The worthless UN

Amidst the din of some who mindlessly bash the UN as though it's some monolithic entity with power in its own right, it's worth taking a different look at the organization. While most of the UN's right-wing American critics view a skyscraper in Manhattan as the be all and end all of the organization, those who actually know what they're talking about realize the UN is much more. One's assessment of the UN should not be limited to a few inane General Assembly resolutions. While those who actually believe in the UN and want to improve it can offer fair criticisms of the organization, these are more substantive than saying the UN is bad just because a few Security Council members who refuse to lick George W. Bush's boots on his aggression against Iraq.

You can tell a lot about someone's priorities not just by what they say about particular issues but by how often they say it. For example, while I've criticized both the Iraq aggression and the UN oil-for-food scandal, I've condemned the former significantly more often than the latter. From this, it would be perfectly reasonable to assume that Iraq bothers me more than the oil-for-food scandal. The reason for this is that the UN responded to the oil-for-food scandal by reforming its rules, ordering two investigations (one independent), lifting diplomatic immunity, allowing the courts to hand out indictments, firing the oil-for-food chief and letting the alleged wrong-doers be brought to justice. By contrast, the Bush administration responded to the Iraq debacle by giving its architects promotions and presidential medals of freedom. It's bad enough when you refuse acknowledge your screwups and fix them (thus allowing them to go on indefinitely at the cost of who knows how many lives), but it's even more of a sin when such failure and incompetence is actually rewarded.

I make no bones about the fact that I support the UN, both as an institution and an idea. Except it's really institutions, not a single institution. Where the critics don't get or don't want to get is that the UN has several different components.

There is the political institution, which is pretty much all that its critics see. This comprises three areas: the Security Counci, the General Assembly and the Secretariat. Most critics refuse to understand, the structure, authority and purpose of each of these components.

The Security Council has 15 members. 5 permanent members who have veto power over resolutions and 10 non-permanent members who don't. I believe resolutions must be passed with a majority vote of the council, plus no vetos by the permanent members. In other words, the Security Council can't do anything if France, Russia, Britain, China OR the US objects. This should reassure the Chicken Littles who claim to fear one world government: there's built-in gridlock. One country can block action that the rest of the world wants.

But in reality, most critics don't really fear the UN becoming a one-world government; what they fear is that the UN might act as a check on the power of the United States (I suspect China and Russia fear this as well).

This is a extremely foolish. Countries ignore the UN all the time. The "good" guys do it as much as the "bad" guys. The UN is a check on untramelled US or Russian or Chinese power only in the sense that it can criticize, expose and try to shame the offending powers into restraint. It's not a real check in the sense that the UN can ban countries from doing things that it doesn't like; it might be able to ban those things but it has no power of enforcement. The UN is not allowed to have a standing army and any use of force in the UN's name must be approved by the Security Council and thus, by definition, can be vetoed by the very countries whose power might be checked. If the UN were a REAL obstacle to the superpowers, the US and Britain wouldn't in Iraq right now.

The General Assembly (GA) contains one representative for each UN country. They pass resolutions, but unlike Security Council resolutions, these aren't binding. GA resolutions are nothing more than an expression of the majority opinion of world governments. People flip out whenever the GA passes absurd resolutions like saying that Israel's right to exist constitutes racism. But these resolutions are no different than me spouting off here. They are not binding. The GA is essentially a talking shop.

The Secretariat, run by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, is the UN bureaucracy. The secretary-general is not akin to the president of the world; he simply runs the UN Organization. Critics like to pretend that Annan (or whoever the secretary-general of the day is) has far more power than he really has, though they only do this when he refuses to do something they want or can't do something he has no authority to do. Annan can't order peacekeepers into a conflict by himself. He can't ban countries from having nuclear weapons by himself. He can't impose economic sanctions or travel bans on odious leaders by himself.

The secretary-general is more like the Pope than the president of the world. The only EXECUTIVE authority they really have is over their particular bureaucracy. Annan can hire and fire UN functionnaries and re-structure the internal workings of the organization, just like the Pope can for the Catholic Church. But in the domains of diplomacy and foreign affairs, Annan's authority is purely moral, just like the Pope's.

Critics ignore most other aspects of the UN, such as economic and social development, where they advise developing countries on how to improve their economies and standards of living. There is the international law component, which the US is notoriously hostile to... even on treaties which they've voluntarily signed and ratified. There are many UN missions around the world where foreign troops under the UN flag act as peacekeepers in (hopefully) post-war situations or try to mediate in existing conflicts. They provide electoral assistance to young and hopefully emerging democracies.

But one of the most important parts of the UN that its critics ignore is the humanitarian affairs portion. Anytime there's a major catastrophe in the developing world, the UN is usually the organization in charge of the massive task of coordinating international relief efforts. The UN's has undertaken gargantuan efforts in coordinating relief in the Pakistan earthquake.

The International Atomic Energy Agency won the Nobel Peace Prize for its anti-nuclear proliferation efforts. Even most issues that the US government seems to care about have UN offices to deal with them: terrorism, immigration, the drug trade.

Even on less cataclysmic or America-centered issues, UN-related agencies play a critical role. Additionally, the World Health Organization in vaccination campaigns against polio and other preventable diseases. UN organizations coordinate international efforts against many of the world's greatest killers: AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, landmines. The World Food Program in feeding hungry people. The UN Refugee Agency in helping people fleeing wars they didn't choose. The UN Children's Fund helps with the education of children especially girls, reintegrating child soldiers into society and helping children in conflict situations deal with the stress and trauma of what they've been forced to witness.

Worthless? My foot!