PSE INGLÊS PARA CONCURSOS E VESTIBULARES

domingo, 4 de janeiro de 2015

CACD – DISCURSIVA 2007 – DIPLOMATA – LÍNGUA INGLESA – WRITING EXAMINATION

www.inglesparaconcursos.blog.br

❑ PROVA DE LÍNGUA INGLESA:

DIPLOMATA-CACD-WRITING EXAMINATION-2007-CESPE/UnB.

❑ ESTRUTURA-PROVA ESCRITA (WRITING EXAMINATION):

1 - TRANSLATION:

Translate into Portuguese the following text adapted from John Cornwell’s, Seminary Boy (New York: Doubleday, 2006):

By late 1944, and after four wartime home removals, I was attending a Catholic primary school run by Irish nuns and spinsters, surrounded by a hostile world of unbelief. One Sunday a V-2 rocket destroyed a nearby Anglican church, killing most of the congregation. The next day Miss Doonan, who taught us so piously to make the sign of the
cross, informed us that these people had been struck down by God because they were Protestants.

The day before we celebrated the end of the war in Europe, I was humming to myself, skipping ahead of the girl who took me to school, when two bull terriers hurtled round the corner and sank their teeth into my plump legs. I spent the morning in a doctor’s surgery being stitched up and painted with iodine. According to the policeman who visited our house on Victory Day, the dogs’ owner claimed that I had made the animals bite me by my singing and dancing.

Resposta (Inglês→português) :

No fim de 1944, após quatro mudanças de residência por causa da guerra, eu frequentava uma escola primária administrada por solteironas e freiras irlandesas, cercada por um mundo hostil de descrença. Num domingo, um foguete V-2 destruiu uma igreja Anglicana que ficava próximo, matando a maior parte da congregação. No dia seguinte, a senhorita Doonan, que nos ensinou tão fervorosamente a fazer o sinal da cruz, informou-nos que aquelas pessoas haviam sido golpeadas por Deus porque eram protestantes.

Um dia antes de celebrarmos o fim da Guerra na Europa, eu estava cantando bem baixinho, pulando à frente da garota que me levava para a escola, quando dois cachorros da raça bull terrier pularam de trás da esquina e cravaram os dentes na minha perna roliça. Eu passei a manhã em um consultório médico levando pontos e pinceladas de iodo. De acordo com o policial que visitou nossa casa no Dia da Vitória, o dono dos cães afirmou que eu havia provocado a mordida dos animais com a minha dança e a minha música.

Translate into English the following text adapted from Wilson Martins’ A Palavra Escrita (São Paulo: Editora Ática, 1996):

Não havia razão para que os gregos amassem e, por conseqüência, guardassem os seus próprios livros: Sócrates, como tantos outros, nada escreveu. Desprezando profundamente os “bárbaros”, não havia igualmente razão para que amassem e, por conseqüência, procurassem guardar os livros estrangeiros. Assim, o povo letrado por excelência da Antiguidade, a pátria das letras e das artes, não possuía bibliotecas.

Para completar o paradoxo, é um povo militar e guerreiro, comerciante e prático, imediatista e político, que só admitia a palavra — escrita ou oral — como instrumento da ação, que vai, no mundo ocidental, possuir as melhores bibliotecas e, em particular, as primeiras bibliotecas públicas. Nisto, aliás, neste último traço, está gravado o caráter de um povo, voltado para a conquista do mundo e capaz de imediatamente perceber a utilidade de todas as armas: com os romanos, o livro passa da categoria sagrada para a categoria profana, deixa de ser intocável para ser condutor, e, posto ao alcance de todos, é o veículo por excelência das idéias, dos projetos e dos empreendimentos.

Resposta (Português→Inglês) :

]There was no reason for the Greeks to love and therefore keep their own books. Socrates, like so many others, wrote nothing. Deeply despising “barbarians”, there was neither reason for them to love and therefore preserve foreign books. Thus, the most remarkably literate people of the Ancient World had no libraries.

In order to render the paradox complete, the best libraries and particularly the first public libraries, in the Western World, will belong to a military and bellicose, trading and practical, immediatistic and political people, who only allowed for words – written or spoken – as instruments for action. Indeed, this last trait summarizes the character of a people driven
for world conquest and capable of instantly perceiving the utility of all weapons: with the Romans, book leave the sacred sphere to enter the profane one, shed their aura of aloofness to become means, and, available to everyone, turn into the privileged vehicle of ideas, projects and entreprises.

