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Assessing the United NationsIS IT WORTH THE MONEY?

As the government of Bashar Assad slaughters thousands of civilian protesters in Syria, the United Na-

tions stands impotent — blocked from intervening by Russian and Chinese vetoes in the U.N. Secu-

rity Council. The inaction contrasts dramatically with the U.N.’s success in stopping similar atrocities

during an anti-government resistance movement in Libya last year that led to the overthrow of long-

time dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The stark difference between U.N. action and inaction in the two venues helps ex-

plain the wide range of opinions about the effectiveness of the global organization, created in 1945 to preserve peace

after World War II. Some critics say the U.N. is too heavily influenced by countries run by dictators, while others say it

is dominated by industrial democracies. Several countries are conducting studies to determine which U.N. agencies are

most cost-effective, and some in the Unit-

ed States want to make all U.N. contribu-

tions voluntary. Meanwhile, many U.N. agen-

cies quietly continue to feed the hungry,

aid needy children and enable mail, telecom-

munications and aircraft to move smooth-

ly across borders.

Emotion overcomes a Syrian boy during ademonstration at UNICEF offices in Amman, Jordan, on

Feb. 20, 2012, demanding that the U.N. children’sagency better protect children caught in the fighting inSyria’s cities. Some 100 civilians a day, including womenand children, are dying in a crackdown on dissenters bythe Bashar Assad regime. Russia and China, strong alliesof the dictator, vetoed U.N. resolutions condemning the

attacks and calling for Assad to step down.

MARCH 20, 2012 VOLUME 6, NUMBER 6 PAGES 129-152 WWW.GLOBALRESEARCHER.COM

PUBLISHED BY CQ PRESS, AN IMPRINT OF SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC. WWW.CQPRESS.COM

130 CQ Global Researcher

ASSESSING THE UNITED NATIONS

THE ISSUES

131 • Is the U.N. worth themoney the world spendson it?• Do undemocratic coun-tries wield too much powerin the United Nations?• Should democraciesleave the U.N. HumanRights Council?

BACKGROUND

138 Dreams of PeaceThe U.N. goal was to pre-vent future world wars.

141 Peacekeeping BeginsU.N. peacekeepers werefirst sent to the MiddleEast.

142 Cuban Missile CrisisThe Cuban missile crisisunfolded via televised U.N.speeches.

143 ‘Oil for Food’ ScandalCorrupt U.N. employeeshelped Iraq divert U.N.food program funds.

CURRENT SITUATION

144 Responsibility to Protect?Syria’s crackdown on dissi-dents will test the newU.N. doctrine.

146 Policing IranU.N. inspectors say Iranprobably is developingnuclear weapons.

146 New ControversiesProposed U.S. legislationwould make all U.N. pay-ments voluntary.

OUTLOOK

147 Thwarting ViolenceThe U.N. has declared 2012“the Year of Prevention.”

SIDEBARS AND GRAPHICS

132 U.N. Peacekeepers Spanthe GlobeCurrent operations are onfour continents.

133 World Favors Greater UNPowerU.N. forces should protectcitizens, polls say.

134 U.N. Actions Stir OutrageTop jobs go to anti-female,anti-Semitic countries.

137 U.S. Contributes MostThe United States provides22 percent of the U.N. budget.

139 ChronologyKey events since 1944.

140 Unsung Agencies HelpPrevent ChaosPrograms grease global gears.

145 At IssueShould all UN payments bevoluntary?

152 Voices from AbroadHeadlines and editorials fromaround the world.

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

149 For More InformationOrganizations to contact.

150 BibliographySelected sources used.

151 The Next StepAdditional articles.

151 Citing CQ Global ResearcherSample bibliography formats.

Cover : AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon

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March 20, 2012Volume 6, Number 6

March 20, 2012 131www.globalresearcher.com

Assessing the United Nations

THE ISSUESA s shells fired by the

Syrian army fell onHoms in late Febru-

ary 2012, resident Omar Shak-er described his city’s plight:“They bombed all the watertanks on the roofs of build-ings. There’s no water. Somepeople have gone withoutbread for days. If they don’tdie in the shelling, they willdie of hunger.

“People don’t care if it’sthe devil intervening to saveus,” Shaker said. “We needthe world’s help.” 1

But help was not on theway. Despite pleas from theArab League and Gulf Co-operation Council for UnitedNations action, Russia andChina kept the U.N. on thesidelines by vetoing SecurityCouncil resolutions con-demning the attacks on civil-ians and calling for SyrianPresident Bashar Assad toleave office. It was just onemore frustrating example ofthe 193-member organiza-tion’s too-frequent inabilityto stop bloodshed, Secretary-GeneralBan Ki-moon lamented. 2

The victors of World War II creat-ed the U.N. in 1945 “to save suc-ceeding generations from the scourgeof war.” 3 Since then, however, morethan 22 million people have died inmore than 300 wars. 4 Today, the ini-tially hopeful “Arab Spring” protests —which overthrew despotic governmentsin Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen —have cost thousands of lives, includingmore than 8,000 slaughtered in Syriaby the Bashar Assad regime, accord-ing to the United Nations. 5 Despitethe U.N.’s many successes, the recentfailures to keep the peace have hand-

ed ammunition to critics who ques-tion the organization’s value — a ques-tion that has been asked periodicallythroughout the U.N.’s existence.

Without the United Nations, therelikely would have been more wars,and they probably would have lastedlonger and claimed more casualties,says Swadesh Rana, former chief ofthe U.N.’s Conventional Arms Branch.Moreover, no nuclear, biological or ra-diological weapon has been usedsince the U.N.’s creation, says Rana,now a World Policy Institute seniorfellow. And few, if any, U.N. membernations are engaged in cross-borderarmed conflict today, although there

are tense standoffs in variousparts of the world, she pointsout. As many as 36 countrieswere engaged in such con-flicts about 20 years ago, asthe Cold War was windingdown, she says.

The United Nations alsohas worked to fulfill — withgreater or lesser success —the other promises of itscharter, such as “to reaffirmfaith in fundamental humanrights” and “to promote so-cial progress and better stan-dards of life.” 6 Various U.N.agencies fight hunger andpoverty, promote economicdevelopment, defend humanrights, provide relief duringand after wars and naturaldisasters, support education,nurture culture and carry outother humanitarian activities.

And even though the Unit-ed Nations has many critics,few contend the world wouldbe better off without it. Thearguments involve whether theglobal body’s strengths out-weigh its weaknesses and byhow much. Newt Gingrich, for-mer speaker of the U.S. Houseand a candidate for the 2012

Republican presidential nominationknown for his fiery rhetoric, called theU.N. “amazingly bureaucratic” and “verycorrupt.” While campaigning in Januaryhe said he would “cut out a substan-tial amount of American money goingto the U.N.”

Nevertheless, he added, “I am notfor withdrawing from the U.N.” 7 Infact, with former Senate DemocraticLeader George Mitchell in 2005, Gin-grich co-chaired a study of the U.N.that concluded “an effective UnitedNations is in the interests of the Unit-ed States.” 8

The U.N. is “sometimes frustratingto deal with,” says Philippe Bolopion,

BY TOM PRICE

AFP/Getty Images/Hector Retamal

A U.N. peacekeeper from Brazil patrols Pettion Ville, Haiti, in2010. The U.N. mission in Haiti — established in 2004 — wasbeefed up after the January 2010 earthquake destroyed muchof the capital, Port-au-Prince. The U.N. spends about $7 billion a

year on peacekeeping missions — less than Wall Street pays out in yearly bonuses.


a former French journalist who headsHuman Rights Watch’s activities at U.N.headquarters in New York City. “Yetit’s an irreplaceable forum to advancehuman rights issues.”

That’s a common assessment: evenpro-U.N. activists find the organizationimperfect but necessary.

“It’s bloated,” says Tony Hall, for-mer U.S. ambassador to the U.N. foodand agriculture agencies in Rome.“There are tremendous bureaucracies.Some programs have had leadershipissues.” But the World Food Programmeand other relief agencies work effec-tively, he says, and “they can go intoareas that [the United States] cannot

— into countries that we don’t haverelations with.” In places like NorthKorea and Sudan, he adds, “as bad asthose governments are, they have in-nocent people who need help.”

American Will Davis, director of theU.N. Development Programme’s Wash-ington Office, says the organization ex-ists “not because the U.N. is some per-fect machinery that’s going to lead usto some utopian future, but becausethere’s really no alternative. It existsto attack problems that no individualcountry can tackle or has the politi-cal will to tackle on its own.”

Canadian Anne Bayefsky, a seniorfellow at the conservative Hudson In-

stitute think tank who favors abolish-ing the U.N., calls attempts to reformit “almost a perennial joke.” She andother critics complain that undemocra-tic countries wield too much powerand subvert U.N. ideals. “Most of whatwe expected from the U.N. — mainlyprotecting peace and security andhuman rights — can be done betterby a redesigned multilateral institutionrun by and for democracies in the in-terests of democracy,” she says.

But others argue that the U.N.’s uni-versal membership — which includesrepressive as well as democratic gov-ernments — is essential for its actionsto have global credibility. “Working to


Source: “United Nations Peacekeeping,” www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/current.shtml

U.N. Peacekeepers Span the GlobeThe United Nations maintains 16 peacekeeping operations on four continents, including a “special political mission” in Afghanistan, established in 2002 to help bring sustainable peace and development to the country. The oldest peace-keeping mission is in the Middle East, where military observers have been authorized since 1948 to monitor tensions between Arabs and Israelis. Peacekeeping, which costs $7 billion this Þscal year, involves 98,653 uniformed personnel from 115 countries; the 19,000-strong contingent monitoring the post-war peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo is the largest.

Current U.N. Peacekeeping Operations

Haiti

India/Pakistan

Liberia

Lebanon

Cyprus

Sudan

Syria

Timor-Leste

Kosovo

Western Sahara

Cote d’Ivoire

Jerusalem

Dem. Rep. of Congo

Darfur

Afghanistan

South Sudan


find agreement with countries thathave disparate worldviews has alwaysbeen a difficult endeavor,” formerU.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annansaid. “Nevertheless, it is important andworthwhile.” 9

Hall, a longtime human-rights ac-tivist and former member of Congress,views universal U.N. membership thesame way he views bilateral diplo-macy. “Should we have an embassyin North Korea?” he asks rhetorically.“I believe we should. If we’re able todiscuss at the table, we should alwayssit at the table.”

As the U.N. stumbles in trying toaddress ongoing violence in the Mid-dle East, here are some questions diplo-mats and others are asking about theinstitution’s value to the world:

Is the U.N. worth the money theworld spends on it?

During his brief campaign for the Re-publican presidential nomination, TexasGov. Rick Perry suggested that “it’s timefor us to have a serious discussion aboutdefunding the United Nations.” 10

U.S. House Foreign Affairs Commit-tee Chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla.,calls the U.N. “big, bloated” and “dys-functional.”

But former U.N. executive Rana callsthe organization’s budget a bargain. TheU.N. spends about $7 billion a year on16 peacekeeping missions scatteredaround the globe, she notes — or about$1 for each of the world’s 7 billion in-habitants. The rest of the U.N.’s activi-ties — from hunger relief to facilitatinginternational air travel — costs about$8 billion, or another $1.15 per person.

Other advocates point out that theU.N.’s peacekeeping expenses makeup less than half of 1 percent of glob-al military spending. 11 It costs moreto run the New York City School sys-tem. 12 Wall Street pays out more inyearly bonuses. 13

However, critics don’t focus solelyon how much the organization costs.They also question whether the money

is well spent. “There’s very little scruti-ny paid to whether [U.N.] activities areliving up to expectations,” says BrettSchaefer, a fellow at the MargaretThatcher Center for Freedom at the

conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank in Washington.

The U.N. tends to add new activi-ties — or “mandates,” in U.N. parlance— without assessing whether older

World Favors Greater UN PowerAn overwhelming majority of people surveyed around the world wants the United Nations to have more power, such as to investigate human rights violations or authorize military force to prevent genocide or defend countries that have been attacked.

* Argentina, Armenia, China, France, India, Israel, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Thailand, Ukraine and the United States.

** China, France, India, Israel, Mexico, Palestinian territories, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Thailand, Ukraine and the United States.

