I Love the U.N., but It Is Failing

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/opinion/sunday/i-love-the-un-but-it-is-failing.html

by guylepage3 • 10 years ago

201 115 10 years ago

The key reason for it's failings according to this author is the bureaucracy.

One of the reasons the UN was created or transformed out of the league of nations was to prevent world war by providing an avenue of negotiation. By its founding purpose I think it has not done too badly.

There's a moral duty the UN seems to have, but this is an extra purpose to the UN. There are organisations that don't need the echo chambers of other nations that can do the same things, such as doctors without borders.

tptacek• 10 years ago

The author seems to have foreseen that response and gone to pains to point out gratuitous bureaucracy, such as the requirement to wait almost a year to bring new medical staff on to combat the ebola epidemic.

k-mcgrady• 10 years ago

> "the requirement to wait almost a year to bring new medical staff on to combat the ebola epidemic."

Are you getting this from another source because it doesn't seem to be mentioned in the article. It mentions taking several weeks to process the forms of a medical worker they needed to see at headquarters. The recruitment system that may take a year to hire someone seems to be a separate issue. I wish the author had went into more detail on that because it's very vague. What is the hiring process? Are two or three interview spread over a year? Do you have to interview several hundred people for a position? It's hard to place any importance on the statistic without more information.

mwsherman• 10 years ago

Bureaucracy of this sort begins with the belief that systems are designed a priori by rules.

I am sure that most of the personnel policies that the author alludes to are well-meaning and intuitive. What is out of scope in such rule-making is the empirical outcome. The cost of delay (213 days to hire) is apparently not a factor in the rules.

They lose a lot of good people in a presumed attempt to ensure they hire good people. Such an outcome is only recognized a posteriori.

joshuaheard• 10 years ago

The human species has a long way to go.

UhUhUhUh• 10 years ago

Reading the UN declaration of 1948 helps to put things in perspective. It hangs on my wall.

igravious2• 10 years ago

I wish I were that idealistic. But I appreciate the sentiment. In a similar vein I had a Peters† Projection map on my wall for a very long time.

† http://www.petersmap.com/ (the Mercartor Projection makes the political north look way larger than it actually is, the Peters Projection is an area accurate map. Specifically, Africa and Brazil are waaaay bigger than you'd think folks!)

Link to UN Declaration on Human Rights. Let's all be a little bit more idealistic :) http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

roymurdock• 10 years ago

Related article: Don't be a UN Intern

First thing’s first. You should understand the objectives of the organization you’re trying to join. There are three primary objectives of the UN system today. The first one is to pay the salaries and the perks of its employees. The second is to give them a microcosm in which they can walk around in suits, look important, use buzzwords, and basically find some, however contrived, meaning. The third one is to make it seem like there is an international political system out there, a framework of rules that everyone respects. This last one is increasingly optional in the post-Cold War geopolitical climate.

...

Your globetrotting, world-saving dream job doesn’t exist. It hasn’t existed for a while. The world has been explored – it no longer needs explorers, and especially doesn’t need faceless bureaucrats. It needs people who do things. Even if, through blackmail, magic rituals or blind luck, you land a UN job somehow, you will not be part of the world elite – far, far from it. You will push paper watching your years go by; your sole obsession will be sucking up to your neurotic supervisor in the hope of seeing your grade increase by a small notch five years down the road; you will wake up at 55 wondering where your professional life has gone. And that’s even discounting the remote possibility that the funding countries come along and say “Ok guys, the show’s been great, now pack it up and go home, you’re not needed anymore.”

https://desertqueensarah.wordpress.com/2015/08/21/dont-be-a-...

gohrt2• 10 years ago

The silly part of that analysis is that they think someone who gets a UN intern job has any interest in ever applying for a job they can't get through powerful friends and family.

pdabbadabba2• 10 years ago

This is just knee-jerk, spiteful cynicism. I know a number of people who dream of working for the U.N. and getting the job through connections certainly doesn't factor into it. Quite the contrary: landing a U.N. job (at least in the U.S.) is extremely difficult, and certainly far more difficult than other job opportunities available to these sorts of people. They're driven to the U.N. out of idealism, not laziness.

drzaiusapelord• 10 years ago

This last one is increasingly optional in the post-Cold War geopolitical climate.