03. (CESPE-2007-MRE-DIPLOMATA-DISCURSIVA)

Read the following text adapted from Empires with Expiration Dates by Niall Ferguson in FOREIGN POLICY, nr. 156 (Sept./Oct. 2006), and complete the exercises at the end.

Empires, more than nation-states, are the principal actors on the stage of world history. Much of history consists of the deeds of the few score empires that once ruled alien peoples across large tracts of the globe. Yet the lifespan of empires has tended to decline. Compared with their predecessors, the empires of the last century were singularly shortlived. Reduced imperial life expectancy has profound implications for our own time.

Officially, there are no empires now, only 190-plus nation-states. Yet the ghosts of empires past continue to stalk the Earth. Regional conflicts are easily — nay, often glibly — explained in terms of imperial sins of yore: an arbitrary border here, a strategy of divide-and-rule there.

Moreover, many of today's most important states are still recognizably the progeny of empires. Imperial inheritance is apparent from the Russian Federation to Great Britain, Italy and Germany. India is the heir of the Mughal Empire and the British Raj, China the direct descendant of the Middle Kingdom. In the Americas, the imperial legacy is patent from Canada to Argentina.

Today's world, in short, is as much one of ex-empires and former colonies as it is of nation-states. Even institutions designed to reorder the world after 1945 have a distinctly imperial bent. For what ______ are the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council if not a cozy ______ of empires past? And what, pray, is "humanitarian intervention" if not a more politically correct-sounding version of the western empires' old "civilizing mission"?

Empires’ life cycles and geographic reach are remarkably irregular. Whereas the average Roman empire lasted over 800 years, equivalents elsewhere before the modern age survived no more than half that time. The empires forged in the 20th century, by contrast, were comparatively short. Why did they prove so ephemeral? The answer lies partly in the unprecedented degrees of centralized power, economic control, and social homogeneity to which the Communists in Russia and China, the Fascists in Germany and Italy and the expansionist Japanese aspired. They were not content with the haphazard administrative arrangements that had characterized the old empires. Though they inherited from the 19th century nation-builders an insatiable appetite for uniformity, these new "empire states" repudiated religious and legal constraints on the use of force. They relished sweeping away old political institutions and existing social structures. Above all, they made a virtue of ruthlessness.

The empire states of the mid-20th century were to a considerable extent the architects of their own demise. In particular, the Germans and Japaneses imposed their authority on other peoples with such unbridled ferocity that they undermined local collaboration thus laying the foundations for indigenous resistance. At the same time, their territorial ambitions were so boundless that they swiftly conjured into being an unassailable coalition of imperial rivals in the form of the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and the United States.

Empires do not survive for long if they cannot establish and sustain local consent and if they allow more powerful coalitions of rival empires to unite against them. The crucial question is whether or not today's global powers behave differently from their imperial forebears.

Publicly, the leaders of the American and Chinese republics deny entertaining imperial designs. Both states are the product of revolutions and have entrenched anti-imperialist traditions. Yet the mask does slip on occasions. In 2004 a senior presidential advisor confided to a journalist: "We're an empire now and when we act, we create our own reality." Similar thoughts may cross the minds of China's leaders. In any case, it is perfectly possible for a republic to behave like an empire in practice, while remaining in denial about its loss of republican virtue.

A historical pattern of U.S. imperial intervention underpins the widespread assumption that the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq will not long outlast President Bush's term in office. Empire — especially unstated empire — is ephemeral in a way that sets our own age quite apart. In the American case, however, the real snag is not the alienation of conquered peoples or threats posed by rival empires (the prime solvents of other 20th-century empires) but domestic constraints. These take three distinct forms.

The first can be classified as a troop deficit. The United States prefers to maintain a relatively small proportion of its population in the armed forces, at 0.5 percent. Moreover, only a small and highly trained part of this military is available for combat duties overseas. Members of this elite are not to be readily sacrificed. Nor are they easy to replace.

The second constraint on America's tacit empire is the burgeoning budget deficit. The costs of the war in Iraq have substantially exceeded the administration’s forecast: $290 billion since the invasion in 2003.

Finally, there is the attention deficit. Past empires were not sorely taxed to sustain public support for protracted conflicts. The American public, by contrast, tires quickly. It has taken less than 18 months for a majority of American voters to start viewing the invasion of Iraq as a mistake.