Source: “World Publics Favor New Powers for the UN,” WorldPublicOpinion.org, May 2007, www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/btunitednationsra/355.php?nid=&id=&pnt=355&lb=btun

010203040506070

80%

Enter countries to investigatehuman rights violations.

Have a standingpeacekeeping force.

Do you favor or oppose authorizing the U.N. to:

Should the U.N. Security Council be able to authorize military force to:

01020304050607080

Forcefullyrestore

an overthrowndemocratic

government?

Prevent acountry

fromacquiringnuclear

weapons?

Stop acountry from

supportingterroristgroups?

Prevent severehuman rights

violationssuch as

genocide?

Defend anattackedcountry?

FavorOpposeDon’t know/no opinion

ShouldShould notDon’t know/no opinion

64%

23% 13%

64%

23% 13%

74%

17%9%

73%

19%

8%

69%

24%

7%

52%

37%

11%

48%40%

12%

(Avg. of responses from 10-12 countries**)

(Avg. of responses from 14 countries*)


mandates continue to be needed, Schae-fer says.

For example, he points out, “TheEconomic Commission for Europe wasdesigned to transition Europe fromWorld War II. The commission con-tinues to exist, with over 100 employeesand a budget of over $50 million, eventhough no one can demonstrably saywhat contribution it makes to a mis-sion that has been overtaken by events.”The commission says its “major aim”is to “promote pan-European economicintegration.” Yet most of Europe al-ready belongs to the European Union,a wealthy economic and political con-federation with 27 members.

The U.N.’s first two peacekeepingmissions — in the Middle East (1948)and on the India-Pakistan border (1949)— still have boots on the ground afterbeing deployed more than 60 yearsago, Schaefer notes, because the con-flicts they were commissioned to re-solve are still simmering: the Palestin-ian-Israeli conflict and the India-Pakistandispute over Jammu and Kashmir. “Thepresence of the operations for sixdecades argues that they are not con-tributing to the resolution of those prob-lems,” he adds.

Moreover, he says, because U.N. duesare assessed according to a nation’swealth — resulting in most of the dues

being paid by a handful of developedcountries — most members aren’t mo-tivated to police U.N. spending.

The world’s 10 wealthiest countriespay 72 percent of the U.N.’s core bud-get and an even larger share of peace-keeping expenditures. The United Statesfunds 22 percent ($569 million) of thecore budget and 27 percent of peace-keeping costs. The 39 countries withthe lowest assessments altogether coverless than one-tenth of 1 percent of thecore budget — or $23,631 each. 14

Schaefer does not oppose all U.N.spending. “Some peacekeeping activi-ties are worthwhile,” he says, pointingto the current operation that oversees


The next time a liberal asks why conservatives don’t re-spect the United Nations, National Review advised itsconservative readers last year, “you could tell them this:

North Korea is chairing the Conference on Disarmament. If that’snot good enough, you could add this: Iran is a member of theCommission on the Status of Women. That should answer theirquestion.” 1

The U.N. certainly provides plenty of fodder for its criticsto condemn or ridicule.

As Australia’s nationwide newspaper, The Australian, askedin a headline: “Is the UN Stark Raving Mad?” The paper con-demned North Korea’s chairmanship of the disarmament con-ference as “a case of lunatics taking over the asylum. The wackyregime that constantly violates the U.N.’s nuclear controls, isthe target of U.N. sanctions, and is the leading proliferator ofnuclear technology to Iran and Syria is now putatively in chargeof the organization responsible for negotiating multilateral armscontrol agreements.” 2

Under the headline “The depraved United Nations,” JerusalemPost columnist Isi Leibler complained of Iran’s election as aGeneral Assembly vice president and charged that the U.N. hadbeen captured by “dictatorships and tyrannies” and “transformedinto a platform for promoting genocide.” 3

Human rights activists also expressed disbelief in 2010,when Iran was elected to the 45-member U.N. Commissionon the Status of Women and Saudi Arabia to another agency— U.N. Women — charged with promoting women’s rights.Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian woman who won the 2003 NobelPeace Prize for her campaigns for women’s rights, said it was“a joke” for countries that oppress women to be placed on

such panels. Iranian laws discriminate against women in di-vorce cases and require testimony from two women to equaltestimony of one man in court, she said, and the women’srights situation in Saudi Arabia “is even worse.” 4

Saudi Arabia forbids women to drive, restricts their use ofpublic facilities when men are present and requires them toget permission from male relatives to participate in many ac-tivities. The monarchy recently announced that women wouldbe allowed to vote in 2015. According to Human Rights Watch,Iran restricts what women can study in college and requires amale guardian’s permission to marry. 5

Equally jaw-dropping: Syria was appointed to two human-rights-related committees of the United Nations Educational, Sci-entific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) even as the Syri-an government was killing protesters in its own country.Astonishingly, UNESCO’s Arab members selected Syria for theposts in November, shortly before the country was suspendedfrom the Arab League because of its violent attacks on demon-strators. Other countries quickly launched a campaign to expelSyria from the panels. 6

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., chair of the U.S. House For-eign Affairs Committee, called Syria’s appointments a “stunning dis-play” of “irresponsible and dangerous behavior” and “an affront tothose suffering at the hand of tyrants all around the world.” 7

Possibly the greatest outrage and ridicule have been gen-erated by the activities of Princeton Law Professor Richard Falk,the U.N.’s special rapporteur for human rights in the Palestin-ian territories. Falk is accused of anti-Semitism and has sug-gested that the Bush administration may have been complicitin the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and

U.N. Actions Stir Outrage and RidiculeSome top jobs go to anti-female, anti-Semitic governments and individuals.


South Sudan’s secession from Sudanand the creation of a new nation there.“It addresses a present crisis, and itgreatly contributed to the transition toindependence.” 15

The U.N. also has “noncontroversial,useful” agencies that facilitate the glob-al economy and fight disease, he adds.

Similarly, some of the U.N.’s strongestsupporters acknowledge its flaws whilearguing that it makes profound con-tributions to peace, relief and devel-opment. The U.N. delivers “mixed re-sults,” says Martin Rendón, vicepresident for public policy and advo-cacy at the United States Fund forUNICEF, a support organization that

raises money for the U.N. children’sprogram. “It’s not on target to meetall the goals that have been set. Butfewer people are hungry today, andfewer people are poor today becauseof the U.N.

“In the 1980s, we used to say that40,000 children were dying every dayfrom preventable causes,” he contin-ues. “Now we say it’s 21,000.” That’sstill too high, he says, but moving inthe right direction.

UNICEF offers “very good value forthe money,” according to a U.K. studyof multilateral aid programs releasedin November. Several other U.N. agen-cies — including the U.N. Develop-

ment Programme, U.N. High Com-missioner for Refugees (UNHCR), U.N.Peacebuilding Fund and the World FoodProgramme — were rated as providing“good” value. 16 The study promptedthe United Kingdom to stop providingfunding for four U.N. agencies andwarned four others that they also willlose funding if they don’t improve.

Overall, the U.N. is worth what theU.K. spends on it because it is “able towork in many more countries than theU.K. can reach on its own — and at ascale beyond any single country — ona broad range of activities the U.K. couldnot tackle by itself,” says Alan Duncan,the U.K.’s minister for international de-

the Pentagon. He wrote the foreword to The New Pearl Har-bor, by David Ray Griffin, a retired American professor of thephilosophy of religion and theology who suggests that theWorld Trade Center towers were destroyed by “controlled de-molition” rather than by hijacked airplanes. 8 Falk himself haswritten about a “large and growing grassroots constituency”that believes the truth about 9/11 “is not yet known, or . . .is known but being actively suppressed.” 9

And last year Falk caused controversy when he posted acartoon on his blog depicting a dog — wearing a sweater la-beled “USA” and a yarmulke with a Star of David — chewinga bloody skeleton and urinating on Lady Justice. 10

While acknowledging that many of these appointments areoutrageous, U.N. supporters downplay their significance. Somepositions rotate, so North Korea — for instance — simply gotits turn to chair the disarmament conference for a brief time.Iran and Saudi Arabia can be outvoted on the women’s panels,supporters note, and other U.N. bodies are more important.

More significant, they point out, the United States, U.K. andFrance hold three of the five permanent seats on the organiza-tion’s most powerful body — the Security Council — where anyone of them can block a Security Council action with a veto.

— Tom Price

1 “The Week,” National Review, Aug. 15, 2011.2 “Is the UN Stark Raving Mad?” The Australian, July 4, 2011, p. 15, www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/is-the-un-stark-raving-mad/story-e6frg71x-1226086716084.3 Isi Leibler, “Candidly Speaking: The depraved United Nations,” TheJerusalem Post, Sept. 8, 2011, www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=237091.

4 Bill Varner, “Iran, Saudi Arabia Seats on UN Women’s Board Would Be a‘Joke,’ Ebadi Says,” Bloomberg, Nov. 9, 2010, www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-09/iran-saudi-arabia-seats-on-un-women-s-board-would-be-a-joke-ebadi-says.html.5 “World Report 2012: Iran,” Human Rights Watch, www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/world-report-2012-iran; Alexia Bedat, “Women’s Rights in China,Saudi Arabia and Iran,” Testimony to the UN Human Rights Council, UN Watch,Sept. 15, 2011; Varner, op. cit.6 Kareem Fahim and Steven Erlanger, “Aid official and priest are killed inSyria,” The International Herald Tribune, Jan. 27, 2012, p. 4.7 “Ros-Lehtinen Says Selection of Syria for UNESCO Human Rights PanelAffront to Victims Around the World,” U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee,Nov. 22, 2011, http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press_display.asp?id=2099.8 David Ray Griffin, “Was America Attacked by Muslims on 9/11?” www.davidraygriffin.com/articles/was-america-attacked-by-muslims-on-911.9 Richard A. Falk, “9/11: More than meets the eye,” The Edinburgh (Scot-land) Journal, Nov. 9, 2008, www.journal-online.co.uk/article/5056-911-more-than-meets-the-eye.10 Gil Shefler, “US, Jewish groups demand Falk resign over blog entry,” TheJerusalem Post, July 10, 2011, www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=228618.

Iranian human rights advocate Shirin Ebadi, who won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for her campaigns for women’s rights,

said it was “a joke” for countries that oppress women to be placed on key U.N. human rights panels.

AFP/Getty Images/John Thys


velopment. “Some agencies are worthevery penny, and others need to behelped to improve or they will see theirfunds reduced or cut” entirely.

Do undemocratic countries wieldtoo much power in the UnitedNations?

At its birth near the end of WorldWar II, the United Nations was domi-nated by the industrial democracies andtheir allies. Four of the five permanent,veto-wielding members of the SecurityCouncil — the United States, the Unit-ed Kingdom, France and the anticom-munist nationalist government of China(which now controls only Taiwan) —were democracies or allies.

Today, free countries hold a mi-nority — 45 percent — of the seatsin the U.N. General Assembly, accordingto Freedom House, a human rightsgroup. About a third are “partly free”and a quarter are “not free.” 17

That helps to explain why unde-mocratic countries — including someof the most repressive — seem to ex-

ercise so much power, according toBayefsky, of the Hudson Institute. “Thecurrent U.N. bears little resemblanceto the original drafters’ vision,” shesays. “Democracies don’t control whathappens in the General Assembly.They play a largely defensive role inthe Security Council.”

That’s because of the U.N.’s one-country-one-vote policy, which meansthe tiny Caribbean Island of Saint Lucia(which has a population 170,000 andpays $23,631 a year in U.N. dues) hasthe same General Assembly vote asthe United States, according to KimHolmes, a Heritage Foundation schol-ar who was assistant secretary of statefor international organization affairs inthe George W. Bush administration. 18

Because there are few criteria forU.N. membership, Holmes said, total-itarian and authoritarian regimes havethe same voting power as free nations.As a result, “the all-too-frequent clashof worldviews between liberty and au-thoritarian socialism” often has stymiedeffective action, she said.

According to Bayefsky, “Islamic statesand their cronies form an automatic Gen-eral Assembly majority” that enables themto pass resolutions condemning Israelwhile blocking or delaying actions againstdespotic regimes. 19

U.N. supporters acknowledge theunwelcome actions of authoritarianstates but argue that the real powerresides in the wealthy industrial democ-racies and in the Security Council,where any one of the five permanentmembers — the United States, U.K.,France, Russia and China — can vetoany action.

