{"id":42897,"date":"2014-05-19T12:00:21","date_gmt":"2014-05-19T11:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=42897"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:34:59","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:34:59","slug":"conundrum-the-limits-of-the-united-nations-and-the-search-for-alternatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/05\/conundrum-the-limits-of-the-united-nations-and-the-search-for-alternatives\/","title":{"rendered":"ConUNdrum: The Limits of the United Nations and the Search for Alternatives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brett D. Schaefer(Ed.), <\/strong>ConUNdrum: The Limits of the United Nations and the Search for Alternatives, <\/em><\/strong>(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009)<\/strong><\/p>\n

There have always been in the USA Right Wing critiques of the United Nations whose battle cry is \u201cGet the U.N. out of the US and the US out of the U.N.\u201d The Heritage Foundation had published an earlier collection of essays in much that spirit.(1) The attacks, however, were often factually incorrect, and the understanding of how the U.N. works in reality was superficial. As the US Senator and policy advisor Daniel Moynihan once quipped, \u201cEveryone is entitled to his own opinion but not to his own facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

This current collection of essays, including those by John Bolton and Terry Miller, both of whom served as US Ambassadors to the U.N., are of a better factual level, though most of the authors would be happy to see the U.N. replaced by a \u201cLeague of Democracies\u201d in which the USA would play the key role. Kim Holmes sets out the idea of a Global Freedom Coalition in his chapter \u201cSmart Multilateralism\u201d. His position is that \u201cMultilateralism is not an end in itself. It is one of many foreign policy tools, admittedly a very important one, in the diplomatic kit. Basically a dialogue among nations that hope to work out common approaches to common concerns, multilateralism complements the enormous amount of bilateral diplomacy that thousands of government officials conduct every day to promote and protect their nations\u2019 interests and priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the U.N. can not be replaced by a body of the likeminded, then it may be reformed to make it a better instrument for the advancement of US aims. The book merits study for its analysis of how the U.N. system operates in the fields of environment, arms control and conflict resolution, human rights, and trade and development. The chapters are generally accurate overviews of U.N. and Specialized Agency activities with website addresses and useful bibliographies, even if the books cited have a \u2018right slant\u2019. It is the \u2018reforms\u2019 proposed that are colored by their aims of only advancing US national interest. However the US government is not the only state concerned to advance what its leaders consider to be its national interest.<\/p>\n

There are two and a half themes that run through the book. The first, an old argument, is that the US pays too much money for what it gets in return. However, there are no comparisons with the costs of other multilateral bodies such as the European Union or with the administration of national governments.<\/p>\n

The second theme is that the U.N. has grown too complex. As Holmes notes \u201cThe U.N. is simply too poorly primed for American multilateralism It is a vast labyrinth of agencies, offices, committees, commissions, programs, and funds, often with overlapping and duplicative missions. Lines of accountability and responsibility for specific issues or efforts are complex, confused, and often indecipherable. For example, dozens of U.N. bodies focus on development, the environment, and children\u2019s and women\u2019s issues. Coordination is minimal. Reliable means to assess the effectiveness of the bodies\u2019 independent activities is practically nonexistent.\u201d These comments have been made by others, including those who have worked in the U.N. system. (2)<\/p>\n

What the authors do not mention is the difficulties of governments with smaller delegations than those of the US to find their way through the labyrinth of the U.N. system. Also unmentioned is any comparison between the U.N. and national governments also filled with ministries, agencies and funds with overlapping and duplicate missions.<\/p>\n

The half-theme that runs through several of the chapters but is developed fully in none is the role and power of the representatives of non-governmental organizations. The President of the Heritage Foundation, Edwin Feulner, notes \u201cNon-state actors operating through advocacy groups and nongovernmental organizations, virtually unknown at the U.N. in the early 1980s, now exert influence over U.N. deliberations and activities on a level that is sometimes nearly on par with sovereign states.\u201d Susan Yoshihara adds \u201cAided and abetted by activist NGOs, the U.N. retains sweeping plans to remake the world, but at steep cost to its traditional role of providing vaccinations, medicine, clean water, and a helping hand.\u201d One can question if providing vaccinations and clean water were traditional U.N. roles. Having been a NGO representative to the U.N. in Geneva since 1973, I have followed closely the growth of U.N. development activities \u2014 much of it in response to the membership of new states, especially from Africa starting in the early 1960s. The growth has been largely in response to events, the Nigeria-Biafra War of the late 1960s and the Sahel drought of the 1970s have been key moments that required multi-level responses. The U.N. has grown not by having \u201csweeping plans to remake the world\u201d but in response to immediate needs of people and the difficulties of a single national government to meet these needs.<\/p>\n

The book is worth reading for a better understanding of a strong, if misguided, current in U.S. politics. These criticisms need to be taken seriously, but, I believe, that reforms must be taken within the U.N. and not in alternative \u2014as yet uncreated\u2014 institutions.<\/p>\n

NOTES:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Burton Y. Pines (Ed.). A World Without the U.N. What Would Happen If The United Nations Shut Down?<\/em> (Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation, 1984)<\/p>\n

2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 See Maurice Bertrand Refaire L\u2019ONU! (<\/em>Geneva: Editions Zoe, 1986)<\/p>\n

_______________________________<\/p>\n

Ren\u00e9 Wadlow, a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and of its Task Force on the Middle East, is president and U.N. representative (Geneva) of the Association of\u00a0World\u00a0Citizens. He is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The book is worth reading for a better understanding of a strong, if misguided, current in U.S. politics. These criticisms need to be taken seriously, but, I believe, that reforms must be taken within the U.N. and not in alternative \u2014as yet uncreated\u2014 institutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}