An empire will thrive and endure so long as the benefits of exerting power over foreign peoples outstrip the costs of doing so in the eyes of the
imperialists; and so long as the benefits of knuckling under a foreign yoke exceed the costs of resistance in the eyes of the subjects. Such calculations implicitly take stock of the potential costs of relinquishing power to a rival empire.

For the time being, the costs of empire building look too high to most Americans while the benefits seem at best nebulous. Moreover, a rival equipped or willing to do the job is clearly wanting. With its republican institutions battered but still intact, the United States hardly passes muster as a latter-day Rome.

All that may change, however. In a world where natural resources are destined to become scarcer, the old mainsprings of imperial rivalry resist. Empire today is both unstated and unsung. History suggests, though, that the calculus of power could well swing back in its favor tomorrow.

04. (CESPE-2007-MRE-DIPLOMATA-DISCURSIVA)

Summarize the text, in your own words, in up to 200 words:

Resposta - RESUMO

Modelo 1 (Resumo):

Despite the historical importance of empires, modern history has seen a marked decline in their lifespan. Today, nearly 200 nation-states exist and, officially, there are no empires.

Notwithstanding, the impact of empires on the modern world is pervasive. Many countries are the result of imperial actions of the past, as are many of today’s conflicts. Even international organizations appear to be influenced by the offspring of empires.

The short-lived empires of the 20th Century were greatly responsible for their own downfall: their ruthlessness bred resistance and their expansionism contributed to the creation of opposing coalitions. Empires cannot overcome lack of local consent and powerful opponents.

The leaders of today’s powers, such as China and America, deny having imperial intentions, thus the question of whether they behave differently when compared to their predecessors gains importance. In the American case, among several factors, one appears to make a significant difference: the lack of popular support for long wars.

Empires exist only while imperialists and their subjects believe there is a benefit. The American people’s lack of support for long conflicts seems to prevent imperial designs. Notwithstanding, the increasing scarcity of resources could change that picture, and empires could stage a comeback.

05. (CESPE-2007-MRE-DIPLOMATA-DISCURSIVA)

Fill in each of the two gaps in paragraph four of the text above with an appropriate word or phrase:

"For what ____ are the five permanent members of the U.N.
Security Council if not a cozy ____ of empires past?"

Resposta

"For what truly are the five permanent members of the U.N.
Security Council if not a cozy gathering of empires past?"

06. (CESPE-2007-MRE-DIPLOMATA-DISCURSIVA)

Choose the most appropriate substitute in context for the words underlined in paragraph twelve:

(I) taxed:

"Past empires were not sorely taxed to sustain public support for protracted conflicts."

1) drained
2) compelled
3) levied
4) hurt
5) pressed

Resposta I (5) pressed

"Past empires were not sorely taxed to sustain public support for protracted conflicts."

(Os impérios passados não foram gravemente tributados para sustentar o apoio público a conflitos prolongados.)

(II) protracted:

"Past empires were not sorely taxed to sustain public support for protracted conflicts."

1) dreadful
2) damaging
3) drawn out
4) costly
5) withering

👉 Resposta II (3) drawn out

"Past empires were not sorely taxed to sustain public support for protracted conflicts."
(Os impérios passados não foram gravemente tributados para sustentar o apoio público a conflitos prolongados.)

07. (CESPE-2007-MRE-DIPLOMATA-DISCURSIVA)

Re-write the following sentence from the antepenultimate paragraph of the text starting as indicated below:

"An empire will thrive and endure so long as the benefits of exerting power over foreign peoples outstrip the costs of doing so in the eyes of the imperialists."

Only when the benefits ________________________.

Resposta

Only when the benefits of the exercise of power over alien civilizations outweigh their price in the eyes of the conquerors, will an empire grow or survive.

Write a composition on the following quotation from Albert Einstein:

“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

(Length: 350-450 words)

Redação em Inglês :

Modelo 01 (com 05 prágrafos- Média de 80 palavras / parágrafo):

When Marx stated that revolutions were the locomotives of history, he probably envisaged the technical and scientific revolutions that would alter the course of human actions and thought. What he could not foresee, however, was the boundless destructive capacity of the atom bomb. While developments in nuclear technology have permitted many countries to expand an otherwise deficient energy base, the world continues to fear the prospect of a nuclear war. The end of the Cold War may have somewhat dissipated that fear, but the bellicose tendencies of political leaders are a constant source of preoccupation.