“Every time [Iranian President Mah-moud] Ahmadinejad speaks at the U.N.General Assembly, my blood boils, too,”says Peter Yeo, executive director of theBetter World Campaign, which advo-cates for the United Nations in the Unit-ed States. “But we have to look at thetotality of the activities being under-taken by the U.N. and see that, on thewhole, it serves American interests.”

Davis, at the U.N. DevelopmentProgramme’s Washington office, sug-gests “paying close attention to whatit is they’re dominating.” Authoritariancountries don’t control what’s impor-tant, he adds.

Many democratic governmentsagree. When controversy erupted overNorth Korea’s becoming chair of theU.N. Disarmament Conference, for in-stance, the United States reacted witha shrug. “It’s a consensus-based orga-nization, so nothing can be decidedjust because the chair is a country thatwe have issues with,” State Depart-ment spokeswoman Victoria Nulandsaid. The U.S. government chose “notto make a big deal out of this, be-cause it’s a relatively low-level, incon-sequential event.” 20

Similarly, South Korean officialsnoted that the chairmanship rotatesand “have not considered any actionwith regard to it.” 21

Sounding like Americans who insistthe Founding Fathers intended Congressto be inefficient, Adam Chapnick,


Libyans dance in the streets of Tripoli on Oct. 20, 2011, following the capture of longtimedictator Moammar Gadhafi by opposition forces. After Gadhafi launched a brutal crackdown

on dissenters last spring, the U.N. Security Council authorized “all necessary measures” to protect Libyan civilians. With protection from NATO aircraft, the opposition forces overthrew the regime and killed Gadhafi.

AFP/Getty Images/Mahmud Turkia


deputy director of education at theCanadian Forces College, said theUnited Nations is “working exactly theway its founders intended. They an-ticipated that some parts of the U.N.would be dysfunctional, but, curious-ly, they believed that dysfunctioncould serve a useful purpose in thelong run.”

The Security Council was to holdthe real power, according to Chapnick,author of The Middle Power Project:Canada and the Founding of the Unit-ed Nations. As the U.N. was being or-ganized, Chapnick said, U.K. ForeignSecretary Anthony Eden said the Gen-eral Assembly would “enable repre-sentatives of the smaller powers toblow off steam.” 22

Around the world, the United Statesis widely seen as the U.N.’s power-house. “The U.S. basically controls theU.N. and can almost always make theU.N. do what the U.S. wants,” said amajority of people polled in six pre-dominantly Muslim states — Egypt,Turkey, Jordan, Iran, Indonesia andAzerbaijan — plus the Palestinian Ter-ritories and Nigeria, where half thepopulation is Muslim. Agreementranged from 68 percent in Egypt to53 percent in Turkey and a pluralityof 43 percent in Indonesia. Only inAzerbaijan, a former Soviet republic,did a plurality (49 percent) agree withthe alternative: “Through its veto theU.S. can stop the U.N. from doingthings, but the U.S. cannot make theU.N. do things the U.S. wants.” 23

Should democracies leave theU.N. Human Rights Council?

Last year, about three months beforeLibya launched a brutal attempt to sup-press Arab Spring demonstrations, Libyanofficials sat for their Universal PeriodicReview by the U.N. Human Rights Coun-cil in Geneva. During the hearing, anyU.N. member could comment onLibya’s record. Many lined up to do so,including some of the world’s worsthuman rights violators.

According to the council’s report onthe hearing, Syria “commended [Libya]for its democratic regime,” and NorthKorea praised Libya “for its achieve-ments in the protection of humanrights.” Saudi Arabia commendedLibya for “the importance that the coun-try attached to human rights.” 24

Four days earlier, the council hadexamined the United States, and NorthKorea had complained of “persistentreports of human rights violationscommitted by the United States at homeand abroad.” Iran, Nicaragua, Cubaand other less-than-free states weighedin with similar critiques. 25

The comments illustrate how the re-view process has been, in the words ofHeritage Foundation scholar Schaefer,“hijacked by countries seeking to shieldthemselves from criticism . . . laughably

affirming their commitment to funda-mental human rights and freedoms.” 26

In testimony before the House For-eign Affairs Committee, Hillel Neuer,executive director of U.N. Watch, anindependent monitor of the U.N.,quoted Human Rights Watch execu-tive director Kenneth Roth, who likenedthe predecessor Human Rights Com-mission to “a jury that includes mur-derers and rapists, or a police forcerun in large part by suspected mur-derers and rapists determined tostymie investigation of their crimes.” 27

Only 20 of the council’s current 47members (42.5 percent) are rated “free” byFreedom House. Fifteen (32 percent) arerated as “partly free” and 12 members(25.5 percent) as “not free.” Thehuman rights group includes fourcouncil members on its 20-country list

U.S. Contributes Most to UNThe United States contributed 22 percent of the U.N.’s core budget in 2011 — or $582 million — more than any other nation and nearly as much as the amount given by 183 other members combined. Japan ranked second with a contribution of about 13 percent. Dues are assessed according to a nation’s wealth, but every country — regardless of how much it contributes — has a single vote in the General Assembly.

* Does not include peacekeeping expenses or independentlyfunded agencies like UNICEF.

** Germany, U.K., France, Italy, Canada, China, Spain and Mexico

Source: “Assessment of Member States’ Contributions to the United Nations Regular Budget for the Year 2011,” United Nations Secretariat, December 2010, pp. 2-7, www.un.org/zh/members/contribution_2011.pdf

Contributions to U.N. Core Budget, 2011*

22.0%United States

12.5%Japan

37.7%

Next eight highest contributors**

27.8%

All 183 others

Total U.N. Budget, 2011

$2.6 billion


of the “worst of the worst” — China,Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Libya, whichwon a council seat when Gadhafi wasin power. 28

Calling the council “fundamentallyillegitimate,” House Foreign Affairs Com-mittee Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen saysdemocracies should be “pushing for amassive structural overhaul or createan alternative body with real standardsfor membership. The council has con-tinually undermined its own credibilityby ignoring human rights abuses in Cuba,China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela

and many other countries,” she charges,while it “focuses disproportionately onthe democratic, Jewish state of Israel.”

Since its creation in 2006, the coun-cil has seen about half of its country-specific resolutions aimed at Israel,Schaefer said. He joined Ros-Lehtinenin calling for democracies to “beginexploring the option of creating an al-ternative, effective human rights bodyoutside of the U.N. system.” 29

Not all human rights activists agree.Some say the council performs betterthan the Human Rights Commissionthat it replaced, and they see im-provement since the United States joined

the panel in 2009. They cite recent ac-tions, such as the council’s condemna-tion of Syria’s crackdown on demon-strators; its move to investigate humanrights violations in Iran, Libya and Côted’Ivoire; and its program to assess free-dom of assembly around the world. 30

Perhaps most dramatic, the councilpassed a resolution last June to end dis-crimination based on sexual orientationand gender identity. It commissioned areport by the U.N. High Commissionerfor Human Rights, which, when it wasissued in December, catalogued anti-gay

laws and practices around the worldand called for their repeal. 31

The council’s stand will help ac-tivists respond to governments that say“we have poverty and people starv-ing, so we cannot focus on LGBT[lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender] rights,”says Grace Poore, a Malaysian whocoordinates the Asia and Pacific is-lands work of the International Gayand Lesbian Human Rights Commis-sion. “We’ll see if it actually tricklesdown and translates into somethingon the ground.”

Hossein Alizadeh, an Iranian whois Poore’s counterpart for the Middle

East and North Africa, says the coun-cil’s actions “send a signal to countriesthat often state that LGBT rights arenot compatible with their culture orreligious beliefs, and therefore it’s ir-relevant to their human rights frame-work. It affirms the universality of hu-mans’ rights, regardless of their sexualorientation or sexual identity.”

Looking at the broader picture,Philippe Dam, a Frenchman who ad-vocates for Human Rights Watch atthe council’s headquarters in Geneva,sees “positive trends,” which he at-tributes in part to U.S. involvement.The “most repressive [council mem-bers] have been more isolated in re-cent votes,” Dam says. Democracies inLatin America, Africa and Asia havebecome more active, he adds.

Democracies must stick with thecouncil, said former U.N. Secretary-General Annan, or “we leave the fieldfree to tyrants to call the shots.” 32

BACKGROUNDDreams of Peace

Hope ran high after World War II,as the victorious gave birth to the

United Nations. They had beaten backworld conquest by the most brutalregimes in modern history, and theynow had created an organization de-signed to guarantee that such a con-quest could never threaten again.

In 1944, even as fighting continuedto rage worldwide, diplomats from theUnited States, the United Kingdom, theUnion of Soviet Socialist Republics(U.S.S.R.) and Nationalist China met toplan a peaceful future for the planet.In the Dumbarton Oaks mansion, atopa hill in Washington’s historic George-town neighborhood, they hammeredout plans for the U.N. 33


Continued on p. 116

Protesters march in the Jan. 6, 2012, funeral procession of a man killed outside his home inthe besieged Syrian city of Homs. He was among more than 8,000 people killed during acrackdown on anti-government dissenters in the past year. The efforts by Russia and China

to block Security Council action on the crisis have sparked international outrage.

AFP/Getty Images/STR


Chronology1940s As World War IIends, U.N. is founded to pre-serve peace.

1944Diplomats from United States, U.K.,U.S.S.R. and Nationalist China meetto plan new body to end wars.

1945U.N. Charter is signed; Food andAgriculture Organization begins toaddress U.N.’s humanitarian goals.

1946U.N. Children’s Emergency Fund iscreated to serve children sufferingeffects of World War II.

1948Israel declares statehood; Jordan,Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt and Syria at-tack Israel; fighting stops afterU.N.-brokered truce a month later,but resumes and ends again; U.N.deploys its first military observergroup to monitor the truce.

1950U.N. mediator Ralph Bunche winsNobel Peace Prize for negotiating1949 Arab-Israeli armistices; U.N.observers monitor India-Pakistantruce in dispute over Kashmir.

•

1950s-1970sCold War proceeds; free andcommunist countries supportallies in proxy wars.

1950U.N. sends troops to defend SouthKorea after invasion from Commu-nist North Korea.

1953Armistice ends Korean War.

1956Egypt nationalizes Suez Canal;U.K., France and Israel capturecanal; invaders agree to U.N. with-drawal demands; U.N. peacekeep-ers oversee pullout.

1961World Food Programme is estab-lished to provide emergency foodrelief and fight chronic hunger.

1962Cuban missile crisis sparks fear ofnuclear war; U.N. serves as stagefor debate while U.S. and U.S.S.R.resolve confrontation.

1963Security Council endorses armsembargo against South Africa ineffort to end white minority rule.

1966U.N. Development Programme iscreated to promote economic de-velopment in poor countries. U.N.imposes economic sanctionsagainst white-ruled Rhodesia (nowZimbabwe) in Southern Africa.

1967Egypt blockades Israeli oil supplyroute, sparking “Six-Day War;” Israelseizes Golan Heights, Sinai, Gaza,East Jerusalem and West Bank. . . .Security Council says peace will re-quire Israeli withdrawal from occu-pied land and Arab recognition ofIsrael’s right to exist. Neither occurs.

1969U.N. Population Fund created toprovide reproductive health ser-vices to the poor and victims ofconflict and disaster.

1973After surprise attack by Egypt andSyria, Israel pushes Arab troopsback across 1967 cease-fire lines.United States and U.S.S.R. brokertruce without U.N. help.

1990s Cold War ends.U.N. focuses on smaller con-flicts, atrocities.

1990Iraq invades Kuwait; U.N. autho-rizes liberation of Kuwait.

1991U.S.-led coalition liberates Kuwait.

•

2000s-PresentTerrorism, civil wars replacenation-vs.-nation warfare.

2001Al Qaeda terrorist attacks in theUnited States prompt U.N. to authorizemilitary action against Afghanistan,which harbors the terrorists.

2005U.N. condemns terrorism; says it hasresponsibility to protect citizens from“genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansingand crimes against humanity” if theirown governments fail to protect them.

2011“Arab Spring” erupts across NorthAfrica and the Middle East. . . .Security Council authorizes NATObombing to protect civilians afterLibyan dictator Moammar Gadhaficracks down on anti-governmentdemonstrators; Gadhafi is over-thrown and killed.

