Can the UN Be Saved: This week’s column
Here’s the link to StrategyPage’s version of this week’s column.
How will the UN be policed, who holds it accountable? Here’s part of the answer: off the kleptocrats and ego-crats. My column advocates a democratic takeover, with Havel as Secretary-General, France stripped of its permanent Security Council seat, and a few other bitter pills for the feckless and corrupt.
The U. N. can serve one of two functions; it can be a talk shop that includes all the nations of the world with actions taken independently by groups of nations, or it can be an association of nations that has the power to act independently of member nations on its own. If the former, it will be a small organization that does little except provide a forum for the presentation of adversary positions before an audience of all the world’s nations. If the latter, it will be a super government exercising power over nation states and aggrandizing that power over time, as had the Federal government in the U. S. These funtions are mutually exclusive. It is the attempt to be both at once that has created the current problem. Your column speaks about the many good things the U. N. does as if they would not occur in the absence of the U. N. Were we to dispense with all the executive actions of the U. N. these functions would continue to be performed by ad hoc coalitions of interested countries without the involvement of an independent bureaucracy with interests counter to those of some member states. Either we should explicitly recognize that we are erecting a structure that eventually will become a one world government or we should limit its activities to debate and discussion with perhaps meaningless resolutions for the record. But when nations give the power of action to such a body, they become subordinate. If we want to do that, let’s have a convention.
Comment by Mrs. Davis — 3/30/2005 @ 7:10 am
I agree with Mrs. Davis above. We have to make a firm decision about what kind of an institution the UN should be. Is it a proto-world gov’t or is it a non-governmental organization whose members are governments? The transnational socialists are lobbying hard for the world gov’t role. This would be a huge mistake and a major setback in the continuing evolution of liberal democratic societies. We need to push very hard a vision of the UN as nothing more than a non-governmental organization that has no coercive powers and no authority to regulate, legislate, or for granting any kind of legitimacy. Bringing in a new and better SG might change some things but the UN has a massive, entrenched bureaucracy that will be around long after that SG has moved on. The reforms have to be at a more fundamental level that specifically define the UN as a non-governmental entity and severely constrain its fields of action. We also need to create ad hoc institutions outside the UN. The US did this with the tsunami relief efforts and we saw how the UN bureaucrats and other were outraged that we acted independently of their control and “legitimacy.” We should keep doing this as needs for such coalitions arise. Many have proposed creating a democracy caucus inside the UN, this would be a mistake it should be created outside and independent of the UN. This would work to counter the efforts of pro-UN-as-world-gov’t tranzies to subordinate all international associations to the UN.
Comment by phil — 3/30/2005 @ 7:55 am
You might be interested in my own ideas about UN reform here. The basics: formal criteria. Why doesn’t the United Nations (apparently) have formal membership requirements? Minimal requirements such as the ability to maintain order outside the big cities would seem to be something of a requirement. How about a real commitment to human rights like rights of women and freedom of religion? Is the General Assembly so wonderful that making the Security Council resemble it more closely would seem to be a good idea? On the contrary it would seem to me that the Security Council is a place for nations who are able and willing to export security i.e. security producers to convene. There are very few members of that club. Formal criteria (as I suggest in my linked post) would seem to be in order.
Comment by Dave Schuler — 3/30/2005 @ 9:07 am
Great article Austin. I couldn’t agree more. When asked if he would resign, Kofi’s response of “Hell no” showed his real contempt for international law which he claims to uphold. Kofi is either incompetant or corrupt. There is no middle ground. His “hell no” response was just his freudian slip betraying his real thoughts: he thinks being SG of the UN is his right or entitlement rather than a solemn responsibilty. He thinks he is the UN, or that the UN exists for him for his own purposes (kind of like Benon and Kojo. Hmmm…). He obviously does not respect the UN or the office he holds, otherwise he would resign for the sake of the organization. What a coward he is.
Comment by Michael Cadrecha — 3/30/2005 @ 3:43 pm
Nothing New: Kofi Annan is no different from other CEO’s, both grand and not quite so grand, who decide their own financial self-interest comes before the goals or preservation of the organizations they lead. It’s the same story with every cheap crook who loots the company treasury, or perverts operations, to enrich himself and his pals. They all rightly calculate they will get away with it, or get away with a big enough bankroll to wait-out the stink. Then it’s all booze and babes in Swiss resorts. Devil take the hind most. Not until the punishment fits the crime will things change.
Comment by Black Jack — 3/30/2005 @ 4:12 pm
What international law has Kofi broken?
Comment by Mrs. Davis — 3/30/2005 @ 6:05 pm