Many argue today that scientific experiments with nuclear fission have produced more good than evil. Principal in what pertains to the former is the enlarged capacity which some countries now have to produce energy. With nuclear power, it is possible to provide electricity to more people at a lower cost, especially given the rising prices of fossil fuels used in thermal plants. The environmental effects, though ultimately ambiguous, are visually pleasing: less smoke and a reduction of coal mining in what have once again become pleasant rural landscapes.

Some of these arguments, however, are difficult to sustain. On the one hand, while the European countryside seems to be regaining its idyllic wilderness, much of the nuclear waste produced is being exported to poorer countries, which have found a new, though immensely risky, source of income. On the other hand, it has not been clearly shown by world leaders that the benefits of nuclear energy outweigh the dangers of stockpiling and testing nuclear warheads. One is led to question whether nuclear experiments should be banned altogether.

The problem lies in the repeated demonstrations of irresponsible behavior by Western and non-Western leaders alike. Some countries, such as North Korea and Iran, have been deemed “rogue states” for their disregard of international norms regulating nuclear experiments. Western leaders, however, also defy societal beliefs and needs, as they undermine world peace by maintaining arsenals and, at least until the 1990s, conducting explosions. This attitude seems to reflect an unchanging militaristic mindset within most governments and, possibly, a significant portion of voters.

CACD – DISCURSIVA 2008 – DIPLOMATA – LÍNGUA INGLESA –WRITING EXAMINATION

www.inglesparaconcursos.blog.br

❑ PROVA DE LÍNGUA INGLESA:

DIPLOMATA-CACD-WRITING EXAMINATION-2008-CESPE/UnB.

❑ ESTRUTURA-PROVA ESCRITA:

(1) TRANSLATION | 20 pontos |
(2) VERSION | 15 pontos |
(3) SUMMARY | 15 pontos |
(4) COMPOSITION | 50 pontos |

1 - TRANSLATION:

Translate into Portuguese the following excerpt from James Baldwin’s “Notes of a native son” (1955) [in: The United States in Literature. Glenview: Scott, Foresman & Co., 1976, p. M 132.]:

I was born in Harlem thirty-one years ago. I began plotting novels at about the time I learned to read. The story of my childhood is the usual bleak fantasy, and we can dismiss it with the restrained observation that I certainly would not consider living it again. In those days my mother was given to the exasperating and mysterious habit of having babies. As they were born, I took them over with one hand and held a book with the other. The children probably suffered, though they have since been kind enough to deny it, and in this way I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and A Tale of two Cities over and over and over again; in this way, in fact, I read just about everything I could get my hands on — except the Bible, probably because it was the only book I was encouraged to read. I must also confess that I wrote — a great deal — and my first professional triumph occurred at the age of twelve or thereabouts.

Resposta :

Eu nasci no Harlem há trinta e um anos. Comecei a idealizar romances tão logo aprendi a escrever. A história de minha infância é uma fantasia monótona e normal, e podemos descartá-la mediante a observação contida de que, certamente, eu não consideraria a possibilidade de revivê-la. Naquele tempo, minha mãe dedicava-se ao hábito irritante e misterioso de ter bebês. À medida que eles nasciam, eu os segurava com uma das mãos e, com a outra, segurava um livro. As crianças provavelmente sofriam, embora, desde aquela época, elas tenham sido gentis o bastante em negar essa situação. Assim, eu lia “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” e “A Tale of two Cities” seguidas vezes. Na verdade, eu lia quase tudo que chegava às minhas mãos, com exceção da Bíblia; provavelmente, devido ao fato de que era o único livro que me encorajavam a ler. Devo confessar, também, que eu escrevia muito e que meu primeiro triunfo profissional ocorreu quando eu tinha doze anos, ou por volta dos doze anos.

Translate into English the following excerpt adapted from Mário Henrique Simonsen’s Brasil 2002 (5ª ed. Rio de Janeiro: APEC, 1974, p. 11):

A ideia de prever a evolução econômica dos povos segundo modelos rígidos de determinismo histórico sempre seduziu os cientistas sociais. O futurólogo é uma espécie de cartomante recheado de álgebra, e que procura satisfazer uma das maiores angústias da humanidade, o pré-conhecimento do futuro. Além disso, o conteúdo de suas formulações parece, pelo menos para os leigos, bem mais fundamentado cientificamente do que a simples leitura de um baralho. Fora o aspecto psicológico, há a questão estética. Os modelos que prevêem o futuro da humanidade segundo uma trajetória imutável, inabalável por hipóteses acessórias, possuem uma grandiosidade apocalíptica, inacessível àquelas construções prosaicas repletas de condicionais e condicionantes. Não surpreende, por isso, que os economistas tantas vezes se tenham aventurado
no desenvolvimento desses modelos que, com o mínimo de hipóteses, apresentam o máximo de previsões.

