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It’s Time to Get Rid of the United Nations
Please note that I wrote get rid of, not just get out of, the United Nations. Yes, I know we’ve talked about making this move for years, but it’s way past due to act. Let’s do a quick review of this feckless and inconsequential organization. Since many people have written so cogently on this topic, I have let them speak for me to a great extent.
To provide background, the U.N. was formed after World War II:
The Roosevelt administration strove to avoid Woodrow Wilson’s mistakes in selling the League of Nations to the Senate. It sought bipartisan support and in September 1943 the Republican Party endorsed U.S. participation in a postwar international organization, after which both houses of Congress overwhelmingly endorsed participation. Roosevelt also sought to convince the public that an international organization was the best means to prevent future wars. The Senate approved the UN Charter on July 28, 1945, by a vote of 89 to 2. The United Nations came into existence on October 24, 1945, after 29 nations had ratified the Charter.
In what way is the UN so useless?
Bruce Walker in the American Thinker explained, in part, why that hasn’t worked out:
The United Nations was created primarily to preserve peace, but it has never succeeded in that at all, nor has it prevented the genocides that so horrified the civilized world after the Second World War ended. The reasons why are pretty clear. Most of the “nations” represented in the United Nations are little more than brutal ruling gangs, who suppress captive peoples like the Kurds and Tibetans and who routinely deny the most basic human rights to those they rule.
The UN has no enforcement authority.
So what can the UN do in terms of enforcing their mandates? Here’s a paragraph on their enforcing protection of the rights of women:
Enforcement mechanisms are usually categorized by the type of UN body that receives communications or carries out the monitoring process. There are three broad categories of enforcement mechanisms: (1) charter-based mechanisms, such as the UN Commission on the Status of Women; (2) convention or treaty-based mechanisms, such as the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women; and (3) mechanisms contained in UN specialized agencies, such as the International Labor Organization or the World Health Organization. Each of these bodies monitors either a specific human rights issue or particular treaties.
If you look farther down the page, it explains that remedies for violations are submitting complaints and reports. So much for enforcement.
The Conservative Review published an article on its reasons for the US to defund and leave the United Nations: (1) the UN is pro-abortion, except for those Muslim countries who prohibit abortion; (2) the UN has become a lobbying group for the LGBT movement. (One of the organization’s agencies, UNESCO, even jumped into the fray in 2016 with a report called “Out in the Open” which calls for the public school teaching of the world’s children on transgender issues); (3) it referenced an article in the Washington Times which explained how the UN was working to supersede our gun control laws:
The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) was negotiated from 2006, during the Bush administration, through 2013 with the Obama administration. The original intent of the treaty was theoretically to prohibit arms transfers to regimes that abused human rights. From the very start though, gun control groups looked upon the treaty as an end run around America’s domestic reluctance to adopt their agenda — if Congress and the state legislatures wouldn’t pass gun control why not get the U.N. to make it a permanent part of its agenda or even better part of international law? The proposed ATT gave them the opportunity they had been waiting for, a legally binding treaty imposing regulation and conditions on the transfer and maybe possession of any weapon from a pistol to a battle ship. As incredible as it seems, the U.N. Human Rights Commission has already interpreted lack of gun control as a human rights abuse.
The treaty is now in effect internationally and approved by Obama but the Senate didn’t sign it into law.
There are those who say that the UN does do some good work in humanitarian assistance, the World Food Program, UNICEF, and the UN Refugee Agency. I didn’t research the work of these agencies, but we have to ask if there are other ways to provide these programs without the UN?
Finally, Charles Krauthammer said in an interview with Fox News:
So we’re paying an organization that spends half its time — more than half its time and energy and resources and bureaucracy– trying to attack the only Jewish state on the planet, a tiny little speck, while genocide mayhem, murder, terrorism is going on all over the world. It’s an obsession that to an outside observer appears to be insane. Why are we doing this? And the rest of the time is spent undermining the United States and democracy and our allies around the world.
