August 26th

Vienna UN

Today we visited the UN in Vienna. Vienna is one of three UN headquarters around the world with the other locations being in New York City, Geneva, and Nairobi. The two main offices that are based in Vienna are the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The IAEA works exclusively to promote the use of safe nuclear energy and is the main authority when nations are seeking to develop nuclear power programs. The administrative body of the UN  was created in 1957 in response to the new nuclear threat that came about during the end of World War II with atom bombs being deployed over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. It was president Eisenhower's address to the UN general assembly in New York City entitled "Atoms for Peace" that helped establish the IAEA statute which outlines the goals of this organization. The three pillars of the  IAEA are 1) Nuclear verification and security 2)Safety 3) Technology transfer. What I found interesting was the duality that nuclear energy represents. After the U.S. dropped the atomic bombs on Japan, the Japanese government swore an oath to never use nuclear weapons on another country after the destruction that was brought upon their land. I asked the lecturer if Japan pursued nuclear power after what had happened to them in World War II. However, Japan does have nuclear power plants which shows how even though they were exposed to the worst of nuclear energy, they are still pursuing it as a vital source of energy in their country today. Our lecture we received dealt primarily with the the mission of the IAEA as well as the new threats that nuclear power presents to the ever changing world. The most major threat being terrorists acquiring nuclear materials and using these as an improvised nuclear explosive device to detonate in a major city. What was very interesting was that the IAEA provides a list of guidelines to countries with nuclear power programs to minimize the detrimental affects to the environment. The lecturer said for the most part however that most countries follow these guidelines and the IAEA carefully monitors this but for the most part doesn't seem to have to constantly be intervening.  The next lecture was made by a member of the UNODC which deals heavily with the crimes of human trafficking. In recent decades, human trafficking has been made a crime against humanity by the UN and in recent decades has become one of the most profitable of crimes. Estimates put the total annual profit of human trafficking at around 31,654,000 million US dollars.  The main reason people are trafficked is that they are promised a better life and in reality they are exploited mercilessly. Sex, forced labor, and organ harvesting are the most common types of exploitation that are bestowed on the victims. Only a handful of these trafficking victims are ever identified. One of the questions that I wanted to ask but was not permitted by time was when the UNODC does catch a human trafficker, are they tried in their own country and then an international court? I was curios to hear about the process when they are actually able to bring one of the traffickers in on charges and what the criminal process is like because it is an international crime yet also the responsibility of that country if they signed the UN bill to prosecute and crack down on human trafficking.