A aplicação do determinismo histórico às ciências sociais envolve dois problemas: um filosófico, que consiste em questionar a validade da tese; outro, bem mais prático, que é o de saber se temos o direito de afirmar que descobrimos as leis desse determinismo.

Resposta :

The idea of foreseeing the economic evolution of peoples according to rigid models of historical determinism has always seduced social scientists. The forecaster is some sort of fortune-teller filled with algebra, and who seeks to satisfy one of the greatest anguish of mankind, the prior knowledge of the future. Besides, the content of his predictions seems, at least to the laymen, scientifically much better based than the mere reading of a deck of cards. Apart from the psychological aspect, there is the issue of aesthetics. The models which foresee the future of mankind according to an unchangeable trajectory, unshakeable by accessory hypotheses, possess an apocalyptical grandiosity, not accessible to those prosaic constructs filled with conditions and variables. It comes as no surprise then that economists have time and again dared to develop these models, which with fewer hypotheses present most predictions.

The use of historical determinism in social sciences encompasses two problems: a philosophical one, which consists of questioning the validity of the thesis, and another one, more practical, of knowing whether we have the right to assert that we have found the laws of this determinism.

“Nationalism – Internationalism. These abstract words, so often abused, so often misunderstood, cover high ideals and strong emotions, reflect modes of thought and action that shape our world. We often see the word ‘nationalism’ used in a derogatory sense. The same is true of the word ‘internationalism’. When nationalism connotes, for example, a ‘go-it-alone’ isolationism, and internationalism an outlook that belittles the significance of national life and of nations as centres of political action and spiritual tradition, the words become contradictory and the attitudes they describe irreconcilable. From such interpretations of the words comes the tendency to think of nationalism as in fundamental conflict with an internationalist attitude.”

Discuss the above statement, adapted from an address by then United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld at Stanford University in 1955, in the light of current international political events.

(Length: 350-450 words)

Resposta :
Modelo 01(com 04 parágrafos- Média de 80 palavras / parágrafo):

Nationalism and internationalism may seem a contradiction in terms. As former Secretary-General Dag Hammarsjköld highlighted, nationalism appears to be the tendency to act single-handedly, without taking into account other countries' opinions or thoughts. As for internationalism, most people think of it as downplaying the importance of states in the international community. Reality, however, is less clear-cut, as one can believe in the weight of nations and still have a tendency towards international cooperation.

Take the case of environmental degradation. Some of the problems nations have to address can be dealt with locally, for example, deforestation and non-productivity of soil caused by unsustainable agriculture. Other major issues, such as global warming and the hole in the ozone-layer, must be discussed globally, for unilateral measures would be of no use. Therefore, without underestimating the significance of nations as centers of political action, international cooperation is, at times, of absolute importance.

When it comes to security issues, the usual distinction between nationalism and internationalism seems even more exaggerated. Many argue that sovereignty and international military operations do not match. It is interesting to note that Dag Hammarsjköld made his speech at Stanford University in 1955, exactly one year before the first official peacekeeping operation under the UN flag. Since that first mission, there has been a profusion of other mandates in almost every continent of the world. These operations illustrate how multilateral actions can be fully compatible with national sovereignty. In fact, the former president of Egypt, Nasser, was known for his nationalist tendencies, yet he agreed to have blue helmet troops in his territory. He was aware that international peace was also in his best interest. When he decided to withdraw the UN troops, it resulted in a large loss of territory in favor of Israel.

International politics is, by definition, a two-level game. Even when considering only its own national interest, one cannot discard international cooperation. Sometimes domestic and global interests meet. However, even when this is not the case, in an interdependent world there can be no such thing as absolute isolationism. The same can be said about internationalists who believe that states have lost their primacy. The international community still is – and will probably always be – dominated by power-maximizing states.

CACD – DISCURSIVA 2010 – DIPLOMATA – LÍNGUA INGLESA –WRITING EXAMINATION

www.inglesparaconcursos.blog.br

❑ PROVA DE LÍNGUA INGLESA:

DIPLOMATA-CACD-WRITING EXAMINATION-2010-CESPE/UnB.

