Effectiveness of Legal and Non Legal Measures in World Order

Evaluate the effectiveness of legal and non-legal measures in resolving conflict and working towards word world order. Introduction
World order are the activities and relationship between the world states, and other significant non-state global actors, that occur within a legal, political and economic frame work. The need for world order has arisen due to the past historical conflicts, colonialism, greater interdependence between nations, and the increased impact of the activities of nation states upon other nation states. Legal measures such as the UN, as well as non-legal measures such as the media and Non-governmental organisations, show a mixed effectiveness in response to resolving conflict and working towards world order.

Legal Response
Multilateral Treaties
Furthermore, another legal measure which shows the effectiveness in maintaining world order are Multilateral treaties. These treaties are an international agreement involving three or more parties. The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was signed in 1968 in Washington, London, Moscow and came into force in 1970 when it was ratified by a sufficient number of nations. The treaty aimed to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world. A deal was made, saying that countries lacking nuclear weapons promised not to develop them if the five nations that did possess them at the time (USA, Russia, China, Britain and France) agreed to gradually reduce the number of weapons that they held. The members of this treaty optimistically agreed, furthering this by adopting another treaty called the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which would eliminate nuclear weapons, support nuclear free zones and give security assurance to all nations. However, despite five weeks of negotiations, nothing was achieved an no final document was produced. Unless the leaders of the world’s major powers show more political and moral commitments to the cause of nuclear disarmament, the NPT will collapse and possibly lead to an increase in nuclear proliferation and the disruption of world order.

UNSC
The UN Security Council illustrates the effectiveness of legal responses to provoke action against issues in world order. Under the UN Charter, the Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security and is argued to have power to intervene in the most serious issues which disrupt world order. At the end of the 1990-91 Gulf War, the Security Council passed Resolution 687, which set out the terms that Iraq’s leader Suddam Hussein was to comply with. The resolution required the destruction of all chemical and biological weapons, and ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres and required Iraq to submit to a rigorous UN inspection system. Inspections were conducted by United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and later the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) throughout the 1990s to the US-led invasion 2003. The UNSC has proved to be an effective legal response to monitoring conflict and maintaining world order as no ‘weapons of mass destruction’ were found after the American invasion in 2003. However the UNSC has also shown to be ineffective in some cases. In 1993 North Korea was referred to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for violating its safeguards.

The following year North Korea and the United States signed an ‘Agreed Framework between the United States of America and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’. This framework was a non-binding political commitment, noted by the UNSC, under which North Korea agreed, among other things, not to manufacture nuclear weapons and to remain a party to the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). After further pressure from the Security Council in 2007, North Korea agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons program. However this has still not been achieved, highlighting the ineffectiveness of the UNSC in this particular issue in maintaining world order. Non legal Response

NGO
NGO’s have proved to be a highly effective non-legal measure in resolving conflict and working towards world order. These are associations based on common interests and goals, which has no connection with any government. Certain NGOs such as the International Crisis Group (ICG) specialise in world order issues by investigating, researching and educating policy makers and the public, and lobbying leaders to take action. The ICG was founded by retired international leaders in response to the failure of the international community to anticipate and respond effectively to the genocide that occurred in Rwanda.

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is another NGO that has shown the effectiveness of working towards world order. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is a British NGO that aims to rid the world of nuclear weapons using non-violent means. The CND advocates immediate negotiation that will lead to a rapid, timetabled abolition of nuclear forces worldwide. Like other NGOs, it attempts to stimulate widespread public debate about the global threat of nuclear weapons through participation in UN conferences on disarmament.

Media
The media plays a crucial non-legal role in the maintenance of world order. Traditional forms of media and the emergence of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has facilitated society with information on issues on world order, provoking them to take action against these issues. International terrorism has become heavily globalised with many forms of media exploiting their cruel acts. Consequent widespread condemnation from the global community surfaced from the influence of media. However, conversely media can also have negative ramifications on world order as tends to focus on the drama or violence of situations without researching the issues in depth. Although the media informs society about terrorism around the world, the media coverage can make people stereotype certain ethnic backgrounds. Mick Keelty in ‘The Age’ wrote in an article “IF WE are not careful, we risk raising a generation of Australians who will have a bias against Islam.” The media has also been known to be a strategy for terrorist groups to gain attention, in order to become well known to the public.

Conclusion
Through the exploration of the legal measure UNSC and its response to Iraq and North Korea in Nuclear Disarmament, It is apparent that effectiveness of legal measures in resolving conflict and working towards world order varies from case to case. Similarly Non legal responses such as media and NGOs also show a mixed response of effectiveness in resolving conflicts and maintaining world order.