He closes by saying:
It is an organization that exacerbates tensions, it does not assuage them. It was born in hope, the end of the second World War. It turned out to be a disaster . . . imagine if headquarters were in Zimbabwe. The amount of weight and coverage it would get would be zero. I think it’s good real estate in downtown New York City. Trump ought to find a way to put his name on it and turn it into condos.
It’s time to dissolve the UN by pulling out funds and US participation. What do you think?
Published in Foreign Policy
If only that happened. That usually means war (although maybe that’s what you meant). It is so true that the Left doesn’t understand the self-serving nature of bad people; they have nothing to gain and everything to lose by collaborating.
There is something laughably stupid about dictatorial bad-guys getting to vote alongside those who are from democratically elected governments. Why validate evil?
Exactly. Mark Steyn once said (I forget where) that the problem with the U.N. was that having the “good guys” in the same organization as the “bad guys” was the same problem as taking a pint of vanilla ice cream and mixing in a pint of dog feces: it would be very clear which flavor would predominate.
Doesn’t New York city suck enough government funds through cronyism already?
Omg, I’m like that drunk guest that stays on and on and on….I know!! But the only thing worse than staying is leaving. So…
America and Americans (I generalise) value places like Egypt and Jordan more for what they and their governments mean for Israel’s security than they do for Egypt and Jordan themselves, or indeed the millions of people in these countries.
Which you can see in actions, if not always in words.
Who would follow your lead in this and why? Is their agenda really the same as yours?
Would they try to take your place?
Arguable. What is its purpose?
What will stop the same dysfunction from kicking in – assuming you want to achieve the same things with the same domestic political chorus?
America already influences the world immensely.
Just not the US Administration, which is a flat footed mouth breather compared to US civil (liberal) society.
And it should be. We are a people with a government and not the other way around.
No, no! I meant it! ;-)
I don’t know if that’s true or not. We value different countries for different reasons, and it’s never equal or even fair. It’s kind of hard to contradict what you say, though.
I think Great Britain might. Others who have been allies of ours in the Middle East and are tired of having to work with tyrannies and dictators might. I don’t know if they’d try to take our place, although I’m not sure what that means to you–do you mean as the leader of the world? I don’t think anyone else really wants that job, frankly.
Zafar (View Comment)Supposedly to keep peace in the world, if you’re talking about the current UN.
For one, I think the countries who join should be democracies. That should make a huge difference. I don’t know that we’d want to achieve the same things as the current UN, since the original goal was to keep peace in the world. It might just be a chance to interface with each other.
Israel isn’t just a single issue. Even if it were, while one needs to be careful when and where one uses a litmus test, it isn’t categorically a bad idea for people or nations.
Also, with the sorts of things “everybody else” has been on board with, I’m not sure how much I should care what they think is a bit insane, except to the extent that it warns me about their likely bad actions.
Speaking of Israel, The American Interest has a thought provoking and informative piece up by Michael Herzog, who has participated in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations for over 20 years. In this article, he is mostly talking about the negotiations in which John Kerry was involved. As should be expected from his affiliation with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and his long service in Labor governments in Israel, Herzog is a man of the Israeli Left.
Well, there is certainly a lot of hot air generated by that no-good, feckless bunch of bags of slimy swill! (Excepting a few very select individuals and groups—Britain, Israel come to mind). That building occupies a very expensive and desirable chunk of real estate; how was the land acquired for the building? Who paid to build it? Does the USA still own it? Are we charging rent to each nation who is a member? Can we shrink the diplomatic perimeter around the building? How much grief and loss of revenue have the members caused?
Perhaps things have changed, but in years past we couldn’t even get them to pay their unpaid parking tickets. Diplomatic immunity applies to diplomats, not just real estate.
I don’t think that’s changed. I remember hearing a case on diplomatic immunity where someone was protected.