❑ ESTRUTURA-PROVA ESCRITA (WRITING EXAMINATION):

1 - TRANSLATION:

Translate into Portuguese the following excerpt adapted from Eleanor Roosevelt's speech which opened a series of United Nations seminars at Brandeis University on December 17th, 1954:

[value: 20 marks]

You hear people say, "Why hasn't the United Nations done this or that?" The United Nations functions just as well as the member nations make it function, no better or worse. So the first thing to look at is the kind of machinery that was set up, and what it was meant to do.

Now we have to cast our minds back to the time when the Charter was first planned. The war was not over, and this was a dream — an idea to set up an organization, the object of which was to keep peace.

Great tracts of the world had first-hand knowledge of war on their doorsteps. We did not know what it was like, either to be occupied or to be bombed. We need to use our imaginations, because we really must grasp what the nations felt then and still feel.

What happened, of course, was that peace has never been found, so this organization has had to face questions that were not on its mind at the outset. But talk itself can have great value. You have to envisage it as a bridge, to think of the General Assembly as a place where bridges are built between peoples.

➽ TRADUÇÃO:

Ouvem-se pessoas dizendo: "Por que as Nações Unidas não têm feito isso ou aquilo?". A Organização das Nações Unidas funciona tão bem quanto seus membros a fazem funcionar, nem melhor nem pior. Então, a primeira coisa a observar é o tipo de engrenagem que foi concebida e o que ela foi incumbida de fazer.

Agora, nós devemos nos concentrar na época em que a Carta foi planejada. A guerra não havia acabado, e o sonho era este: a idéia de estabelecer uma organização, cujo objetivo era manter a paz.

Muitas partes do mundo tinham um conhecimento em primeira-mão a respeito da guerra, cujo flagelo chegava à sua soleira. Nós não sabíamos o que era isso, ser invadido ou ser bombardeado. Nós precisamos usar nossa imaginação, porque realmente devemos captar o que as nações sentiam naquele momento e o que ainda sentem.

O que aconteceu, evidentemente, foi que jamais se alcancou a paz, e assim a ONU tem-se obrigado a enfrentar questões que não estavam no seu ideário no momento de sua fundação. Mas o diálogo, por si mesmo, pode ser de grande valor. Deve-se conceber a ONU como uma ponte; a Assembléia Geral, como um lugar onde se constroem pontes entre os povos.

2 - VERSION:

Translate into English the following excerpt adapted from a lecture delivered by Ambassador Celso Amorim as guest speaker at the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Diplomatic Seminar on 5th January, 2009:

[value: 15 marks]

A reforma das Nações Unidas é peça-chave da agenda de mudanças. O multilateralismo é a expressão normativa da multipolaridade. O mundo multipolar que emerge neste século deve encontrar seu paralelismo lógico no reforço das instituições multilaterais.

A reforma da ONU, em particular de seu Conselho de Segurança, decorre da necessidade de aumentar a legitimidade, transparência e representatividade nas suas decisões. Mesmo sem resolver todos os problemas (como o do veto, por exemplo), um Conselho ampliado enviaria aos Estados-membros uma mensagem de confiança na capacidade da ONU de se adaptar aos novos tempos.

O Brasil fez uma clara opção pelo multilateralismo. A contribuição brasileira à Minustah no Haiti constitui uma demonstração concreta desse compromisso. Reflete a nossa "não-indiferença" diante de uma situação difícil vivida por uma nação com a qual temos muitas afinidades. Coaduna-se, ademais, com os princípios de ação coletiva para prevenir ameaças à paz e à segurança internacionais.

➽ VERSÃO (Português→Inglês):

Reform of the United Nations is the key piece of the agenda of change. Multilateralism is the normative expression of multipolarity. The multipolar world which has been emerging in this century must find its logical parallel in the strengthening of multilateral institutions. UN reform, and particularly Security Council reform, stems from the need of enhancing legitimacy, transparency and representativity in its decisions. Even if it would not solve every problem (take, for example, that of the veto), an enlarged Council would send member States a message of trust in the ability of the UN to adapt to the new times. Brazil has made a clear option for multilateralism. The Brazilian contribution to Minustah in Haiti means a concrete demonstration of this commitment. It reflects our "nonindifference" towards a difficult situation faced by a nation with which we have plenty of affinity. It is coherent with the principles of collective action in order to prevent threats to international peace and security, as well.

