Does the UN Still Matter?

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The question of making the United Nations a relevant player in world affairs surely involves the UN's performance in peacekeeping, nation-building, protecting people in danger, and fighting terrorism.

But like it or not, a key set of judges of the UN's performance will be the policy community in Washington, DC.

Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who also served as America's UN ambassador in the mid-1990s, represents one point of view in Washington.

"It cannot do more than the nation-states allow it to do. I am a great believer in the United Nations," Albright said.

"I do think that it needs to have a lot of reform. ... I don't think it's morally superior. I think that it is very important and very useful."

Conservatives like Dr. Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation have a different viewpoint.

"I believe the United Nations is a world organization in serious trouble," he said. "It's an organization in tremendous decline in terms of its relevance as a major institution on the world stage."

Good, But Needs Work
The argument that the United Nations does a lot of good but needs serious reform is repeated again and again in the US policy community and around the world.

Ken Roth, head of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, says much of the criticism of the UN stems from a fundamental misunderstanding.

"I think it's important that when you talk about the United Nations to be thinking in two parts. Because on the one hand there's the United Nations that is an operational agency that sends it's refugee workers into the field, may actually deploy peacekeepers. There's a separate part of the UN, which is a forum for the governments of the world to meet," Roth said.

"But it's wrong to blame the UN as an institution for the failings of the governments of the world. It's not the UN's fault, the UN is just the assembly hall."

The Heritage Foundation's Gardiner said American understanding of the United Nations is vitally important.

"I think it has to be accepted that the UN will sometimes take decisions which are seen to be unpopular in the United States, and I think that is an accepted fact," he said.

But "the US contributes 22 percent of the UN budget. It pumps over 3 billion dollars a year into the UN of American taxpayers' money. I think the American taxpayer demands value for money, and if the UN is seen as organization which is anti-American—or which is impeding the goals of US national security or US foreign policy—you are going to have a backlash against that inevitably."

A New Effort to Reform
Partly to avoid just such a backlash, the United Nations has entered into what could become the most serious reform effort in the organization's history.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has appointed a panel of what he calls eminent persons, or experts, to recommend how the UN can meet 21st century challenges.

Assistant Secretary of State Holmes welcomes the initiative.

"There were some people who were disappointed last year when the Security Council could not come together on a unanimous position on the war in Iraq. And we were disappointed also. Other countries were disappointed perhaps for different reasons. We're glad the secretary-general has undertaken this exercise. And we certainly look forward to the outcome of that study."

Related Web Links
The United States Mission to the United Nations
http://www.un.int/usa/

Publications by Dr. Nile Gardiner, the Heritage Foundation
http://new.heritage.org/About/Staff/NileGardinerpapers.cfm

The United Nations Association of the United States of America
http://www.unausa.org