UN Is Best Seen in Humble Light

"We, the people of the United Nations…." These are the first words of the preamble of the UN Charter. But while it all sounds very lofty, it doesn't have anything to do with reality. In fact, governments, not people make the big decisions regarding the world organization. And only a portion of these governments are democratically elected.

Dictatorial regimes have been, and are now, among the mightiest countries, that is, the five permanent Security Council members whose veto power can condemn the United Nations to passivity. And even countries with freely elected governments don't always accurately represent their populations; think of Britain's Tony Blair and Spain's Jose Maria Aznar voting in favor of the Iraq war, although the majority of their countrymen and women opposed it vehemently.

The first sentence of the preamble sums up the discrepancies that have plagued the United Nations since it was founded 60 years ago. During the Cold War, the Security Council could only rarely fulfill its intended function: to provide for peace and security in the world. True, blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers have frequently played a role in bringing peace to a region in the aftermath of armed conflict. But the key word here is "aftermath." In the vast majority of cases -- think Korea and Vietnam -- the United Nations has been unable to prevent the outbreak of war. In Rwanda, the organization stood by as genocide took place before the eyes of the world.

Iraq as example

It may be worth noting that, since the end of the East-West conflict in the late 1980s, the use of vetoes by the UN Security Council has tended toward zero. But the latest example, Iraq, shows that the highest UN committee can only stop armed conflict from occurring when all of the permanent members want to.

If UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had his way, the organization would undergo reforms in this, its 60th year of existence, bringing it up to date with the 21st century. But Annan's agenda was thoroughly diluted at the United Nations Summit in mid-September. The famed "millennium goals" were approved -- who would dare oppose fighting poverty and disease? -- but when it came to financing development aid, the countries once again left matters as nonbinding as possible. Furthermore, Security Council reform was again delayed amid discord. And members skirted the issue of actually coming up with an official decision on what constitutes terrorism.

Forum for ideas

Once again, it became clear how difficult it is to agree on the future of the United Nations. Anyone who dreams of a capable and competent world governing body can only be disappointed by the United Nations. A better option would be to view the United Nations in a humbler light. There are, in fact, areas where the organization gets the job done: the human rights charter, sub-organizations -- such as the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) -- and international courts of law represent development milestones. UN organizations have repeatedly won the Nobel Peace Prize, and with good reason. This year the honor went to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its chief, Mohammed ElBaradei.

In terms of world peace, though, the United Nations is above all a form for exchanging ideas. In certain cases concrete peace measures are undertaken. But in the end, the UN isn't responsible for bringing peace to the world -- that is the job of the 191 member states.