Considering Russia and China are casually annexing territories, its pretty obvious this framework no longer exists. The UN made sense when the security council members had some incentive to use the UN system, but when their foreign policy is to circumvent international law at any opportunity, then its easy for them to sidestep it. Autocratic states ultimately can't work with democratic ones. Its unfair to expect one group to 'follow the rules' and another to go off willy-nilly when it serves them. There's no enforcer here, they're supposed to be voluntarily enforcing themselves and obviously that's not happening.

I won't even go into how easy it is for democratic nations to game the system either. Bush's run up to Iraq had all the hallmarks of the 'legitimate' UN: a debate, an airing of evidence, a vote, etc. Ultimately, it was just as hollow as an autocratic state annexing territory and telling everyone to piss off.

I suspect the UN has long fallen into pageantry and will never recover. It probably made sense to keep the US and the USSR from nuking each other, but today it lacks purpose and any real spirit of participation. It now exists to bully smaller nations who don't have a permanent seat in the security council, and because of that, it will never go away.

hackuser11• 10 years ago

Considering Russia and China are casually annexing territories, its pretty obvious this framework no longer exists

A pretty big overstatement. The only cross-border war between nations I can think of is Russia and Ukraine. If perfection is our standard, then of course the UN and everything else is a failure. Otherwise, the UN is doing this job effectively.

The UN made sense when the security council members had some incentive to use the UN system, but when their foreign policy is to circumvent international law at any opportunity, then its easy for them to sidestep it. Autocratic states ultimately can't work with democratic ones. Its unfair to expect one group to 'follow the rules' and another to go off willy-nilly when it serves them. There's no enforcer here, they're supposed to be voluntarily enforcing themselves and obviously that's not happening.

The golden age you imagine never existed. It's always been this way. This is the way the UN, and politics in general, works. I wish it were otherwise and we should work to improve it, but it does work, unless we measure it by the standards of ideals and perfection - and then what human institution (or human being) measures up?

theworstshill• 10 years ago

The biggest democratic state in history grabbed Hawai and occupied the Philippines. But now in the 21st century, since the world is "civilized", lets change the rules. Awfully close to patent trolling.

Anyway UN is doing its work fine. Its somewhat useless, but better than nothing.

afterburner2• 10 years ago

Russia and China are permanent veto members of the Security Council. That the members of the Security Council had far greater freedom of action was always baked into the system, and was required to get buy in from the the most powerful nations, without which the UN would fail (see: League of Nations).

dfkf• 10 years ago

Autocratic states ultimately can't work with democratic ones. Its unfair to expect one group to 'follow the rules' and another to go off willy-nilly when it serves them.

Libya's "no fly" zone, Iraq, Kosovo, nationalistic coup against a democratically elected president.... etc etc etc

I don't even what to say when reading texts like this. It's like democracy is the racism of the 21st century. White infallible democrats versus autocratic niggers.

jandrewrogers• 10 years ago

This article is a very accurate depiction of the UN in Geneva based on my experience there. I was working much higher up the food chain, not an intern, but the experience was the same. You have a few true believers trying to get things done surrounded by a vast sea of bureaucrats, a significant fraction of which are corrupt, with no obvious skills nor offering even a pretense of doing useful work for anyone.

It makes the most deadwood-collecting US government bureaucracy (I've worked there too) seem almost startup-like by comparison.

dba7dba• 10 years ago

Kinda expected. Any organization that requires no accountability (meaning occasional layoff sometimes) from members will breed people that do nothing.

gozur883• 10 years ago

And that’s even discounting the remote possibility that the funding countries come along and say “Ok guys, the show’s been great, now pack it up and go home, you’re not needed anymore.”

Hah! That will never happen. World governments need a place to send embarrassing brothers-in-law, blowhards, and idiots who can't, for political reasons, simply be drowned in a tub.

orbifold• 10 years ago

I think that is to some degree also how most of the other diplomatic posts are filled, the people that get the job usually have very strong ties to the political system and aren't particularly bright or qualified. For example the current ambassador of Germany to the vatican Annette Schavan lost her doctoral degree and position as minister for education because she plagiarized large parts of her dissertation. Obviously someone like that should represent a country.

almostApatriot1• 10 years ago

The second is to give them a microcosm in which they can walk around in suits, look important, use buzzwords, and basically find some, however contrived, meaning

Sounds like every private sector job i've had tbh.

lvs• 10 years ago

Yes. But not just suits. This is a cutting observation that applies to all "professionalized" organizations, but the form of that professionalism depends on context. It could be standard-issue to be wearing a blazer and jeans with spikey hair in your loft office, but you're still just acting important, using buzzwords, and doing basically nothing.

