Untied Nations
Posted by Ali Gledhill on 1 January, 2007
I really pity the United Nations. Dubbed the world’s biggest talking shop, the UN often seems incapable of doing anything. But it is not the UN’s fault. Indeed, I think the UN would be the most generous aid worker and most prolific provider of armed forces.
It is the diplomats, and national self-interest, that prevent the UN from performing its primary objective: to solve the world’s problems. If nations were actually bound to UN resolutions, how much better would the world be? If the world responded, as they have agreed to, to UN resolutions, the global community would be in a much healthier position.
I would hate to see UN resolutions become part of UK law, but I feel that as long as nations stay part of the United Nations that should obey UN edicts. At the very least, certain UN documents should be enshrined in the laws of every member state: a respect for the UN convention on Human Rights would be welcome.
This would allow the UN to perform its functions better, and to hold to account any nation who broke it. This untying of the United Nations would allow it to instigate some change at last, and that would be most beneficial for the world at large.
The New Constitution 
alabastercodify said
Is solving the world’s problems really the primary objective of the UN. I’d have said it was originally to prevent a repeat of WWII, then to provide a forum and a release valve for the tensions of the Cold War, and now to generally keep a lid on things.
Didn’t one of the early secretary-generals say its role was not to lead the world to heaven, but to save it from hell?
thenewconstitution said
The role of the UN is, of course, debatable. I have had the pleasure of hearing several speeches on the UN by diplomats and ex-diplomats. Crispin Tickell, the UK’s permanent representative on the Security Council through the collapse of the Soviet Union, considered matters of war and peace only a small part of the work they do.
So many UN organisations are making social advances in the developing world: peacekeeping seems almost insignificant when compared to the work of the Economic and Social Council.