3 - SUMMARY:

Write a summary in your own words not over 200 words in length of the following excerpt adapted from Gwynne Dyer’s Future Tense: the coming world order? (Toronto: Random House, 2004).

[value: 15 marks]

The United Nations as constituted in 1945 was a profoundly cynical organization; more explicitly so even than the League of Nations. It accepted without demur that its member states enjoyed absolute sovereignty and would never be forced to submit to intervention in their internal affairs (with the sole and uncertain exception that acts of genocide might trigger international intervention). The UN Charter made no moral or practical distinction between the most law-abiding democracies and the most repressive dictatorships. How could it, when more than half its members were dictatorships themselves? The UN was not about love, or justice, or freedom, although words of that sort are sprinkled freely through the preamble to the UN Charter; it was about avoiding another world war.

The problem that the surviving governments faced in 1945 was this: the existing international system is bankrupt in an era of weapons of mass destruction. The world cannot afford to allow countries armed with nuclear weapons to go to war with each other. It can certainly never again go through one of those generalized great-power melees that in the past were the main way of adjusting the international system to accommodate the changing balance between the great powers. If we fight that kind of war just once more, the whole northern hemisphere will fry. We therefore have to change the system. In fact, we have to outlaw war.

Because ‘outlaw war’ sounds like a naive slogan on a protester’s banner, people fail to grasp how radical a change it was for the great powers of the world to sign up to such a rule in 1945. Since the first city-states of Mesopotamia five thousand years ago, war had been a legitimate tool of statecraft, with no long-lasting opprobrium attached to waging ‘aggressive war’ so long as you were successful. Empires rose and fell, the militarily competent prospered. Now, all of a sudden, it’s over.

Since 1945, according to the UN Charter, it has been illegal to wage war against another country except in two tightly defined circumstances. One is that you have just been attacked, and are fighting back pending the arrival of international help. The other exception arises when the Security Council authorizes various member states to use military force on its behalf to roll back an aggression, or to enforce its decisions on a strictly limited number of other questions.

And that’s it. Apart from these exceptions, international war — that is, war waged by a sovereign government across an international border — is illegal. It is illegal to attack a country because it is sitting on territory that previously belonged to your country. It is even illegal to attack a country because it is ruled by a wicked dictator who oppresses his own people. The rules had to be written like that because to allow exceptions on these counts would have left loopholes big enough to drive a tank through.

Making war illegal does not mean that all wars have stopped, any more than making murder illegal has stopped all killings, but it has transformed the context in which wars take place. The United Nations does not always act to roll back a successful aggression, because that requires getting past the vetoes wielded by all five permanent members of the Security Council and then finding member states willing to put their troops at risk on the ground, but it almost never recognizes border changes accomplished by war.

There is also, however, much that the United Nations cannot do. First and foremost, it cannot act against a perceived interest of any of the great powers, for in order to get them all to sign up it had to offer them a special deal: vetoes that allow the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China to block any UN action they don't like. It’s neither fair nor pretty, but how else were the founders of the UN going to get the great powers to sign up — and what use would the organization be if some of them were outside it? Likewise, the United Nations cannot intervene in a sovereign state — or at least it could not until recently — even to stop the most horrendous violations of human rights.

Despite such limitations, the UN is a central and indispensable part of the modern world. It is the institution through which a politically conscious global society first came into existence, and its specialized organs are still the arena in which most of the world’s large-scale deals are made on matters ranging from telecommunications frequencies and trade to public health and the environment. It is the organizer and command centre for many of the peacekeeping missions that hold old enemies apart and try to minimize the level of violence in failed states, and the source of legal authority for many peacekeeping missions it does not directly control. Most important by far, it is the repository of the new international law which bans the use of aggressive military force, even by the great powers.

It is not generally realised how important this law is because it has so often been broken, especially by the really big powers. Nonetheless, most of the wars that have not involved veto-wielding superpowers have tended not to last very long before international diplomatic intervention puts a halt to them. The Security Council busies itself with appeals for a cease-fire and offers of peace-keeping troops. This has made it hard for those involved to go on fighting. So wars have rarely ended in decisive victories, and territory has almost never changed hands in a legal and permanent way. These very significant constraints may also explain why nuclear weapons have not been used in war for the past 59 years.