2012Arab League calls for U.N. actionagainst Bashar Assad regime inSyria after it kills thousands ofprotesters. Russia and China vetoSecurity Council resolution. . . . Iranis suspected of defying U.N. stric-tures against nuclear weapons,raising specter of military attackby Israel or United States.


The following April — as the Alliesconquered Italy and Germany andpressed toward victory over Japan — anexpanded cast of 50 nations convenedin San Francisco to write the U.N. char-ter, which was approved on June 25.

The next day, speaking at the char-ter’s signing, U.S. President Harry STruman defined the new organiza-tion’s task as keeping the world “freefrom the fear of war.” A month later,as the U.S. Senate ratified the charterby a vote of 89-2, Democratic Sen.Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi pro-claimed it “a great document whichwe believe will usher in the millen-nial dawn.” 34

The charter created two very dif-ferent bodies to govern the new or-ganization.

The General Assembly, where eachnation cast one vote, would pass bud-gets, conduct debates and vote onnonbinding resolutions. The 11-memberSecurity Council, with five permanentmembers who each could exercise aveto, was charged with maintainingpeace and could authorize sanctionsand the use of force. As U.N. mem-bership grew, the council was en-larged to 15 in 1965.

The vetoes belonged to the fournations that met at Dumbarton Oaks,plus France. But the real point of theveto was to require the United Statesand the Soviet Union to agree onmajor U.N. actions. The world wasdividing into two camps — the in-dustrial democracies and their alliesagainst the Soviet Union and its com-munist satellites. The United States and

its allies dominated the 51-memberorganization. (Poland was added atthe last moment.) But it would beimpossible for the organization to acteffectively if the two leaders were spliton U.N. decisions.

To show that it was more than amilitary alliance, the U.N. establishedthe Food and Agriculture Organizationto increase farm productivity, improvethe nutrition and lives of rural popu-lations and contribute to world eco-nomic growth. In 1946, the U.N. cre-ated the United Nations InternationalChildren’s Emergency Fund, its initialtask to provide urgent relief to chil-dren suffering from the effects of thewar. Funded voluntarily, UNICEF re-ceived its first substantial governmentcontributions from the United Statesand Canada in 1947 and saw its first


Continued from p. 114

The United Nations usually commands public attentionduring times of conflict, controversy or tragedy — whenits peacekeepers stand between enemies on a cease-fire

line, when its relief workers rush to the aid of disaster victimsor when nations debate how U.N. power should be deployed.

But much of the 67-year-old organization’s work is donequietly and without controversy, by agencies supplying whatWill Davis, director of the U.N. Development Programme’s Wash-ington Office, calls “the grease between the gears in an everglobalizing world.”

“Every time we board an aircraft for a trip abroad, we en-trust our safety to the International Civil Aviation Organization,”said S. Jayakumar, Singapore’s former senior minister. “Any timewe call a friend or family in another country, we rely on theInternational Telecommunications Union.” 1

Some U.N. agencies — such as the Universal Postal Unionand the International Telecommunications Union — were es-tablished in the 19th century and were incorporated into theU.N.’s portfolio after its founding. Other bodies — such asthe Office for Outer Space Affairs — were created to dealwith new challenges.

U.N. agencies that deal with peacekeeping, hunger and dis-ease are well known. Here are some of the important, but less-er known, U.N. agencies:Office for Outer Space Affairs — If Newt Gingrich were

elected U.S. president and established a colony on the Moon,

as he has vowed to do, this office, created in 1958 to advisethe U.N.’s new Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space,likely would address questions of ownership and appropriatelunar activity. International treaties say no nation can claim own-ership of a celestial body and all space activity must be peace-ful.

The office, which adopted its current name in 1992, alsomonitors space debris, which poses a growing threat to spacevehicles, and maintains a register of objects launched into outerspace. 2 In 2009, at the request of countries worried aboutspace debris, it prepared “Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines,”which urge space agencies to remove spacecraft from orbitonce their missions end.

The office also staffs a round-the-clock hotline to act on re-quests for satellite imagery during disasters and prepares re-ports on international space law. 3

Universal Postal Union — Negotiated by representativesof 22 nations in 1874, the Treaty of Bern established the Gen-eral Postal Union to replace a series of bilateral postal agree-ments with a single system for moving mail from country tocountry. The name was changed to the Universal Postal Unionfour years later. It became part of the United Nations systemin 1948 and continues to serve as the primary forum for co-operation among postal systems, setting rules for internationalmail exchange, mediating disputes, providing advice and of-fering technical assistance. 4

Unsung Agencies Help Prevent ChaosFrom the mail to outer space, U.N. programs grease the global gears.


national fundraising organization es-tablished — the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

Peacekeeping Begins

The Middle East conflict betweenArabs and Jews became the new

organization’s first major military crisis— a conflict that persists today. TheUnited Kingdom controlled Palestineunder a League of Nations mandate,and Jews wanted a homeland therefor the hundreds of thousands whohad survived the Nazi Holocaust butbeen driven from their homes.

In November 1947, the General As-sembly approved partitioning Palestineinto separate Jewish and Arab states.Confusion ensued later, when theUnited States reversed its position and

called for creation of a U.N. trustee-ship in the region.

Britain removed its troops on May 14,1948, and the Provisional State Coun-cil in Tel Aviv immediately proclaimedthe establishment of the State of Is-rael. Despite its earlier second thoughts,the United States quickly became thefirst country to recognize the new na-tion. Almost as quickly, Jordan, Iraq,Lebanon, Egypt and Syria launchedthe first Arab-Israeli war.

A U.N. representative negotiated atruce in June, and the international or-ganization deployed its first militaryobserver group to the region. U.N. me-diator Ralph Bunche managed to ne-gotiate armistices between Israel andits Arab foes in 1949, for which hewon the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize —the first of 10 awarded to the U.N. and

its staff. The agreements left Israel incontrol of 20 percent more land thanit received in the partition, while some700,000 Arabs fled the territory. 35 OnMay 11, Israel joined the U.N.

By then, the U.N. had deployedmilitary observers to the India-Pakistanborder to monitor the uneasy peacebetween the two newly independentnations, who had clashed over con-trol of the disputed territory of Jammuand Kashmir.

In 1950, with Mao Zedong’s Com-munist Party in control of mainland Chinaand the Nationalist government relocat-ed in Taiwan, the Soviets attempted andfailed to transfer the Nationalists’ Secu-rity Council seat to the communists. (Thatdidn’t occur until 1971.) Soviet U.N. Am-bassador Jacob Malik boycotted coun-cil meetings in protest.

International Telecommunication Union — Found-ed in 1865 as the International Telegraph Union (ITU), thisis the U.N.’s oldest agency and possibly the one that hashad to cope with the most change. In the early years afterthe telegraph’s 1844 invention, telegraph lines did not con-nect between nations, so messages had to be transcribed,translated if necessary and retransmitted at each interna-tional border.

As they did with international mail, countries at first de-veloped bilateral and regional agreements to standardizeequipment and connect lines. The International TelegraphConvention, signed in Paris on May 17, 1865, established theunion to address technological issues and establish interna-tional tariff and accounting rules.

As new technologies developed, the union had to estab-lish international standards for telephones, wireless telegra-phy, radio, television, space communication, mobile commu-nication, digital communication and, now, media convergence.Reflecting its expanding responsibilities, the ITU became theInternational Telecommunication Union in 1932 and becamea U.N. agency in 1949. In 1989, it accepted responsibility forhelping developing countries establish modern telecommuni-cation systems. 5

International Civil Aviation Organization — While thepostal and telecommunication unions ensure that communica-tions flow across borders, the International Civil Aviation Orga-

nization (ICAO) makes sure pilots and air traffic controllersaround the world can understand each other and that aircraftand airports are safe.

Created in 1944 at a conference in Chicago and be-coming fully operational in 1947, the ICAO promulgates uni-form global standards and regulations for training and li-censing of air and ground personnel, communication, airtraffic control, aircraft airworthiness and navigation. The or-ganization also serves as a forum for discussion of inter-national aviation issues. 6

— Tom Price

1 “United Nations: Exaggerated hopes, exaggerated fears,” The (Singapore)Straits Times, Oct. 1, 2003.2 For background, see Konstantin Kakaes, “Weapons in Space,” CQ GlobalResearcher, Aug. 16, 2011, pp. 395-420.3 “United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs,” www.oosa.unvienna.org/oosa/en/OOSA/index.html; David Adam, “Property rights on the moon,”The (London) Guardian, Oct. 24, 2005, p. 25; Neil MacFarquhar, “U.N.Weighs How to Answer a Knock on Earth’s Door,” The New York Times,Oct. 8, 2010, www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/world/09nations.html; Heidi Blake,“Satellites threatened by orbiting rubbish dump,” The (London) Daily Tele-graph, May 27, 2010, p. 23.4 “Universal Postal Union,” www.upu.int/en/the-upu.html.5 “ITU’s History,” International Telecommunication Union, www.itu.int/en/history/overview/Pages/history.aspx.6 “About ICAO,” www.icao.int/Pages/icao-in-brief.aspx.


The boycott proved bad strategy forthe communists, however. When com-munist North Korea invaded South Koreaon June 25, Malik was not present toveto the Security Council resolution thatapproved the U.N.’s defense of the south.Sixteen countries sent troops into thewar under U.S. command.

Three years of fighting resulted inthe deaths of more than 450,000 U.N.troops, mostly South Koreans, and500,000-1.5 million soldiers from NorthKorea and Communist China, which en-tered the war as U.N. troops advancedon the Chinese border. An armistice,signed July 27, 1953, left the North-South border near the 38th parallel,where it had been at the war’s begin-ning. U.N. forces, mostly South Koreansand Americans, have been stationed atthe tense demilitarized zone (DMZ) be-tween the two countries ever since.

The U.N. deployed peacekeepersagain after the Suez Canal crisis of

1956. Egypt had nationalized the canalin July. In October, British, French andIsraeli troops invaded — the Euro-peans to overturn the nationalization,the Israelis to attack anti-Israeli terror-ist bases.

Britain and France vetoed SecurityCouncil resolutions — proposed by

the United States and the U.S.S.R. —calling for an end to the invasion. Buta precedent had been established ear-lier for General Assembly action whenvetoes stymied the Security Council.Although General Assembly resolutionscarried no enforcement power, the U.N.at that time was highly respected inEurope, and the U.K., France and Is-rael agreed to a ceasefire.

U.N. peacekeepers entered Egyptin November to oversee the with-drawal of the invasion forces. Theyremained as a buffer between Israeland Egypt until the Arab-Israeli warof 1967.

Cuban Missile Crisis

In 1962, the Security Council served asa stage upon which the Cuban mis-

sile crisis unfolded, although U.N. actiondid not end the U.S.-U.S.S.R. standoff.

On Oct. 22, President John F. Kennedyannounced in a somber televised ad-dress that the Soviet Union was erect-ing missile sites in Cuba, a commu-nist island just 90 miles from Florida.He announced he had imposed ablockade of military shipments toCuba, demanded that the Soviet Unionremove the missiles and warned that“further action” would be taken if themissiles remained. He also declaredthat a missile attack in the WesternHemisphere would trigger “a full re-taliatory strike upon the SovietUnion” and requested an emergencySecurity Council meeting.

The meeting began the next dayand was watched by a television au-dience that feared the outbreak of nu-clear war. Adlai Stevenson Jr., the U.S.ambassador to the U.N., introduced aresolution condemning the missileplacement. Soviet Ambassador Valer-ian Zorin called for a U.N. denuncia-tion of the blockade.

Two days later, the meeting reachedits highest drama. After repeatedly chal-lenging Zorin to deny the missile place-ment, while Zorin declined to respond,Stevenson declared: “I am prepared towait for my answer until hell freezesover, if that is your decision. And Iam also prepared to present the evi-dence in this room.” He then unveiledphotos of the missile sites, taken froma U-2 spy plane.

Private communications betweenKennedy and Soviet Premier NikitaKhrushchev ended the crisis, withKhrushchev agreeing to withdraw themissiles and Kennedy agreeing to re-move U.S. missiles from Turkey, al-though he would not link the two ac-tions in public, so as not to be seenas giving in to Khruschev.