CM30• 10 years ago

"The second is to give them a microcosm in which they can walk around in suits, look important, use buzzwords, and basically find some, however contrived, meaning."

So that's the explanation for the UN's infamous 'internet violence' report, where instead of actually trying to look at any sort of real issue, they spent hundreds of pages talking about internet trolling on behalf of a few rich kids who were having issues with Twitter. While making every possible sourcing failure in the book at the same time.

said• 10 years ago

That U.N. hearing made several of my friends suddenly extremely interested in politics. And not in the way the U.N. bureaucrats would have liked.

They're currently sharing pro-Trump memes on Reddit.

bjourne2• 10 years ago

The problem with such absolutist statements is that you just need one counter-example to make the argument shaky. The IPCC organized by the UN puts out annual climate change reports and that is good work. Hence, not everything the UN does is useless garbage.

Snargorf• 10 years ago

You're so close to a breakthrough here.

If everything the UN does is self-serving bureaucratic garbage designed to maintain and expand the bureaucracy itself...

And the bureaucrats behind the IPCC gain authority and money when their reports are more alarmist...

And, every year, their reports become more alarmist...

And, every year, the IPCC bureaucrats gain authority and money...

Maybe... maybe the IPCC reports aren't a shining jewel of perfect Science that has somehow arisen from the bureaucratic cesspool of UN corruption?

Personally I find it pretty hard to believe that an organization that is so shot through with politics and corruption could somehow have one perfectly uncorrupted part. And, even more, that this part is one of its highest-status sub-bureaucracies. Something to consider, anyway.

Maybe the invariant in your argument shouldn't be an invariant. That's all I'm really saying. This article could refute your belief, rather than your belief refuting the article.

jacquesm• 10 years ago

If all the member states would live up to the charter it would do a lot better than it does. Another big problem is veto power abuse in the security council.

gohrt2• 10 years ago

If all the member states would live up to the charter, would you even need a charter?

r00fus• 10 years ago

The problem is the security council states (ie, the big 8) simply abuse their veto to prevent any repercussions of violations.

It's a system without any enforcement.

gavman• 10 years ago

The UN has a lot of problems beyond just its bureaucracy. I'm suspicious of it's ability to solve the problems it claims it exists to solve even if its bureaucracy was extremely efficient. It seems I read UN scandals on a monthly basis, to recall a few from the past few months:

Sexual abuse by it's peacekeepers (http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/world/2016/02/27/peacekeepe...). "Child sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers" even has its own wiki page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sexual_abuse_by_UN_peace...)

Bribes are abound, even a story earlier today (http://www.seattletimes.com/business/humanitarian-worker-cha..., http://nypost.com/2015/10/06/former-general-assembly-preside...).

Saudi Arabia is on the human rights council (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/22/why-is-saud...). Not exactly a "scandal" but in the same vein.

It's ever-increasingly hard to take the organization seriously.

vixen99• 10 years ago

Its ability. It's is a contraction for it is or it has.

habitue2• 10 years ago

I have a feeling the parent commenter knows the rule, but didn't care to follow it. Your comment seems like someone who walks up to every smoker they see and says "Did you know smoking causes cancer?"

phonon• 10 years ago

Its complete refusal to accept any responsibility whatsoever for causing the largest Cholera outbreak in the world in Haiti? http://www.ijdh.org/2015/05/topics/health/principal-appellat...

alainv• 10 years ago

Did you read the linked post? The abuse by its peacekeepers is what he cites as his main recent issue with the organization, and he indicates it was foreseeable and directly caused by the cynical and bureaucratic incentives in the UN.

CWuestefeld• 10 years ago

AIUI, the UN's mission is twofold:

* Stand up for the sovereignty of the world's nations.

* Defend human rights throughout the world.

These missions are in direct conflict. It's impossible to force states to play nice with human rights, while at the same time respect the sovereignty of these states.