Of course, these same constraints can feel very burdensome if you happen to be the greatest power in the world, with overwhelming superiority in both nuclear and conventional weapons. You might even wind up filled with frustration and fury because all these Lilliput nations are trying to use the rules of the United Nations to tie you down like Gulliver.

The best measure of any institution's real importance is how much its enemies hate it. US neo-cons, for instance, hate the UN a lot. They portray it one moment as an irrelevant excrescence and the next as an arrogant, uncaring organization of great power. The United Nations, though, was not created to fight evil wherever it appears. It was designed primarily to stop the kind of straightforward cross-border aggression that had triggered both the First and the Second World Wars, but must not be allowed to cause a Third. So, since the veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council stand to lose everything themselves in another world war, they have generally been able to act in a surprisingly coordinated and decisive manner at the UN when events elsewhere threatened to drag them into such a conflict.

Available at: www.gwynnedyer.com.

Retrieved on 24/3/2010.

➽ RESUMO EM INGLÊS:

The United Nations were instituted not as a means to end all conflicts, but as a way to prevent a global war in a nuclear age. Thenceforth, no longer could problems be solved by the hitherto legitimate means of warfare as it would mean the extinction of humankind. Therefore, a pragmatic system was created in order to limit widespread war.

War was forbidden expect by two tightly defined circumstances: self-defense and Security Council authorization. Not contemplating other possibilities, laudable as they might be, was necessary to ensure its respect.

The system is far from perfect, particularly since the five permanent members of the Council have veto power and, thus, hardly will the UN act against these countries’ interests. Notwithstanding, the organization has greatly contributed to the international community with its peacekeeping operations and legal framework banning the use of force.

Yet, the UN’s main contribution was to prevent the use of nuclear weapons among

great powers. Its flexibility and pragmatic nature have permitted a coordinated effort from the permanent members of the Security Council, as they are the ones most concerned with a possible Third World War.

4 - COMPOSITION:

In what other ways have the Security Council’s actions changed since the end of the Cold War? Why?
[Length: 350-450 words]

[value: 50 marks]

It will be no surprise to those who follow UN affairs that the end of the Cold War has been the single most formative experience in the existence of the Security Council. There are many ways to demonstrate this. The simplest is to count the absolute number of Council resolutions. For the period 1946-1989 the annual average number of resolutions passed was fifteen; since then the average has been more than sixty. The Council has moved from roughly one decision a month to one per week. This is indeed a dramatic change.

Peter Wallensteen e Patrick Johansson's. Security Council decisions in perspective.

In: Malone, D.M. ed. The United Nations Security Council: from the Cold War to the 21st Century. London: International Peace Academy, 2004 (Adapted).

➽ REDAÇÃO EM INGLÊS:

The demise of the Soviet Union marks a watershed in the history of the UN Security Council. Not only has the amount of resolutions increased in the aftermath of the Cold War, but the substance of its decision has also changed. Peacekeeping operations have been enhanced, new topics have been introduced at the top of the agenda of the council and stiffer verification mechanisms have been concocted in light of the changing global scenario.

“An agenda for peace”, a UN report published at the beginning of the 1990s, stressed the new features of armed conflicts and urged states to improve the peacekeeping operations’ capacity to tackle the daunting challenges posed by the new scenario. Thenceforth, the Security Council, aware of the complexity of the burgeoning number of intrastate conflicts, has aimed at diversifying the roles played by peace operations. Peacemaking and peacebuilding activities are now as important as monitoring prior peace deals. The changing nature of armed conflicts since the end of the Cold War has demanded brand new responses from the Security Council.

Another major change is the discussion of topics which are not related to the traditional concept of security. This concept has evolved from a strict military bias to a more diverse understanding. The new concept of “securitization”, which was consolidated by Barry Buzan, entails not only the military domain but also the societal, environmental and economic realms. Any threat may be securitized by states and put at the top of their political agenda. Accordingly, the Security Council has held meeting on climate change and human rights.

Finally, the Security Council has improved its verification tools through recent decisions such as resolutions 1373 and 1540. The latter refers to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the former is related to terrorism. Both established specific committees to oversee their implementation by UN member-states. Countries have to submit national reports to the committees’ scrutiny. This change was spurred by the 2001 terrorist assaults in the United States and the political will of some permanent members.

The international scenario engendered by the end of the Cold War has rendered the UN Security Council more pro-active inasmuch as new challenges have demanded a streamlined approach. A broader agenda, multifaceted peace operations and new verification mechanisms are important changes in its actions.