A Somali refugee and her child live in a squatter’s hut outside the U.N.’s giant Dadaabrefugee settlement near the Kenyan border with Somalia. Aiding refugees is one of the most

important humanitarian activities undertaken by the United Nations. Some say the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees is one of several humanitarian agencies that

functions effectively, because — unlike the U.N.’s regular budget — its funding is voluntary,so donor countries can stop giving money if the agency is seen as ineffective.

AFP/Getty Images/Jens Schlueter


The 1960s saw the U.N. pushingagainst the remaining minority-whitegovernments in Africa. In 1963 the Se-curity Council endorsed a voluntaryarms embargo against South Africa. In1966 the General Assembly stripped SouthAfrica of its mandate to govern South-West Africa, which later became Namib-ia. The same year, the Security Councilimposed sanctions on minority-runRhodesia, now known as Zimbabwe.

During the ’60s, the U.N. alsostepped up its humanitarian and de-velopment work. The World Food Pro-gramme was established in 1961, theU.N. Development Programme in 1966and the U.N. Population Fund in 1967.

The U.N. failed to prevent or haltthe war in Vietnam, however. Nor didit prevent the slaughter of more thana million Cambodians on that nation’s“killing fields” by the brutal Pol Potgovernment. And its relevance was chal-lenged in 1967, when Egypt (at thetime called the United Arab Republic)demanded the U.N. remove its inter-national military observers.

U.N. Secretary-General U Thantagreed. Egypt then blockaded theStrait of Tiran, cutting off Israel’s mainoil shipping route. The blockade, con-sidered an act of war under interna-tional law, spurred an Israeli preemp-tive air strike on June 5 that destroyedmost of the military aircraft in Egypt,Jordan, Iraq and Syria. The U.N. bro-kered a cease-fire after Israel had rapid-ly won what became known as theSix-Day War, in which it seized controlof the Golan Heights from Syria, theSinai and Gaza from Egypt and EastJerusalem and the West Bank from Jor-dan. In November, the Security Coun-cil passed Resolution 242, which de-clared that peace in the Middle Eastrequired Israeli withdrawal from terri-tory it captured in the Six-Day Warand Arab recognition of Israel’s rightto exist, neither of which has occurred.

Arabs and Israelis fought again in1973, and once again the U.N. sentpeacekeepers to supervise the cease-

fire. The truce was arranged by U.S.and Soviet diplomats, however, an in-dication that the U.N. had little influ-ence in the region, according to jour-nalist/historian Stanley Meisler in hisUnited Nations: A History. 36

The United Nations sent anotherpeacekeeping force to the Middle Eastfollowing a 1978 Israeli invasion ofLebanon, which was aimed at weak-ening the Palestine Liberation Organi-zation, a Palestinian nationalist orga-nization, elements of which hadengaged in terrorist acts against Israel.Four years later, U.N. troops could notprevent Israel from entering Lebanonagain after hostilities flared once more.

Amid the peacekeeping failures, theU.N. at least was able to claim suc-cess in its humanitarian efforts, whenin 1980 the World Health Organiza-tion declared smallpox to have beeneradicated from Earth, three years afterthe last case had been reported.

From 1988 to 1993, the U.N. initiat-ed 14 peacekeeping missions, morethan it had deployed in the previousfour decades. But peacekeeping wasnot always successful, largely becausethe troops’ “monitoring” mandate oftenforbids them from intervening in con-flicts. In 1994, for example, peacekeepersin Rwanda did not prevent the ethnicslaughter of more than 800,000 peo-ple, mostly Tutsi, by the Hutu majori-ty. And in 1995, Dutch peacekeeperscould not protect Bosnian Muslims,some 8,000 of whom were massacredby Bosnian Serbs in Srebrenica.

The Security Council did act afterIraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990,although the U.N. did not lead themilitary response. The Security Coun-cil authorized “all necessary means”to liberate Kuwait after U.S. PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush — at the invita-tion of the Saudi government — senttroops to Saudi Arabia to counter anyfurther Iraqi aggression. But the warwas fought by a U.S.-led coalition, notunder the U.N. flag. After Iraq’s quickdefeat, the United States, U.K. and

France did not seek U.N. permissionto establish no-fly zones to protectKurds in northern Iraq and Shiite Mus-lims in the South.

To avoid a potential Russian vetoin the Security Council, NATO skippedseeking U.N. authority in 1999, whenit intervened to stop the Serbs fromslaughtering Albanians in Kosovo. NATObombing drove Serbs to negotiations.After an accord was signed, NATO andRussian peacekeepers maintained theceasefire while U.N. administratorshelped establish a government.

After the Sept. 11 attacks against theUnited States by Al Qaeda in 2001, theU.N. authorized military action againstthe Taliban government in Afghanistan,which had harbored the Al Qaeda ter-rorist organization that carried out theattacks. But President George W. Bushfailed to win Security Council autho-rization to invade Iraq again in 2003 onthe later-discredited grounds that Iraqpossessed weapons of mass destruction.The United States invaded anyway, withthe support of countries in what Bushcalled the “Coalition of the Willing.”

‘Oil for Food’ Scandal

The aftermath of the second Iraqwar uncovered one of the U.N.’s

worst scandals — in the so-called “oil-for-food” program.

After the first Persian Gulf War, theU.N. had imposed severe sanctions onSaddam Hussein’s government. Beginningin 1996, to provide relief for its citizens,Iraq was allowed to sell oil and use theproceeds to buy food, medicine andother necessities and pay reparations toKuwait. But after the second war, Sad-dam’s government was discovered to havediverted funds from the sale, with thehelp of corrupt U.N. employees.

Marking the millennium, the U.N.and other international organizationsagreed in 2000 to set what becameknown as the Millennium Develop-ment Goals to be achieved by 2015.



They called for ending extreme pover-ty and hunger, providing universal pri-mary education, promoting genderequality, reducing child mortality, im-proving maternal health, pursuing en-vironmentally sustainable development,reversing the spread of major diseasessuch as HIV/AIDS and malaria andcreating a global partnership for de-velopment. 37

At a U.N.-sponsored summit in 2005,world leaders for the first time unani-mously condemned terrorism “in allits forms and manifestations, commit-ted by whomever, wherever and forwhatever purposes.”

They also agreed to a new doctrine,which would be used for the first timeduring the “Arab Spring.” Dubbed the“responsibility to protect” and abbrevi-ated “R2P,” it declared that a nation hasthe responsibility to protect its popula-tion from “genocide, war crimes, ethniccleansing and crimes against humanity.”If a nation failed to do so, the U.N. hadthe responsibility to intervene. 38

In late 2010 and early 2011, as anti-government demonstrations sprang upacross the Arab world, Libyan dictatorMoammar Gadhafi launched an espe-cially brutal crackdown on protesters.Distressed by the bloodshed and thethreat of more, the Arab League askedthe U.N. to impose a no-fly zone torestrict Libyan troop movements.

On March 17, the Security Councilauthorized “all necessary measures” toprotect Libyan civilians. Two dayslater, U.S. war planes destroyed Libya’sair defenses and attacked Libyan troopsand tanks. NATO then took over theoperations, continuing to hamperGadhafi’s forces. Protected by NATOaircraft and joined by defecting Libyansoldiers, opposition forces overthrewthe Gadhafi regime and killed the long-time dictator.

Libya “changed the dynamic of theSecurity Council,” German U.N. Am-bassador Peter Wittig says. “Quite anumber of Security Council membersadhere to orthodox political doctrine:

The Security Council should not getinvolved in affairs of U.N. memberstates.” But Gadhafi’s “ruthless brutal-ity” forced even them to act.

While much of the world rejoicedat Gadhafi’s downfall, the reaction ofRussia’s former ambassador to Libyahelps to explain why Russia and Chinaoften oppose actions against oppres-sive governments. Vladimir Chamovcomplained that Russian businesseswere harmed because Russia did notveto the Security Council resolution.

“Russian companies had agreed tovery lucrative long-term contracts . . .which they could lose and have al-ready lost — which in a sense canbe considered the betrayal of Russia’sinterests,” he said. 39

CURRENTSITUATIONResponsibility to Protect?

Reflecting on U.N. actions in Libyaand other places last year, Secretary-

General Ban Ki-moon declared in early2012 that “history took a turn for thebetter” in 2011. U.N. members serious-ly accepted the “responsibility-to-protect”doctrine, he said. “The results were un-even but, at the end of the day, tens ofthousands of lives were saved.”

However, he continued, the worldalready faces “the next test of our com-mon humanity” — in Syria. And, sofar, the world is failing.

“Stop the violence, I told PresidentAssad,” Ban said. “The path of re-pression is a dead-end. . . . Changenow, act bold and make decisive re-forms before it is too late, before moreinnocents die.” 40

Yet Assad refuses, and his forceshave killed more than 8,000 dissidentsand civilians since March 2011. The

atrocities now have risen to the levelof war crimes, according to Navi Pil-lay, the U.N.’s High Commissioner forHuman Rights. But, unlike in last year’sLibyan crisis, Russia and China haveblocked U.N. action in Syria. 41 Evenas Syrian forces were firing on civil-ians in the city of Homs on Feb. 4, thetwo permanent Security Council mem-bers vetoed a resolution to support anArab League plan that called for Assadto leave office. The other 13 councilmembers voted yes. Russia and Chinaalso had vetoed an October resolutionthat condemned Assad’s crackdown.And Syrian officials cannot be broughtbefore the International Criminal Courtin the Hague without the Security Coun-cil’s approval. 42

Earlier, the six Gulf CooperationCouncil states — Bahrain, Kuwait,Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Unit-ed Arab Emirates — called on the U.N.to take “all needed measures” to stopthe violence in Syria. 43

The vetoes created “a sad day forthis council, a sad day for Syrians anda sad day for all friends of democracy,”French U.N. Ambassador GerardAraud said after the vote. Russia andChina “made themselves complicit ina policy of repression carried out bythe Assad regime.” 44

Unlike when addressing the Libyaproblem, the Security Council “failedto live up to its responsibility,” Ger-many’s Wittig lamented. “The peoplein Syria have been let down again.” 45

The stalemate exposed the U.N.’s“chief failing,” Ban said, which is “thereluctance to act in the face of seri-ous threats. The result, too often, hasbeen a loss of lives and credibility thathaunt us ever after.” 46

It’s also put the “responsibility toprotect” doctrine “in major crisis,” saidStewart Patrick, director of internationalinstitutions and global governance atthe Council on Foreign Relations. 47

And although Syria may pose theU.N.’s most urgent crisis, the organi-

Continued on p. 146

no


At Issue:Should all UN payments be voluntary?yes

yesREP. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, R-FLA.CHAIR, HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRSCOMMITTEE

WRITTEN FOR CQ GLOBAL RESEARCHER, MARCH 2012

t he U.N.’s many problems stem from deep flaws in its veryfoundations. The Obama administration’s tactical efforts forU.N. reform — while paying our U.N. dues in full without

conditions — has failed to solve the organization’s systemicproblems. We need sweeping reforms. My bill, the United Na-tions Transparency, Accountability and Reform Act, conditionsour U.N. contributions on shifting funding from an assessed toa voluntary basis.

At the U.N. we pay too much and get too little in return,because those who call the shots don’t pay the bills. TheU.N.’s regular budget is funded through assessments based ona complicated formula that factors in “gross national income.”The United States pays for 22 percent of the U.N.’s regularbudget but only has one vote, while two-thirds of the othermember countries combined pay for only 1 percent. Thosecountries vote together to pass budgets and set priorities, butthe cost is passed on to the United States. As long as wecontinue paying our dues in full with no strings attached, wesurrender our strongest leverage to stop wrongdoing, advanceour interests and support our allies.

Voluntary funding will enable the American people to de-termine, through their representatives in Congress, how muchof their hard-earned money goes to the United Nations andhow it is spent. Voluntary funding already works well at severalU.N. bodies, including UNICEF and the World Food Programme(WFP). Catherine Bertini, a former WFP director, has said:“Voluntary funding creates an entirely different atmosphere atWFP than at the U.N. At WFP, every staff member knowsthat we have to be as efficient, accountable, transparent andresults-oriented as possible [or] donor governments can taketheir funding elsewhere.”

