’t have the power to do anything like stop a country from creating weaponry or making a country not do something with atomic energy. The UN is not a police force, so they can just offer their help when it comes to safety matters. I want to say that I wish they would be more of a police force but that would create a system that would create corruption at all levels and that would not maintain peace.

One of my questions was regarding the phasing out of nuclear energy in wealthy states. How will the role of the UNIAEA change with the phasing out of nuclear energy? In Belgium, the country voted to phase out nuclear energy by the 2020s, and other countries have similar aspirations. Obviously, there will always be countries that have nuclear energy such as France and the US, but with cities with nuclear reactors that are close in proximity and the recent Japanese disaster, maybe more and more will chose a different path in regards to energy.

Our next lecture was from a man from the UNODC who talked to us about human trafficking in the world and what the UN is doing to ameliorate the situation. He really wanted to emphasize that the human trafficking is EXPLOITATION, whether it is labor or sex or anything, you are taking someone’s life and exploitation them for your benefit. The UN can only do so much, more than anything they aim is to educate people around the world about trafficking. It is kind of sad in my opinion that the UN is not policing something as serious as this, but like I said with the IAEA, it is just not possible. With so many people being trafficked within countries and between countries, the UNODC is faced with an enormous task, and via education, they hope to get people aware and then trafficking would decrease.

My question was about the funding of the organization. If the UNODC wants to put an end to the problem of the trafficking of people and illicit drugs, yet does not receive enough funding to be most effective, what is the organization doing to increase funding? For me, the fact that the organization is mostly educating does not make me feel incredibly great about what they are doing. Obviously there is a fine line between doing good and turning into something corrupt, but there has got to be more that the UNODC can do to stop the trafficking of people.

All in all, the UN was a really cool place, but they do not do what they seemed to do before we went there in my opinion. I will not doubt the good they do for the world, because they are a huge factor in maintaining and promoting peace in the world, but I do think they can do more, it is just a matter of how.