The Status of United Nations Reform
By schraged Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The Status of United Nations Reform
Sixty years ago, the United Nations was founded to maintain international peace and security, promote self-determination and basic human rights, and protect fundamental freedoms. Sadly, weaknesses in the organization have prevented it from fully realizing these high aspirations. An accretion of outdated or duplicative mandates, insufficient transparency and accountability, and the resistance of member states to reform have resulted in a system that is bureaucratic, costly, cumbersome, lacking in oversight, and often incapable of fulfilling the responsibilities placed upon it.
The past six decades have seen dozens of initiatives from governments, think tanks, foundations, and panels of experts aimed at reforming the U.N. to make it more effective in meeting its responsibilities. Although these reform efforts have seen rare success, for the most part they have failed to address the core problems that cripple the organization.
Read the rest of the Heritage Foundation Report here
In my opinion the UN is well beyond fixing. The UN's organization itself is flawed, and flawed in such a way that the current membership will not support any reform that could salvage it. For starters totalitarian and brutal regimes like Iran, China, Syria etc... have an equal voice in the General Assembly. Regimes that do not respect the very basic human rights certainly should have no voice in an organization whos second line of the charter reads..
"to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small..."
When regimes like those previously mentioned have no respect for the Human Rights of their own citizens they should have no voice in an organization charged in the protection of the rights of others. Rather than try an reform the current failed international body perhaps it is time we focused our efforts as well as the 22% of UN Funding into an organization that is made up of nations that do have respect for human rights, that are not totalitarian regimes, theocracies, or tinpot dictatorships. We need to put our resources into into an organization that expands freedom and democracy, not one that supports tyrants and oppression.
for not performing at LEAST a cursory spell check
;-)
Proud to be: politically incorrect, straight, white, pro-life Christian, and of the opinion the spotted owl tastes just like chicken.
Haystack:
I know what I wrote about in my post is a very very small part of what is wrong with the UN... but be honest If I attempted to put it all together I am sure it would fill several volumes of books... and sorry but I am just not that patient.
not a shot at the author by any means...heh...and we agree, we could max out the RS bandwidth on the "volumes" necessary. That wasn't a shot at you. I promise...but on the eve of Kofi's grand departure, you have my undying support to go MUCH deeper into this subject.
I'll split it with you if'n you want...
heh
Proud to be: politically incorrect, straight, white, pro-life Christian, and of the opinion the spotted owl tastes just like chicken.
Although Russia and China are obstructionist within the Security Counsil, they are not the reason the UN is unable to implement meaningful reform measures. That responsibilty lies with the non-aligned members of the General Assembly.
Unless membership is restricted to nations whose democratic governments are freely-elected and their power is derived from the consent of the governed, meaningful reform is virtually impossible and the UN has outlived its usefullness.
Unless one wishes to "Keep your enemies close."
***
"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan
rbd:
Obstructionists like Russia & China are not the whole problem of the UN just two of many problems facing a failed organization.
This is a good start, but misses lots of gory details that need extensive analysis. If you begin with "today's" UN, beginning with Kofi Annan himself and his heritage, you would think the well-known good-ole-boy network he is in charge of would, at the very least, be leaving behind a legacy that indicated a stark favoritism toward the African continent...sadly, they are WORSE off during his tenure.
Putting aside the scandals that have plagued his administration, from the oil for food fiacso to alleged prostitutrion activities, and the horrific condition of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa, Annan and the UN have nothing to show for the past few years' expenditures.
Look farther into the Security council debacles, and you see an emerging legitimization of a wholly anti-semitic mentality amongst many if not all Arabic or Islamic members.
The one thing on which we do agree is that the UN is a failure, and for my money, they should be disbanded and kicked out of NY.
That said, there is reams of data to indicate that committees comprised of international members have never succeeded in accomplishing anything that didn't include, at their base, an improvement in the condition of the nation they represent FIRST AND FOREMOST before any attempts at fixing the problems of the country they were initially assembled to attempt to remedy.
The UN is a wasteland of corrupt ideas and members, and they have LONG outlived the usefulness of the idea that gave birth to it.
Proud to be: politically incorrect, straight, white, pro-life Christian, and of the opinion the spotted owl tastes just like chicken.