With no consequences for abuse, the U.N. has taken ourfunding for granted. In the past decade, its budget has morethan doubled. The Human Rights Council is dominated byrogue regimes like Cuba, China, Russia and Saudi Arabia andspends its time bashing Israel instead of addressing real humanrights abuses. The Conference on Disarmament was chaired in2011 by North Korea; Iran serves on the Commission on theStatus of Women; and the Syrian regime serves on the executiveboard and human rights committee for the U.N. Educational,Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Voluntary funding creates the incentive structure necessaryto reform the U.N. and make it transparent, accountable, ob-jective and effective.no

REP. HOWARD BERMAN, D-CALIF.RANKING DEMOCRAT, HOUSE FOREIGNAFFAIRS COMMITTEE

WRITTEN FOR CQ GLOBAL RESEARCHER, MARCH 2012

d espite its many flaws, failures and shortcomings, theUnited Nations often plays an essential role in support-ing American foreign policy and national security inter-

ests. U.N. peacekeepers separate warring parties and create condi-tions for reconciliation at a fraction of the cost of deploying theU.S. military. U.N. Security Council resolutions have provided thelegal basis for assembling an international coalition of countriesdetermined to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Allof these important U.N. activities are funded by assessed dues.

In the name of U.N. “reform,” some have argued that ourgovernment should move to a system of voluntary contributions,in which we would selectively pay for U.N. programs that wedeem vital to our national interests. Such headline-grabbing pro-posals are totally unrealistic and run counter to the principlesthat governed the U.N.’s establishment. Transitioning to a systemof voluntary financial support, as opposed to paying our assesseddues, would require a U.N. Charter revision and renegotiationof the treaty establishing the organization.

The U.N. Charter has been amended only four times in its66-year history, most recently in 1973 when the body approvedan enlargement of the Economic and Social Council to betterreflect the growth in U.N. member states. For one member stateto force through an amendment unraveling the financial stabilityof the organization would be greeted with near unanimous op-position. And aside from the political infeasibility, if the UnitedStates were to unilaterally abandon its treaty obligations overpayment of assessments, it would undercut the financial under-pinnings of the entire U.N. regular budget.

Other nations would respond in kind by adopting theirown selective approach to financing the organization. U.N.programs vital to U.S. national security interests undoubtedlywould face funding reductions. For example, the U.N. specialpolitical missions in Iraq and Afghanistan — which are fundedthrough the U.N. regular budget, largely at the insistence ofthe United States — would almost certainly see severely di-minished financial support from other U.N. member states andthus reduced legitimacy. Other U.S. priorities at the United Na-tions, such as the advancement of women’s rights, the protec-tion of human rights and counterterrorism cooperation wouldlikely face reduced funding under a voluntary funding scheme.

A course of picking and choosing what one likes anddoesn’t like is best left for a food buffet, not for selectivelyfunding U.N. programs and maintaining our standing withinthe international community.


zation’s agenda is crowded with otherchallenges as well. U.N. investigatorsare probing Iran’s nuclear programand its human rights record. The Pales-tinian Authority is pressing for admis-sion as a sovereign state. Some mem-bers of the U.S. Congress are pushingto make U.N. payments voluntary. Sev-eral countries are conducting system-atic assessments of U.N. effectiveness.And, all the while, the U.N. carries outits ongoing peacekeeping, develop-ment and relief efforts.

Policing Iran

Early this year, a team from the In-ternational Atomic Energy Agency

(IAEA) traveled to Tehran to probeIran’s suspected nuclear weapons pro-gram. 48 In late February, the teamsaid it could not complete its investi-gation because Iran had blocked ac-cess to important records and sites. 49

An IAEA report last November hadtriggered international alarm bells afteragency officials released satellite im-ages, letters and other documents theysaid showed Iran has carried out ac-tivities “relevant to the development ofa nuclear explosive device.” 50

While Iran contends it is workingonly on a peaceful energy program,some of its activities are specific toweapons development, the IAEA said.These include high-explosives testing,development of a detonator to triggera nuclear charge, computer modelingof a nuclear warhead core, preparato-ry work for a nuclear weapons testand development of a nuclear payloadfor Iran’s Shahab 3 intermediate rangemissile, which can reach Israel. 51

The Security Council, with the sup-port of Russia and China, has authorizedsanctions on Iran, although neither coun-try has imposed sanctions themselves. 52

The United States and Europe have ratch-eted up sanctions on Iran’s oil outputand banking, however. 53

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah AliKhamenei, has acknowledged that thesanctions are “painful and crippling.”But Iran has not agreed to scrap itsnuclear program. Instead, Khameneiand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejadhave threatened military reprisals anda blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, amajor oil-shipping route. World lead-ers also worry that Israel might launcha military strike against Iran’s nuclearfacilities, at least one of which is inthe process of being buried deep in-side a mountain — out of the reachof Israeli missiles. 54

Unlike the nuclear inspectors, theU.N.’s new special rapporteur on humanrights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, hasnot been granted entry into Iran. But,from outside the country, he said, “Iam able to gather a substantial amountof information which points to wide-spread abuse of human rights.” 55

A report by Shaheed last Octoberdescribed horrific repression. TheGeneral Assembly in November de-nounced Iran for, among other things,torture, cruel and degrading treatmentof prisoners, pervasive violenceagainst women, restrictions on free-dom of assembly and “severe limita-tions and restrictions on the right tofreedom of thought, conscience, reli-gion or belief.” 56

In his own report last March, Bansaid he was “deeply troubled” by re-ports of “increased executions, ampu-tations, arbitrary arrest and detention,unfair trials and possible torture,” aswell as mistreatment of lawyers, jour-nalists and human rights and opposi-tion activists. 57 The judiciary also con-tinues to sentence men and womento execution by stoning, he said.

New Controversies

Controversy has erupted inside theU.N. over the Palestinian Authority’s

campaign for membership. The author-ity’s admission to the U.N. Educational,

Scientific and Cultural Organization lastyear triggered an automatic cutoff ofU.S. funding under U.S. law and gaveimpetus to a congressional campaign tomake all U.N. payments voluntary.

U.S. House Foreign Affairs Com-mittee Chair Ros-Lehtinen, who has in-troduced voluntary-payments legisla-tion, argues that “U.N. bodies fundedon a voluntary basis — such as UNICEF,the World Food Programme and theU.N. High Commissioner for Refugees— function better and are more de-serving of funding because they rec-ognize that, if they fall short, donorcountries can and will stop givingthem money.”

The Heritage Foundation’s Schae-fer agrees that voluntarily funded pro-grams tend to be “extremely usefulactivities” that are “more responsiveto the member states” and their con-cerns. However, he adds, organiza-tional expenses — such as maintain-ing headquarters, facilitating meetingsand providing translations — are es-sentials that should be financed byall members.

Yeo of the Better World Cam-paign warns that Americans mightbe unpleasantly surprised by the im-pact of voluntary funding. Mandat-ed dues “support U.N. missions thatnobody else would fund,” he says.“Which countries are going to lineup for the U.N. to work in Iraq andAfghanistan?”

Duncan, Britain’s minister for in-ternational development, says everycountry should contribute toward costs,just as taxpayers help pay for a coun-try’s defense and justice departments.But, the money must be spent “in atransparent manner and highly focusedon results.”

Britain, Australia and Norway areamong nations that tie their volun-tary contributions to the results ofsystematic evaluations of U.N. agen-cies. After their first round of reviewslast year, for instance, Australian eval-uators recommended maintaining or


Continued from p. 144


reducing funding of some agencieswhile doubling contributions toUNICEF and substantially increasingsupport for the World Food Pro-gramme and the U.N. High Commis-sioner for Refugees. 58

Other evaluations are being con-ducted by the 16-country Multilater-al Organization Performance Assess-ment Network and the evaluationnetwork of the Paris-based Organisa-tion for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment.

While those evaluations proceed,16 U.N. peacekeeping operations con-tinue on four continents, and human-itarian and development missions arebeing conducted by such U.N. agen-cies as UNICEF, the High Commis-sioner for Refugees, the U.N. Devel-opment Programme and the WorldFood Programme. 59

OUTLOOKThwarting Violence

Secretary-General Ban has declared2012 “the Year of Prevention.” In-

stead of trying to end conflicts oratrocities after they begin, he wantsthe United Nations to mark his sec-ond term, which began in January, bythwarting violence before it happensin the first place.

That requires “strengthening our ca-pacities for mediation, fact-finding andpeaceful settlement,” he said, as wellas building strong civil societiesaround the world. “Genocide, warcrimes, ethnic cleansing and othercrimes against humanity . . . occur farless often in places where civil societyis robust, where tolerance is practiced,and where diversity is celebrated.” 60

Ban promised that the U.N. wouldincrease its efforts to promote human

rights and democratic values and prac-tices and asked the Security Councilto take better advantage of its powerto investigate potential threats beforethey become crises.

Several public opinion polls indi-cate there is global support for strength-ening the U.N. and expanding its au-thority. A poll in predominantlyMuslim regions, for example, foundthat nearly two-thirds of respondentssupported making the U.N. “signifi-cantly more powerful in world affairs,”and majorities backed using U.N. mil-itary force to stop a country from sup-porting terrorist groups, prevent nu-clear proliferation and restore ademocratic government that had beenoverthrown. 61

Another survey, in countries thatcontain 56 percent of the world’spopulation, found majority supportfor empowering the U.N. to regulateinternational arms trade. 62 And, ina poll of 23,518 people in 23 coun-tries, majorities in all but two coun-tries supported increasing the U.N.’spower. 63

Dam, the Human Rights Watch ad-vocate, wants the U.N. to requiremembers to cooperate with efforts topromote human rights and to singleout those that don’t. States must bemade to “pay a political cost for theirlack of cooperation,” Dam says.

Rick Leach, president and CEO ofWorld Food Program USA, predictsthat his and other U.N. agencies willengage more with the private sector.For instance, “UPS is helping us lookat logistics operations,” Leach says, re-ferring to the United Parcel Service.And the World Food Programme ispurchasing more food from subsistencefarmers and teaching farmers to be-come more productive, using fundsand business expertise from the Billand Melinda Gates and Howard Buf-fett foundations. The goal is to turnaid recipients into farmers who cansupport their families by selling theirproducts in the private marketplace.

Others want to see the U.N. de-velop better management practices.Former Ambassador Hall says U.N.agencies need to hire external orga-nizations to evaluate their operations,just as external auditors examine cor-porate books. “Institutions that do thatand then follow through on the (rec-ommendations) are your best.”

Schaefer, of the Heritage Founda-tion, wants the U.N. to finish a sys-tematic evaluation of all its programs,a process that began in 2005. And theBetter World Campaign’s Yeo wantsU.N. executives to “more aggressivelyadopt best practices for the manage-ment of large institutions.”

However, Rana, the former U.N. ex-ecutive, urges caution in applying cor-porate theory to the global public in-stitution. “Reforms based on the corporateworld do not necessarily apply well tothe U.N. Secretariat,” she says.