What we're left with is just like the conflict in 2001's HAL-9000. Given two conflicting goals, bad things happen. Neither objective is fulfilled, and the system fails in all kinds of other ways too.

bcg1• 10 years ago

It is not a contradiction, it is a sham. To wit:

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 29, section 3: "These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations." [1]

[1] http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/eng...

whatyoucantsay• 10 years ago

The UN is a joke.

It breaks its own rules by refusing entry to a country with a vibrant democracy and a roughly comparable population and GDP as Australia—Taiwan. Why? Because China has a veto. Consequently, not only will the UN continue breaking its own guidelines and refusing Taiwan entry but it will also never condemn China's repeated threats of invasion.

Similar dynamics play out interests concerning other veto wielding countries such as the US or Russia.

macspoofing• 10 years ago

Because China has a veto.

Veto power is one of the big design successes of the UN. It guarantees major global powers, the ones you actually want to participate, actually participate and not ignore, or worse, pull-out and delegitimize the UN.

gozur883• 10 years ago

True. These are the countries that would have a de facto veto in any event due to military or economic power. Mostly military.

hourglass74• 10 years ago

But the People's Republic of China is already a member, so surely the membership of Chinese Taipei would be somewhat redundant? It's not like each and every U.S. state have their own separate U.N. memberships.

philovivero• 10 years ago

Haa ha ha! Beautiful troll.

But for those who aren't familiar with the situation, I'll lay it out.

Taiwan was formed when a bunch of Chinese aristocrats fled the mainland.

Their big mistake was, at the time, not declaring themselves a new country, but instead declaring they were the rightful rulers of all of China, and that they were, in fact, part of China.

At some point, a few years later, it became obvious that wasn't going to happen, and that China was going to be its own place. So Taiwan finally realized they really needed to give up this "we are part of China and the rightful rulers" and just become their own country.

However, at this point, they were a fairly prosperous state, so China found it politically-expedient to turn it around and say: "Actually, Taiwan is part of China as they've been saying all these years. We will pull them back into the fold."

All sorts of political shit-storm went down at this point, and hasn't really cooled off ever since.

People who frame Taiwan as being part of China (as parent did) are on the side of Mainland China. People who frame Taiwan as being an independent country (as many UN members do) are on the other side from Mainland China.

The debate is very much not settled.

SOURCE: was married to TW citizen for >10yr, have lived in TW for >1yr of my life. Have way more details on intricacies than I've laid out here.

hackuser11• 10 years ago

Why? Because China has a veto ... Similar dynamics play out interests concerning other veto wielding countries such as the US or Russia.

Think of the UN as a mechnism for de facto powers to resolve conflicts and come to agreements peacefully; that's the UN's purpose, to prevent another major war.

Justice would be great, but at least the catastrophe of war is prevented. Remember of the incredible destruction of WWII and now imagine what modern technology would do - even without nuclear weapons.

Also, Taiwan's official policy is that they are not a separate country but a part of China, with a separate government. That is the agreement worked out between the US, China and Taiwan.

argonaut2• 10 years ago

You need to be much more clear. The Republic of China's official policy is they are part of China, the geographical/historical/cultural entity. They have never said they are a part of the People's Republic of China. That is the agreement worked out between US, the PRC, and the ROC (note you said it was worked out between US, China, and Taiwan, which is inaccurate).

This may seem overly pedantic, but it is not. This wording is the entire backbone of the delicate geopolitical dance that underlies the status quo we have today.

iofj3• 10 years ago

Think of the UN as a mechnism for de facto powers to resolve conflicts and come to agreements peacefully; that's the UN's purpose, to prevent another major war.

The League of Nations had that as it's primary function [1]. Aside from some initial (heaveily criticized and somewhat dubious) successes, it failed. Spectacularly. The UN was created by reassembling the shattered bits of the LN ...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nations

gyardley• 10 years ago

I've coincidentally been on a couple trips with mid- and low-level UN bureaucrats, and when they got talking, this is exactly what they said - the organization is hidebound, sclerotic, and all-around useless.

