The United Nations is a global governance institution founded on October 24, 1951 with the aim of maintaining peace throughout the world by developing friendly relations between nations and work with Member States to help people "live better lives" by eliminating poverty, disease and illiteracy around the world and encouraging respect for each other's rights and freedoms. The UN was established to reflect the power structures that emerged from World War II, so the permanent members of the security council are the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, France and China. Each of these nations has veto power over Security Council decisions, and in recent years this has significantly reduced the UN's power to achieve its goals. One of the main objectives of the United Nations is the maintenance of international peace and security in accordance with the United Nations Charter, and this is primarily the province of the Security Council. Therefore, the UN's ability to successfully achieve this goal has been largely overshadowed by members of the Big Five who have applied the veto power in accordance with their national interests. When these members of the Big 5 use their veto power in such a way as to undermine the power of the United Nations to maintain international peace and security because the United Nations cannot act on issues that it should be called upon to resolve. An example of this is the civil war in Syria. Since Russia, one of the members of the Big 5, is a close ally of the Assad regime and its only naval base in the Mediterranean is located in Syria, it has used its veto power to block any UN involvement in Syria. This is regardless of the fact that the civil war poses a threat to international peace and security, for example becoming a breeding ground for terrorist groups... middle of paper... North and South Sudan still disagree on separation and the south's independence from the north in 2011 and Israel and Palestine have seen low levels of fighting since 1967, when Israel absorbed Palestine into its own nation, and the United Nations appears powerless to stop. it has been most successful in achieving goals in areas not associated with international peace and security, such as eradicating polio in Africa or aiding disaster-stricken nations. This is because the UN has been able to work in response to these problems through means such as the General Assembly, which is less influenced by the national interests of the big five nations. This allowed the UN to bypass the veto power of these nations which limited UN interventions in response to threats to international peace and security, as seen in Crimea or Syria..