Notes

1 “Red Cross urges daily 2-hour halt in Syriaclashes,” The Associated Press, USA Today,Feb. 21, 2012, www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-02-21/syria-clashes/53186210/1?csp=34news.2 Ban Ki-moon, “Address to the Stanley Foun-dation Conference on the Responsibility toProtect,” Jan. 18, 2012, www.un.org/apps/news/infocus/sgspeeches/statments_full.asp?statID=1433.3 “Preamble to the United Nations Charter,”United Nations, www.un.org/en/documents/charter/preamble.shtml.4 Kim R. Holmes, “Smart Multilateralism,” inBrett D. Schaefer, ed., ConUNdrum: The Lim-its of the United Nations and the Search forAlternatives (2009), p. 25.5 Oliver Holmes and Erika Solomon, “Vio-lence across Syria; soldiers killed in ambush-es,” Reuters, March 13, 2012, www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/13/us-syria-idUSBRE8280G820120313.6 “Preamble to the United Nations Charter,”op. cit.7 “Former Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., Presi-dential Candidate, Holds a Town Hall Meet-


ing In Meredith, NH,” Political TranscriptWire, Jan. 6, 2012.8 Newt Gingrich and George Mitchell, “Fore-word,” in “American Interests and U.N. Re-form,” Task Force on the United Nations,United States Institute of Peace, www.usip.org/files/file/usip_un_report.pdf, June 2005.9 Kofi Annan, “Despite flaws, U.N. HumanRights Council can bring progress,” The Chris-tian Science Monitor, Dec. 8, 2011.10 Brian Montopoli, “Rick Perry: Time to con-sider defunding United Nations,” CBS News,Oct. 18, 2011, www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20122309-503544.html.11 “Financing Peacekeeping,” United Nations,www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/financing.shtml.12 “About Us,” New York City Department ofEducation, http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/default.htm; “Is the United Nations Good Valuefor the Money?” United Nations, www.un.org/geninfo/ir/index.asp?id=150.13 “Wall Street Bonuses,” The Economist, Feb.24, 2011, www.economist.com/node/18231330; “Is the United Nations Good Value forthe Money?” op. cit.14 “Assessment of Member States’ contribu-tions to the United Nations regular budgetfor 2012,” U.N. Secretariat, December 2011,www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=ST/ADM/SER.B/853.15 For background, see Jason McLure, “Sub-Saharan Democracy,” CQ Global Researcher,Feb. 15, 2011, pp. 79-106.16 “The Multilateral Aid Review,” UK Inter-national Development Department, March2011, www.dfid.gov.uk/What-we-do/How-UK-aid-is-spent/a-new-direction-for-uk-aid/Multilateral-Aid-Review. For background, see Jina

Moore, “Peacebuilding,” CQ Global Researcher,June 21, 2011, pp. 291-314.17 “Freedom in the World 2012,” FreedomHouse, http://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/inline_images/Table%20of%20Independent%20Countries%2C%20FIW%202012%20draft.pdf.18 “Assessment of Member States’ contribu-tions to the United Nations regular budgetfor 2012,” op. cit.; “Background Note: SaintLucia,” U.S. State Department, Dec. 16, 2011,www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2344.htm; “U.S.POPClock Projection,” U.S. Census Bureau,January 2012, www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html; Holmes, op. cit.19 Anne Bayefsky, “Palestinian ‘Head of State’at the U.N.,” FoxNews.com, Aug. 3, 2011,www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/08/03/palestinian-head-state-at-un-get-ready-for-statehood-steamroller.20 “US unfazed by NK’s presidency of U.N.disarmament body,” Korea Times, July 12,2011, www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2012/02/113_90697.html.21 Ibid.22 Adam Chapnick, “The U.N. May Be Dys-functional, But It’s the Kind of Dysfunction ThatIts Founders Intended,” George Mason Uni-versity, History News Network, July 5, 2011,http://historynewsservice.org/2011/07/the-u-n-may-be-dysfunctional-but-its-the-kind-of-dysfunction-that-its-founders-intended.23 “People in Muslim Nations ConflictedAbout UN,” University of Maryland Programon International Policy Attitudes, Dec. 2, 2008(Polling conducted from late 2006 to Sep-tember 2008), www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/btunitednationsra/575.php?lb=&pnt=575&nid=&id=.

24 “The Review of the Libyan ArabJamahiriya,” U.N. Human Rights Council Work-ing Group on the Universal Periodic Review,Jan. 4, 2011, www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/16session/A-HRC-16-15.pdf.25 “Report of the Working Group on the Uni-versal Periodic Review, United States of Amer-ica,” U.N. Human Rights Council, Jan. 4, 2011,www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/16session/A-HRC-16-11.pdf.26 Brett Schaefer, “Treatment of Libya Illus-trates the Fatuousness of the Human RightsCouncil,” Heritage Foundation, March 1, 2011,http://blog.heritage.org/2011/03/01/treatment-of-libya-illustrates-the-fatuousness-of-the-human-rights-council.27 Hillel Neuer, “The State of Human Rightsat the U.N.,” Testimony before the U.S. HouseForeign Affairs Committee, U.N. Watch, Jan. 25,2011, www.unwatch.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=bdKKISNqEmG&b=1316871&ct=9085407.28 “Membership of the Human Rights Council20 June 2011-31 December 2012,” U.N. HumanRights Council, www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/membership.htm; “Freedom in theWorld 2012,” Freedom House, http://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/inline_images/Table%20of%20Independent%20Countries%2C%20FIW%202012%20draft.pdf.29 Brett Schaefer, “The U.S. Should Pursue anAlternative to the U.N. Human Rights Council,”Heritage Foundation, June 23, 2011, www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/the-us-should-pursue-an-alternative-to-the-un-human-rights-council.30 Ted Piccone, “Why the U.S. Must Stay onThe U.N. Human Rights Council,” BrookingsInstitution, April 01, 2011, www.brookings.edu/opinions/2011/0401_human_rights_piccone.aspx; “Stop human rights violations in Syria,”U.N. Human Rights Council, May 5, 2011, www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/HRCStophumanrightsviolationsinSyria.aspx.31 For background, see Reed Karaim, “GayRights,” CQ Global Researcher, March 1, 2011,pp. 107-132.32 Annan, op. cit.33 Unless otherwise noted, information forthis historical chapter was drawn from: Stan-ley Meisler, United Nations: A History (2011);Schaefer, op. cit.; Time-Life Books History ofthe Second World War (1989); David Masci,“The United Nations and Global Security,” CQResearcher, Feb. 27, 2004; Lee Michael Katz,“World Peacekeeping,” CQ Global Researcher,April 1, 2007; “Internet Modern History Source-


About the Author

Tom Price, a contributing writer for CQ Researcher, wrote“Globalizing Science” for the Feb. 1, 2011, CQ Global Researcher.Currently a Washington-based freelance journalist, he previous-ly was a correspondent in the Cox Newspapers WashingtonBureau and chief politics writer for the Dayton Daily News andThe Journal Herald in Dayton. He is author or coauthor of fivebooks, including Changing The Face of Hunger and, most recent-ly, Washington, DC, Free & Dirt Cheap with his wife Susan CritesPrice. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Time, RollingStone and other periodicals. He earned a bachelor of science injournalism at Ohio University.


book,” Fordham University, www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook.asp; “United NationsPeacekeeping,” United Nations, www.un.org/en/peacekeeping; “History of the United Na-tions,” United Nations, www.un.org/en/aboutun/history/1951-1960.shtml.34 Meisler, op. cit., p. 19.35 “Timeline of the Arab-Israeli Conflict andPeace Process,” Institute for Curriculum Ser-vices, www.icsresources.org/content/factsheets/ArabIsraeliTimeline.pdf.36 Meisler, op. cit., p. 184.37 “Millennium Development Goals,” UnitedNations, www.un.org/millenniumgoals.38 “Fact Sheet: 2005 World Summit High-LevelPlenary Meeting,” United Nations, Sept. 14-16,2005, www.un.org/summit2005/presskit/fact_sheet.pdf.39 “Germany, Russia learn high cost of ab-staining,” The Australian, March 25, 2011, p. 10.40 Ban Ki-moon, op. cit.41 “Wounded British journalist smuggled safet-ly out of beseiged city of Homs,” op. cit.; JohnSize, “Russia, China veto UN draft resolution onSyria,” CTVNews.ca, http://ottawa.ctv.ca/servlet/an/plocal/CTVNews/20120204/un-security-council-syria-resolution-voting-day-120204/20120204/?hub=OttawaHome.42 Richard Spencer and Adrian Blomfield, “UNinquiry says Assad should be charged overwar crimes,” The (London) Daily Telegraph,Feb. 24, 2012, p. 20, www.canada.com/news/inquiry+says+Assad+should+charged+over+crimes/6196914/story.html.43 Liz Sly, “Arab states seek U.N. help as Syriasteps up violence,” The Washington Post, Jan.24, 2012, www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/arab-states-seek-un-help-as-syria-violence-escalates/2012/01/24/gIQAL1f8NQ_story.html?hpid=z5. For background, see Jen-nifer Koons, “Future of the Gulf States,” CQGlobal Researcher, Nov. 1, 2011, pp. 525-548.44 Size, op. cit.45 Ibid.46 Ban Ki-moon, op. cit.47 “R2P in Crisis Following U.N. Syria Vote,”Council on Foreign Relations, www.cfr.org/syria/r2p-crisis-following-un-syria-vote/p27303.48 Ali Akbar Dareini, “UN nuclear team arrivesin Iran,” The Associated Press, Jan. 28, 2012, www.tribtoday.com/page/content.detail/id/567202.html.49 Joby Warrick and Thomas Erdbrink, “IAEAmission to Iran ends in failure,” The Wash-ington Post, Feb. 22, 2012, www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/iaea-mission-to-iran-ends-in-failure/2012/02/21/gIQANEcLSR_story.html.

50 For background, see Roland Flamini, “Ris-ing Tension Over Iran,” CQ Global Researcher,Feb. 7, 2012, pp. 57-80.51 “Revealed: Proof of Iran’s N-bomb plan,”The (Singapore) Straits Times, Nov. 13, 2011.52 “U.N. Security Council Passes Iran Sanctions,”Jewish Telegraphic Agency, June 9, 2010, www.thejewishweek.com/news/breaking_news/un_security_council_passes_iran_sanctions.53 Mark Landler and Clifford Krauss, “GulfNations Aid U.S. Push To Choke Off Iran OilSales,” The New York Times, Jan. 13, 2012,p. 4, www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/world/asia/asia-buyers-of-iran-crude-get-assurances-of-alternate-supply.html?pagewanted=all.54 Robert F. Worth and David E. Sanger, “U.N.Nuclear Inspectors’ Visit to Iran Is a Failure,West Says,” The New York Times, Feb. 4, 2012,p. 4. Also see Simon Mann Washington, “NewIranian missile ‘could strike US,’ ” The (Mel-bourne) Age, Feb. 4, 2012, p. 9.55 “UN envoy slams Iran for human rightsviolations,” ABC Radio (Australia), Oct. 21,2011, www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3345574.htm.56 “General Assembly Condemns Iranian Regime’sAbuses,” Voice of America, Dec. 26, 2011,

www.voanews.com/policy/editorials/middle-east/General-Assembly--136166128.html.57 “A Special Rapporteur Needed for Iran,”Voice of America, March 16, 2011, www.voanews.com/policy/editorials/A-Special-Rapporteur-Needed-For-Iran-118173714.html.58 “Independent Review of Aid Effectiveness,”Australian Government, April 2011, www.aidreview.gov.au/publications/aidreview.pdf.59 “Current peacekeeping operations,” UnitedNations, www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/current.shtml.60 Ban, op. cit.61 “People in Muslim Nations ConflictedAbout UN,” op. cit.62 The countries surveyed were China, India,the United States, Russia, France, Thailand,Ukraine, Poland, Iran, Mexico, South Korea,the Philippines, Australia, Argentina, Peru, Ar-menia, Israel and the Palestinian territories.63 “Nation Poll Finds Strong Support for Dra-matic Changes at U.N.,” BBC, March 21, 2005(Polling conducted Nov. 15, 2004 to Jan. 3,2005 by GlobeScan and University of MarylandProgram on International Policy Attitudes),www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/btunitednationsra/72.php?lb=&pnt=72&nid=&id=.

FOR MORE INFORMATIONBetter World Campaign, 1800 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., 4th Floor, Washington,DC 20036; 202-462-4900; www.betterworldcampaign.org. Founded in 1999 withfunding from Ted Turner’s $1-billion contribution to benefit the United Nations;advocates for increased U.S. support for the U.N.

Human Rights Watch, 350 Fifth Ave., 34th Floor, New York, NY 10118; 212-290-4700; www.hrw.org. Keeps tabs on U.N. activities and publishes more than 100reports annually on human rights conditions around the world.

Multilateral Organization Performance Assessment Network, www.mopanon-line.org. A 16-nation consortium founded in 2002 to evaluate multilateral organiza-tions, including U.N. agencies. Organization’s management is rotated among mem-bers and currently is housed in the German Federal Ministry for EconomicCooperation and Development.

United Kingdom Department for International Development, 1 Palace St.,London SW1E 5HE; +44 1355 84 3132; www.dfid.gov.uk. Runs Great Britain’s for-eign aid program. Publishes many reports on development and evaluates multilateralaid organizations, including U.N. agencies.

United Nations, First Avenue and 46th St., New York, NY; www.un.org. Websiteis portal to all U.N. activities. List of UN information centers in various countriesis at unic.un.org/aroundworld/unics/en/whereWeWork/index.asp.