God, the horror stories - even if they're only partially true, there's no reason whatsoever for the United States (or any other country) to be funding such a broken organization.

oldmanjay• 10 years ago

Get a view into the workings of the United States government at some point and let us know which is better or worse

shaftoe• 10 years ago

With April 15 coming, it wouldn't be hard to convince me that there's no reason to fund THAT broken organization either.

hackuser11• 10 years ago

To a great degree, these complaints should be familiar to anyone in a large bureaucracy: Endless procedure, imcompetence that can't be fired, decisions made for political reasons, etc.

Now imagine a bureaucracy run by and accountable to all the national government bureaucracies in the world! And remember that the ones most HN readers live under are, despite our whining, the most efficient and least corrupt in the world - the others are often far worse.

That's the UN. If you are going to have an association of the world's governments, I think that's the way it's going to be.

Like democracy, it's horrible but better than all the alternatives. It's primary purpose, IIRC, is to prevent international war (i.e., wars between nations, as opposed to civil wars). After all the war of human history, after WWI and WWII occurring within a 31 year period (think of that: that's like 1985 until today!), international war has almost been put to an end. It's now a major exception when it happens, and that fact is really a miracle.

They also achieve many other very important things, though expensively and slowly.

Remember that the UN is no fuzzy-minded idealist's fantasy. It was built by the survivors of WWII and WWI, while the ashes were still smoldering. Those people knew far more of war and the realities of man's inhumanity than we can imagine.

brashrat• 10 years ago

I agree with most of what you said about the bureaucracy, but the Pax Americana was achieved the old fashioned way, the same way as the preceding Pax Brittanica and the Pax Romana, to put it crudely, "Peace through superior firepower."

The real question is, does the UN or anything like the UN have role going forward, or must we suffer further degradations till we may arrive to some Pax Sino.

I've often speculated in my head about the desirabilty of closing down the UN to replace it with a "United Democracies" based as much on the carrot of trade as much as on any cudgels, but I think that's just a fantasy, you're always going to run into problems like "should Turkey be in or out of the EU and/or NATO, which way are they headed", and when do you ever let Russia or China in.

rlongstaff• 10 years ago

Although the idea of a 'United Democracies' or whatever it gets called sounds appealing, it has many flaws.

One of which you highlighted regarding what constitutes a democracy - some could even argue that the Electoral College in the USA means it isn't a true democracy!

Others are what legitimacy it would have in relation to countries that aren't members. Why should those countries care or co-operate with the organisation? Likely it would end up with UD trying to impose its will by force, which is a backwards step.

Furthermore, just because a country is a democracy doesn't mean it is automatically superior to every respect and entitled to adopt the high ground. Many democratic countries around the world have engaged in human rights abuses, started wars and interfered with other sovereign countries to install leaders who push their interests over that of the citizens. There is the danger that said countries in the UD would end up turning a blind eye to each other abuses because they, by definition, "wouldn't do that sort of thing".

hackuser11• 10 years ago

I've often speculated in my head about the desirabilty of closing down the UN to replace it with a "United Democracies"

You still need the UN as a mechanism by which international diplomacy can get done as much as is possible, including with non-democracies. Every time a decision has to be made (e.g., North Korea, Libya, etc. or worse a war between major powers), we don't want to have to create a new framework and mechanism with new rules.

I've often speculated in my head about the desirabilty of closing down the UN to replace it with a "United Democracies"

I think that's made much more possible and relevant by the spread of democracy. 30 years ago, it would have been almost exclusively the West. Now there are democracies all over the world; the old world order mechanisms (the UN Security Council, World Bank, etc.) don't include them, and the number and diversity of nations makes the old U.S.-led consensus much harder to achieve. Also, morally, the people in those nations deserve just as much of a vote in world affairs as Americans do - that's democracy.

zeemonkee3• 10 years ago

I agree with most of what you said about the bureaucracy, but the Pax Americana was achieved the old fashioned way, the same way as the preceding Pax Brittanica and the Pax Romana, to put it crudely, "Peace through superior firepower."

While these empires had powerful militaries, firepower alone did not make them powerful. Trade and culture were far more potent long term instruments of power. In modern terms, NATO is only one part of the equation of the Pax Americana - you also have Hollywood/English language/the internet and a global mesh of free trade agreements and shipping networks.