I agree that it is time for the UN to change and that America should stop funding it. However, I am cautious of how. I think that a UN like body is needed for international conversations that can be multinational, ongoing, and less personal than ambassadors. It seems a lot easier for a country to recall an ambassador than boycott the UN. Of course, this is not important enough to warrant super-national authority over a country.
One of the aspects of the UN that I reject is the idea that the UN has any authority. Even if the UN was done well, it would still have no actual authority since each nation would have to accept each resolution independently. The only benefit is that nations are demanded to accept all resolutions if they want a part in the UN at all. An all or none choice. However, this is not good as well since the ultimate end to that bargain is a world wide government.
IMO, the USA cannot grant to the UN control over our laws and our citizens. For example, the international court is a legal irregularity as it does not have legitimate authority except by treaty, and even that is questionable IMO. Can the US convict someone of breaking other’s laws? Only by our own extradition law can that happen, so why bother with the IC.
So, I think that the UN should be restrained to what it can do, be a place to talk.
Well, I think we have to do something quite different than we have, ModEcon. Even change the name. We probably need to only include democracies. You’re also correct that whatever it does can’t be binding. (They have no enforcement abilities now anyway.) But a few people have suggested “a place to talk.” That new approach might have some merit.
Great post, Susan
If we only include democracies, how will we help other countries change? Well, there are other ways, but a UN like system (we can change the name, I don’t mind :) ), is needed to allow that multinational conversation. Also, can we really say that it is whether a country is a “democracy” that makes it good or bad. Rather, we should only invite countries that we don’t find morally reprehensible. After all, even the USA isn’t a “democracy” but rather a democratic republic. So, as opposed to the “safe spaces” of leftist thought, we shouldn’t be too quick to condemn other countries for having a different system (ie, different ideas). I hear that some of the best countries in the middle east are monarchies or similar structures. It is the culture of countries, not the governments that are the issues often. Would we want to associate with an Egypt ruled by a democratic muslim brotherhood? Plus, there is an interesting argument that democracies will fail without intelligent enough populations, so do we really want only democracies.
Also, Isn’t the UN somewhat effective in creating political pressure in international opinion as well as constructing multinational support structures like disaster relief that isn’t controlled by one country for political reasons? Can we keep that as well as the place to talk?
We need effective ways to show international support for a specific project or policy.Consider sanctions for real problems. Nations, including the US, need to have a system to implement controlled policies to effect nations for bad behavior. However, unlike the UN, no nation should be able to speak for any other nation.
Take the recent Israel resolution. America clearly won’t stand by that resolution at least not under a republican. That is the problem with the UN. People want it to have authority, but not at other times. So the structure which tries to tie everything together in one giant supernational set of polices will never work.
There are sanctions against Iran or Russia that we like, China may incur some from their actions is the South China Sea, but others we don’t want like any possible sanctions against Israel.
However, rather than saying that the UN would never work and so we should abandon it, why don’t we still allow for other countries to get together and talk about whether each one of these sanctions is justified and then allow countries to form temporary issue specific alliances. This allows the legitimacy of having public, international debate on international issues in order for the world to be able to have an informed opinion on each issue. I believe that it is important for most countries to have a seat in the gallery at least, if not at the table as well.
Soundtrack
Might leave if you did? Possible.
Might take your place? Doubtful.
Tired of it? But why?
Tyrants and dictators inthe Middle East can be far easier to work with because their governments’ policies and positions don’t have to reflect the wishes of the people.
Riffing off our previous example, do you think it’s the Egyptian people’s wish to keep the border closed and bottle up Gazans to increase the pressure on Hamas?
I don’t think it is. But Sissi is only tangentially concerned with their wishes, and consequently is more convenient to deal with than, say, Morsi. Why be surprised when this particular dictator, and others like him, are treated as de facto legitimate in the UN?
It certainly would!
And now it is to maintain the status quo. Which can be intrinsically not peaceful. Quite.
