https://www.un.

org/sustainabledevelopment/
The goal I am focusing on is the sixteenth one: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions.
The United Nations specifically chose the color blue for that tile as blue tends to represent
freedom and calmness, shown to its association with bodies of water. As the icon for the goal,
there is a bird, a plant, and a hammer. Although there are no details included for people to truly
know what they represent, it is obvious that the bird is a dove, the plant an olive branch, and the
hammer a judicial gavel. Doves and olive branches are typically used to represent peace;
meanwhile, the gavel is used to represent justice and institutions that hold power to create
change. Similarly to all of the goals, the icons included and the colors chosen are used
specifically to create memorable iconography that clearly demonstrates each of the goals. The
use of white in all of them represents how all of these goals are important to accomplish, and
how the goals are not isolated.
https://www.un.org/en/our-work/maintain-international-peace-and-security
One of the first elements that is seen when entering the web page is a van labeled “UN”,
and three soldiers standing with guns. This picture is used to not only evoke emotions for their
cause, which, for this page, is to maintain international peace and security, but it also provides
supporting evidence that the UN is actively doing something to fulfill their goals. A little bit after
describing their central mission, which is, in fact, “the maintenance of international peace and
security”, there are two main headers: “Security Council” and “General Assembly”. Based on
this organization, it is assumed that these are the most important assemblies that try to fulfill the
UN’s central mission. To help readers to understand each of these committees fully, there are
embedded links to what is considered important and even a video explaining the General
Assembly.
To further cement that they are actively pursuing their goals, the UN has a large, bolded
header, “How does the UN maintain international peace and security?”, followed by five smaller,
bolded sections: “Preventive Diplomacy and Meditation”, “Peacekeeping”, “Peacebuilding”,
“Countering Terrorism”, and “Disarmament”. From these headers, it can be assumed that these
are the main ways that the UN upholds their central goal. Under each of these headers, there is a
small summary of what each header means and how it is accomplished. While all of them have
embedded links, once again, to what is seemingly important, the first three are the only headers
that have more information other than the small summary. While the web page explicitly says
that the first header is the most effective way to prevent human suffering and conflicts, the two
headers that follow are also assumed to be some of the most important, effective ways to work
towards international peace and security.
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/statute-of-the-international-court-of-justice
One thing that is interesting is that, throughout the charter, the Statute of the International
Court of Justice emphasizes various articles and sub rules on nationality. From this, it is clear
how the UN wants to represent various different nations within the UN as to form proper
responses to combat worldwide problems and achieve their primary goal. However, I will focus
primarily on Articles 2 and 3, as they, in my opinion, seem to contradict one another. Article 2
says that the Court should be elected regardless of nationality and based on qualifications set in
each respective nation. Yet, in the next article, it says that the court consists of fifteen people, and
two of the members can’t belong to the same nation. While I do understand the reasoning behind
it, as they want as much representation as possible, it does seem to oppose Article 2 insofar as
members of the Court have to be somewhat based on nationality. Another thing that I was
concerned about is that there are only fifteen people who can be part of the Court. This has some
benefits, as it helps discussion to not be spread out and finds the most qualified people for each
position. Nonetheless, something I was wondering was that, could the positions be based on
power? Many countries could have qualified people, but, when it comes to the UN,the primary
members we see are from first-world countries. Other countries, at least in the UN, tend to vote
people in from these countries as it is believed that they have better qualifications. This may be
true, but it unintentionally excludes others that could be very qualified. When reading the charter,
I didn’t see anything regarding power, which makes sense as it is very hard to regulate things
such as power and persuasion. Voting can lean any way based on persuasion the members make
towards their case, in my opinion, unless there is more information that I don’t know, which is
also possible.
https://www.un.org/en/content/common-agenda-report/
Analysis of Structure
The web page begins with a short introduction on the Secretary-General’s report of “Our
Common Agenda”. Under this introduction, there are 5 sections, which begins with bold then
transitions into normal text. The bolding emphasizes the important aspects of the report while
providing a very short summary as compared to the whole report. Afterwards, it summarizes the
12 commitments in an infographic, with each key proposal represented by a title and a small
infographic. Under each proposal, there are bullet points of which include goals that need to be
achieved under each proposal. With the infographic, it is easier for the general public to visualize
all of the proposals without reading the whole report. Afterwards, as well as at the beginning of
the web page, there is a prompt to download the full “Our Common Agenda”, followed by the
sections of the report, each represented by a picture, a short description, and a title. This
summarizes the sections so that, when one reads the full report, it is easy to discern the goals and
topic that each section is dealing with. As a whole, this web page is designed to efficiently
summarize the report for people who may not necessarily want to read the report, but still want
to know the goals and agenda of the UN.
Link to Other Texts
Proposal 2, “Protect our planet”, links to Silent Spring by Rachel Carson as both talk
about protecting the environment and Earth in general. Interestingly enough, the main topic of
Silent Spring, which is about pesticides and chemicals, isn’t mentioned in the UN goal. Instead,
it focuses primarily on climate change, fossil fuels, emissions, and food systems. Yet, the use of
pesticides still negatively affects our environment, and to a great extent, although maybe not to
the same magnitude as it was when Silent Spring was written. While climate change is a very
prominent issue that needs to be addressed, I think that the use of chemicals to take care of the
environment, and chemical use in general, needs to be regulated by the UN. However, I also
acknowledge that this may not be under the jurisdiction of the UN.