For all its downsides (and there are many, such as massive environmental damage and inequality) globalization is also a huge factor in the peace (although not necessarily an infallible one: the globalization in the 1900s wasn't enough to stop WW1).

brbsix3• 10 years ago

IMHO nuclear weapons have done far more for peace (specifically in the prevention of world war and conventional international wars) than the UN.

hunvreus• 10 years ago

The UN and many similar organizations in the non-profit/non-governmental/humanitarian/development space simply lack the incentive structure to do the right thing. Add to this the administrative weight of large organizations and you have the perfect recipe for an unbelievable shit show.

I hope that more organization like Watsi [1] or ONE [2] emerge and take donations away from more traditional and established non-profits, but I won't be holding my breath for it.

At the end of the day, the private sector probably yields more positive impact.

[1] https://watsi.org/

[2] http://one.org

cies2• 10 years ago

Unrelated to the article: I like the "U" but not the "N". I'm hoping that if we get to ever have a world wide office of any kind, that it will represent "people" instead of "nations". Nations go to war. People are either (1) (ab)used to fight them in name of their nations, or (2) merely trying to protect themselves. The number 1 mostly happens while somehow convincing people of number 2.

Anyway I wish for a "UP", United People, to arise from the ashes of the "UN". Yes, a people movement.

brbsix3• 10 years ago

So world government? Some of the most powerful people on the planet have been openly advocating for such a system for quite some time. If such a system is created, I certainly wouldn't expect it to be in the interest of "the people". Any time you consolidate such power, it is naturally co-opted by those who already have power. Perhaps advanced ledger technology can help keep things relatively democratic but this all sounds very dangerous.

cies2• 10 years ago

I agree. But then I see problems on this planet that cannot be solved locally.

And.. How flawed it's implementations until now may have been, I still believe in democracy as the best possible option. The "ledger tech" you mention is what could be used to keep the democracy direct (instead of representative). The thought of a world wide digital referendum on some issue, with proper cryptographic underpinnings, this makes sense to me.

I think the UN is somehow a step towards a one-world-gov't as OK'ed by the "most powerful"; they like the nations as that where they have their power vested, so the UN will protect their interests in the end.

The "United People", as I proposed, should actually reduce their power and put in the hands of the people.

rwmj• 10 years ago

Interesting article about the political shenanigans surrounding the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, going on in Vienna at the moment:

http://politics.co.uk/blogs/2016/03/15/the-un-fades-into-irr...

bbanyc• 10 years ago

That commission isn't just advisory like many (most?) UN bodies. It holds full power to schedule and deschedule controlled substances under the major drug treaties, and member nations (which include practically every country) are obligated to conform national law to the treaty schedules.

We'll see just how strong those treaties are. When the US led the drug war this was how we forced the rest of the world along. Can Russia, China, etc. do the same?

13thLetter2• 10 years ago

You just have to count up how much time the UN spends focusing on Israel as opposed to every other country in the world to realize that it not merely broken, but genuinely in the hands of the bad guys.

igravious2• 10 years ago

Rubbish. It is exactly because the situation regarding Palestine and Israel is so atrocious, so unendingly violent, such a blight on the region that the issues keep resurfacing.

The UN doesn't focus on every other country in the world because no other country in the world is occupying a territory it has no claim to and randomly destroys the infrastructure of the occupied territory and uses lethal force against its people.

source: I heard an ex-Israeli soldier who is proud of his country speak about this at length. http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/

douche2• 10 years ago

The Israeli-Palestinian problem is largely caused by the UN's toothlessness in the first place - and beyond that, like most of the shitshows that have plagued the world for the last fifty-odd years, the British and French abdicating responsibility for their colonies after World War 2.

mudil• 10 years ago

All in all, nowadays in the world there are more than 90 well recognized territorial disputes, from Tibet to Kaliningrad.

UN fixation on Israel is just another symptom of the rotten nature of UN, a mix of antisemitism and autocratic governments and UN bureaucrats.

13thLetter2• 10 years ago

Have you ever heard of a place called Tibet? It's pretty interesting. You can look it up on Wikipedia.

yuvalr1• 10 years ago

You are clearly wrong. By any mean and comparable criteria, the situation in Israel is far less worse than in any other conflict in the world.

