United Nations Security Council, Free Essay Example

UNSC is among the six principal branches of the UN. This organ is made up of 15-member countries whereby five are permanent members while the others are non-permanent members elected on two-year terms by the general assembly. The five permanent members are the United States of America, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, France, and China. The core responsibility of this organ is spelled out under the United Nations Charter which is the maintenance of international peace and security. Consequently, UNSC has the responsibility to be involved in any event that seems to threaten world peace and stability.

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An event that has prompted UNSC involvement is the Iranian nuclear programs. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), aims at preventing the spread and development of nuclear weapons to promote peaceful co-existence globally. NPT only allows the peaceful use of nuclear energy and countries should prove that they are not exploiting the technology in making weapons. Iran has failed to abide by the NPT provisions as in 2006; the nation was unable to present evidence of using nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. As a result, UNSC stated that Iran had undeclared nuclear materials issuing them a month to suspend all enrichment-related and recycling activities.

Iran failed to heed to these demands stating that NPT rewarded those who never subscribed to these laws with generous nuclear cooperation. Subsequently, in December 2006 the council-imposed sanction on Iran blocking its trading on sensitive nuclear materials. Equally, proponents of nuclear activities in Iran had all their financial assets frozen (Tabrizi & Santini, 2012). The sanctions further extended to include a full ban on Iran's export of weapon and banning traveling of people they considered involved in the nuclear program. In 2010 Iran was prohibited from the acquisition of weapons such as attack helicopters and even full inspection of cargo moving in and out of the country. However, some of the sanctions have since been removed though there is a monitoring system for Iran's nuclear.

How Shipping Containers Pose Security Risk

Since the 911 event, the awareness on acts of terrorism has increased not only in the air industry but other fields as well. The sea industry transportation sector has been considered vulnerable to attacks equivalent to those of September the 11th especially the maritime container movement section. In approximation, about 90% of all global goods are moved by containers on ships amounting to a total of 250 million moves annually. According to a safety report, sea containers pose a considerable security threat to the well being of the society and the global economy (Murphy, 2013). The reports assert that there is a possibility that terrorists could use containers for transportation of weapons and other hazardous material or use these same containers as weakens of mass destruction. What is worse is that attempts to counter terrorism by controlling the movement of vessels will impact on the global economy through hindering free trade.

A similar report by Power (2011) identifies one challenge that makes container transportation by sea a security risk. Without a doubt, a container will change hands several times from its original destination. In this process, there is a possibility that one of the parties can tamper with the original content of the containers. Even though the transporters, carriers of forwarders are liable for the content of a vessel, such information is dependent on the bill of lading which can be falsified easily. On the same note, Power further states that it is difficult to locate the whereabouts of a container once it is in the sea making is easy to corrupt its contents at any point.

Most Recent Disaster and Its Effect on Critical Infrastructure

Birregah, Muller, and Chatelet (2011) mention earthquakes and tsunami to be the disasters that cause a lot of harm to infrastructure than any other natural event. In the light of this assertion, a most recent natural disaster that had significant devastation is the 2009 Samoa earthquake and Tsunami. On Tuesday, September, 29 an earthquake of 8.0 magnitude on the Richter scale hit the coastal villages and towns in American Samoa and the Tonga island Kingdoms. The quake resulted in extreme damages and many deaths. Still, in the confusion of this earthquake, there was an impending tsunami, and the notice issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not reach American Samoa in time. The people never evacuated in time, and another tragedy hit the Pago Pago harbor and the villages of Leone.

On record, the death toll from the event reached about 160 with several undocumented deaths (Roeber, Yamazaki, & Cheung, 2010). Most o the deaths were reported in Samoa, American Samoa, and Tonga. Regarding infrastructure, the damages include the destruction of telephone lines making it hard to access casualties and the destructions brought by the two events. Over 200 homes and businesses were also destroyed in this event. The tsunami waves flattened the coastal towns. A national park service facility was washed away and cars as well. A large ship was brought from the sea and deposited at the edge of a coastal highway. In total, the loss amounted to several million dollars.

References

Birregah, B., Muller, A., & Chatelet, E. (2011). Interdependency-based Approach of Complex Events in Critical Infrastructure under Crisis: A First Step toward a Global Framework. In Taylor, & Francis, Advances in Safety, Reliability and Risk Management (pp. 149-155). London: CRC Press.

Murphy, M. N. (2013). Contemporary piracy and maritime terrorism: the threat to international security. Routledge.

Power, J. (2008). Maritime terrorism: a new challenge for national and international security. Barry L. Rev. 10, 111.

Roeber, V., Yamazaki, Y., & Cheung, K. F. (2010). Resonance and impact of the 2009 Samoa tsunami around Tutuila, American Samoa. Geophysical Research Letters, 37(21).

Tabrizi, A., & Santini, R. (2012). EU sanctions against Iran: New wine in old bottles? ISPI analysis, (97), 2.