That was extremely interesting.
What I don’t understand is the hope that Abu Mazen would be able to sell anything to the Palestinian public.
Since the Palestine Papers were published he’s pretty much lacked any credibility. It’s been a disaster for Fatah, and why Hamas keeps winning elections when they’re actually held.
There was never any danger of that happening. My own belief is that Abbas’ agenda has been to stay on top and keep the money flowing into his personal accounts and those of his family and friends for as long as he can. Arafat, of course had dual agendas; enrichment and the Phased Plan. Abbas is now a purely cynical crook. I think. Or maybe he’s Arafat II and believes in the Phased Plan after all. But actually trying to persuade the Palestinian public? Are you kidding?
Besides, the PA and UNWRA have invested too much in pre-K on up indoctrination; big swathes of the Palestinian public aren’t just looking to Hamas out of disgust for the PA.
As to the other parties in the negotiations – the information in the Palestine Papers was hardly a secret to the parties involved before the Papers got out, and yet the negotiations went on. There are many parties whose interests lie in the continued spinning of the peace processor. It is not the first time that the international community has proceeded with utter contempt for what the the Israelis and/or the Palestinians actually want.
That’s the conundrum (?).
The only ‘acceptable’ Palestinians are the individuals and organizations that are reasonable enough to be temptable and therefore corruptible (i.e. Not Hamas), but by the same token their growing ‘acceptability’ (corruption and acquiescence) is precisely what makes them less and less able to deliver meaningful Palestinian consensus on anything.
I guess pressing a leadership as hard as possible may not be the best long term strategy – if you want peace – people accept defeat with honour in a way they won’t an attempt at utter (and especially humiliating) domination.
Abu Mazen accepted every ignominy described in the Palestine Papers – so long as it wasn’t public knowledge. When word got out, he couldn’t continue.
Hamas has been catching up for years:
2012
But only the poor millionaires are stuck in Gaza:
2014
Oh no, you know what this means….
Also – isn’t it kind of weird that Hamas’ relatively minor (in comparison) source of enrichment depends on a Israel’s blockade? Or is it?
Zafar and Ontheleftcoast’s back and forth has seriously been more educational than the past decade of politicians arguing about the UN.
And I can’t even begin to jump in until maybe this afternoon. @zafar and @ontheleftcoast, you have really brought thoughtful and intelligent and knowledgeable depth to the conversation. Thank you! Back later . . .
Arafat was wise enough to put Fatah into the Socialist International where he got to hang out with other socialist big shots from the countries that became big donors to Fatah, big shots in NGOs which funneled the money – and Israeli Labor Party pols. Between his stints as Prime Minister and President, Shimon Peres was a senior officer of the International.
Hamas, with none of those connections, was stuck with the “terrorist” label which seriously impaired its graft possibilities, thus providing a exemplar of Ambrose Bierce’s definition:
Hamas has certainly taken advantage of the reputation, though the impediment is rapidly going away.
Thanks for your comments. This first paragraph represents all the things that we probably don’t need, ModEcon, IMHO. We don’t need to show unified (I’m assuming that’s what you meant by international) support of a specific project or policy. Unless a nation is jeopardizing the state of the world, it’s no one’s business. I see no benefit for a UN-like nation to state its ideas. Sanctions are barely useful: countries that are sanctioned bypass them illegally, and plenty of countries are willing to help them. Or the sanctioned country doesn’t mind starving its people. There isn’t a system that I would support to implement “controlled policies”; again there is no way that countries would organize around that, and if they did, they wouldn’t follow through.
I think you are going for some kind of globalist or internationalist organization that not only wouldn’t work, but that nations could not get together to support.
BTW I don’t criticize countries that have different ideas–unless they are hurting their own people or the U.S. But again, there’s little that we could realistically do about that.
Because they brutalize their people; because they violate human rights; because they have no respect for other religions; just for starters.