U.N. Watch, Case Postale 191, 1211 Geneva 20, Switzerland; +41 22 734-1472;www.unwatch.org. A nonprofit advocacy organization (and an affiliate of theAmerican Jewish Committee); keeps a critical eye on U.N. activities.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Books

Boutros-Ghali, Boutros, Unvanquished: A US-UN Saga,Random House, 1999.In counterpoint to U.S. complaints about the United Nations,

a former secretary-general blames American attempts to dom-inate the organization for damaging the U.N. during his term.

Gold, Dore, Tower of Babble: How the United NationsHas Fueled Global Chaos, Three Rivers Press, 2005.A former Israeli ambassador to the U.N. chronicles the many

ways he feels the institution has failed since shortly after itsinception and says it cannot work in its current incarnation.He proposes that democracies take a two-track approach torepelling immediate threats: working both outside and insidethe U.N. to fix its “crippling flaws” over the long term.

Meisler, Stanley, United Nations: A History, Grove Press,2011.A longtime Los Angeles Times foreign correspondent, whose

assignments included the U.N., traces the organization’s his-tory from the first four-power planning conference in 1944 toU.N.-authorized attacks on Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafiafter the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.

Schaefer, Brett D., ed., ConUNdrum: The Limits of theUnited Nations and the Search for Alternatives, Row-man & Littlefield Publishers, 2009.An international affairs fellow at the conservative Heritage

Foundation in Washington has compiled essays about theU.N. from 16 conservative scholars. Topics addressed includemultilateralism, international law, international interventions,environmental policy, human rights, economic development,trade, arms control and health.

Articles

Anstee, Margaret Joan, “What Price Security?” GlobalGovernance, Jan. 1, 2011, p. 1.The U.N’s first female undersecretary applies her unique

perspective to argue that security requires human develop-ment as well as military power. The U.K. native first becamea U.N. field worker in the Philippines in 1952 and servedin postings throughout the world.

Hancock, Herbie, “Without the U.S., a diminished UNESCO,”The Washington Post, Dec. 3, 2011, www.washingtonpost.com/todays_paper/A%20Section/2011-12-04/A/29/32.1.3339981937_epaper.html.A famed American jazz musician contends that culture plays

a critical role in fostering international understanding andthat UNESCO plays a critical role in exposing the world’soccupants to each other’s culture.

Kabendera, Erick, “Anna Tibaijuka: ‘Not easy for Africanwomen in the UN system,’ ”New African, August-September2011, p. 68.In an interview, Tanzanian Anna Tibaijuka, who became

U.N. deputy secretary-general, describes the obstacles Africanwomen say they face when they try to advance through theU.N. bureaucracy.

Lynch, Colum, “Mideast conflict has shaped U.N.’s history,mission,” The Washington Post, Sept. 18, 2011, p. 7.Arab-Israeli conflicts have demanded U.N. attention and

created controversy since shortly after the organization’s birth.

Reports and Studies

“Keeping the Momentum: One Year in the Life of the UNHuman Rights Council,” Human Rights Watch, Sept. 22,2011, www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/hrc0911ForWeb.pdf.The global human rights advocacy group finds “some no-

table progress” in the operations of the U.N.’s highest-ranking— and highly controversial — human rights body.

“Multilateral Aid Review: Ensuring maximum value formoney for UK aid through multilateral organizations,”U.K. Department for International Development, March 2011,www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/publications1/mar/multilateral_aid_review.pdf.A British government evaluation of 43 multilateral organi-

zations, including prominent U.N. humanitarian and devel-opment agencies, concludes that nine offer very good valuefor the money spent by U.K. taxpayers, 16 offer good value,nine adequate value and nine poor value.

“People in Muslim Nations Conflicted About UN,” Uni-versity of Maryland Program on International Policy At-titudes, Dec. 2, 2008, www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/btunitednationsra/575.php?lb=&pnt=575&nid=&id=.Polling in Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Iran, Indonesia, the Pales-

tinian Territories, Azerbaijan and Nigeria finds support for astrengthened United Nations and a belief that the UnitedStates dominates the organization.

Blanchfield, Luisa, “United Nations Reform: U.S. Policy andInternational Perspectives,” U.S. Congressional ResearchService, Dec. 21, 2011, www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33848.pdf.Congress’ nonpartisan research arm examines various at-

tempts at reforming the United Nations over the years, con-gressional actions aimed at U.N. reform and potential U.S.policy considerations for dealing with the organization.

Selected Sources


Bibliography

Funding

“Funding Shortfalls Threaten Global Anti-AIDS Efforts,UN Says,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur (Germany), Nov. 30,2011.The global campaign against HIV/AIDS is threatened by

shrinking funds, according to the World Health Organizationand other U.N. agencies.

“RF Pays US$22-M for Budgets of UN PeacekeepingOperations,” Philippine News Agency, Oct. 29, 2011, phl.ph/2011/10/30/rf-pays-us-22-m-for-budgets-of-un-peacekeeping-operations/.Russia has contributed a total of $22 million to the bud-

get of U.N. peacekeeping forces in Lebanon, Côte d’Ivoireand Darfur.

Otero, Jordan E., “House Panel OKs Funding Plan to ForceU.N. Reforms,” The Washington Times, Oct. 14, 2011, p. A4,www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/13/house-panel-oks-funding-plan-to-force-un-reforms/.Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee want

to cut U.S. contributions to the United Nations unless manda-tory dues are replaced with voluntary donations.

Singh, Yoshita, “Impossible to Continue Without US Fund-ing: UNESCO Chief,” Press Trust of India, Nov. 3, 2011.UNESCO’s chief is pleading with the United States to con-

tinue its financial support of the world body.

Human Rights Council

“UN Suspends Libya From Rights Council,” The AssociatedPress, March 1, 2011, www.usatoday.com/news/world/2011-03-01-un-suspends-libya_N.htm.The United Nations has suspended Libya from the Human

Rights Council for “gross and systematic” rights violationsunder the regime of Moammar Gadhafi.

Annan, Kofi, “Despite Flaws, UN Human Rights CouncilCan Bring Progress,”The Christian Science Monitor, Dec.8, 2011, www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2011/1208/Kofi-Annan-Despite-flaws-UN-Human-Rights-Council-can-bring-progress.Skeptics say the U.N. Human Rights Council has not lived up

to its mandate, but a former U.N. secretary-general says aban-doning it altogether is the wrong way to advance human rights.

Zavis, Alexandra, “U.N. Rights Panel Faults Syria Regime,”Los Angeles Times, Dec. 3, 2011, p. A4, articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/02/world/la-fg-syria-un-20111203.The U.N. Human Rights Council has concluded that Syria’s

security forces have committed crimes against humanity intheir treatment of Arab Spring dissenters.

Peacekeeping

Bildt, Carl, “The Inspiration Behind U.N. Peacekeeping,”Daily Star (Lebanon), Sept. 9, 2011, www.dailystar.com.lb/News/International/2011/Sep-09/148290-the-inspiration-behind-un-peacekeeping.ashx#axzz1n8iKT7Aj.A number of global developments, such as the Cold War and

globalization, have altered the premise of U.N. peacekeeping.

Jacob, Jayanth, “India Wants UN to Take Fresh Look atPeacekeeping,”Hindustan Times (India), Aug. 15, 2011,www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NewDelhi/India-wants-UN-to-take-fresh-look-at-peacekeeping/Article1-733357.aspx.India is pushing U.N. member countries to adopt new guide-

lines for peacekeeping, starting with getting finances in order.

Kahn, Benjamin, “Don’t Paralyze the Peacekeepers,” TheNew York Times, Feb. 10, 2012, p. A27, www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/opinion/dont-paralyze-the-united-nations-peacekeepers.html.Nations that contribute troops to U.N. peacekeeping mis-

sions may have little in common with each other, and somemay have little national interest in the outcomes of peace-keeping efforts.

Nyesiga, Dias, “UN Commends Country’s PeacekeepingMission in Darfur,”The New Times (Rwanda), May 29, 2011,www.newtimes.co.rw/news/index.php?i=14640&a=9508.Deputy U.N. Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro has ex-

pressed gratitude for Rwanda’s efforts in the peacekeepingmission in Darfur.

Additional Articles from Current Periodicals

CITING CQ GLOBAL RESEARCHER

Sample formats for citing these reports in a bibliography

include the ones listed below. Preferred styles and formats

vary, so please check with your instructor or professor.

MLA STYLEFlamini, Roland. “Nuclear Proliferation.” CQ Global Re-

searcher 1 Apr. 2007: 1-24.

APA STYLEFlamini, R. (2007, April 1). Nuclear proliferation. CQ Global

Researcher, 1, 1-24.

CHICAGO STYLEFlamini, Roland. “Nuclear Proliferation.” CQ Global Researcher,

April 1, 2007, 1-24.

www.globalresearcher.com March 20, 2012 151

The Next Step:

Voices From Abroad:

KANAT SAUDABAYEVMinister of Foreign Affairs, Kazakhstan

A storied contribution“Over the past 65 years,

the United Nations has madean enormous contribution topeace and security on ourplanet and to the solution ofmany social, economic, hu-manitarian and other prob-lems. It is in our common in-terests that the United Nationscontinues to demonstrate lead-ership in promoting peace andcooperation and sustainableprogress on Earth.”

Speech before 65th session ofU.N. General Assembly September 2010

SYED YUSUF RAZAGILANI

Prime MinisterPakistan

Using its power“The U.N. must use its

offices to achieve a freshconsensus on broad contoursof this anti-terror policy. TheU.N. must also spell out astrategy to address the right-ful grievances of people.”

Associated Press of PakistanJuly 2011

BAN KI-MOONSecretary-General United Nations

Peacekeeping must evolve“We may be entering a

new phase, with diverse andmultifaceted situations wherepeacekeeping may play a role.Peacekeeping will need to

evolve to meet specific de-mands in a variety of envi-ronments and to flexibly andnimbly bring together multi-ple capabilities in a coherentand effective manner.”

India Blooms News ServiceAugust 2011

ED LUCKSpecial Adviser United Nations

Strong principles“Today, the principle of

human protection and re-sponsibility to protect are sostrong that even governmentstraditionally worried aboutsovereignty did not want tostand in the way of force-ful council action.”

The Nation (Thailand), March 2011

SIMON ADAMSFormer pro-vice chancellor

Monash University Australia

The U.N.’s failures“From the killing fields of

Cambodia to East Timor,Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo,mass-atrocity crimes were gen-erally met with internationaldiplomatic passivity. The Unit-ed Nations proved incompe-tent or impotent in the faceof monstrous human rightschallenges.”

Canberra (Australia) TimesApril 2011

HANY BESADASenior Researcher, North-South Institute, Canada

Cagle Cartoons/Mike Keefe

BABACAR GAYEMilitary adviser

U.N. Mission in Sudan

Protect the Sudanese“We could have and

should have had more vis-ibility to deter any violenceagainst [Sudanese] civilians.”

The Guardian (England) June 2011

VLADIMIR PUTINPrime Minister, Russia

Learn from the past“I very much hope that

the USA and other countrieswill take dismal experienceinto account and not try touse the force scenario inSyria. . . . Having learnt frombitter experience, we opposethe adoption of UN Securi-ty Council resolutions thatcould be interpreted as a sig-nal to military intervention ininternal Syrian processes. . . .Russia together with Chinaprevented in early Februarythe adoption of [such a] res-olution.”

Moskovskiye Novosti February 2012

Response necessary“The [Libyan] violence has

created a massive humani-tarian crisis, displacing hun-dreds of thousands of for-eign workers and Libyansalike. Failure to develop aneffective response to haltthese events would renderthe R2P [Responsibility toProtect] doctrine ineffectiveand undermine the credibil-ity of the United Nations.”

Korea Times (South Korea)May 2011

INGA-BRITT AHLENIUSUnder-Secretary-GeneralInternal Oversight Services

United Nations

Lacking accountability“There is no transparen-

cy; there is a lack of ac-countability. Rather than sup-porting the internal oversight,which is the sign of strongleadership and good gover-nance, you have strived tocontrol it, which is to un-dermine its position. I donot see any signs of reformin the [U.N.] organization.”

Financial Post (Canada) August 2010