The most trivial comparable criteria is probably the number of casualties in the conflict. If you look at the number of the Palestinian casualties during the Israeli-Arab conflict, and compare it with the number of casualties in any other conflict in the world (such as US's war in Iraq, NATO's war in Kosovo, The war in Syria, The massacre in Sudan, and sadly many other places), you'll see that the Israeli-Arab conflict is far less deadly than those any other conflicts. If only the UN would have given all the other conflicts in the world as much attention as it gives the Israeli-Arab conflict, many people's lives would have been saved. But the UN doesn't. That's probably because the UN's committee of human rights is controlled by states that, let's just say, don't care too much about human rights.

By the way, the organization you linked to is considered biased and unreliable in Israel. This organization "collects" evidences about supposed crimes that Israeli soldiers supposedly committed, but mysteriously refuses to share those evidences with any authority in Israel, despite requests from the legal authorities for such evidences in order to open an investigation and put the soldiers to trial. This organization claims that it has evidences for supposed crimes, but instead of passing those evidences to enable the trial of those who committed the crime, the people of the organization prefer touring around the world telling fishy horror stories, while trying to generalize and present all the Israeli soldiers as criminals. Reasonably, this raises an eyebrow or two about the reliability of those stories.

abpavel• 10 years ago

6-member permanent security council members with veto ensures that nothing related to their interests is passed. It also shows who governs U.N.

ende2• 10 years ago

The UN is probably better described as "The WW2 Winning Team + associates". Please adjust expectations from here on out accordingly.

dellsystem• 10 years ago

Kenneth Cain, a former UN human rights lawyer, wrote a piece in a similar vein: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/apr/03/theobserver1 It was written over a decade ago but some of the points mentioned still feel very familiar today.

julie1• 10 years ago

Funny. The ancester of UN (LN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nations#General_weak...) failed with the same symptoms.

Created after WWI to prevent another WW it was disbanded after failing to prevent WWII

So, is anyone here implying we go for WWIII ?

Let me guess.... Milgram experiment is about the submission to authority.... The biggest problems right now is about the impoverishment of the workers and the "rich getting richer", but at the opposite of the time between WWI and WWII no one is proposing to prevent what generated WWII. (Mussolini and Hitler were elected notably to break the unions to help the companies stop losing values on paying these greedy workers diminishing the dividends)

So .... you really want people to go in the streets and ask that one hour worked should be payed, that tax are equally applied and demand that government do what the people ask?

You want the revolution in China, Europa, USA, Canada, Africa .... everywhere except Buthan maybe?

Seriously. This world is fine. With a 300$ phone in your pocket and the right app you can solve everything.

rmchugh• 10 years ago

Are there any meaningful opportunities for human rights minded developers in organisations such as this? Put another way, should idealistic developers consider careers in such organisations? If so, which ones and how?

matthewmcg• 10 years ago

Do these problems with the top level UN organization extend to its specialized sub-organizations like the WHO or the ICAO? From what I can see those are less flashy but do a workmanlike job coordinating intergovernmental efforts in important fields.

lucaspiller• 10 years ago

I'm a contractor for another UN-organisation, and it's the same situation here. My contract was extended, but it took forever to get approval due to beuracracy, so I was out of work for a week. Another developer has been off for two weeks and is still waiting for his renewal. I work in the IT department, so maybe it's different in the field.

anonbanker• 10 years ago

This is an extremely biased article. Having been involved in numerous Hague Convention proceedings, UNCITRAL Arbitration proceedings, and witnessing the current treaty renegotiation efforts of my governments with regard to drug legalization[0][1], I see the United Nations succeeding.

The United States, and it's media arm (NYT being part of it), have been visibly anti-UN pretty much since Clinton left office. Take it from an expatriate: The UN is pretty awesome, once you're out of the confines of the Lower 48.

0. http://idpc.net/events/2016/02/ipu-un-parliamentary-event-ac...

1. http://idpc.net/policy-advocacy/the-un-general-assembly-spec...

orkida2• 10 years ago

what would you do if you were that assistant secretary to fix the un?

please i need an answer

orkida2• 10 years ago

what would you do if you were that assistsnt secretary to fix the un?

please i need an answer

CristianMazzei• 10 years ago

I read this article with deep interest; it presents a pretty negative image of the United Nations as a bureaucratic giant unable to deliver due to a handful of incompetent staff and lack of proper management mechanisms. I am concerned about the negative impacts of such image can have to the wide public and those committed UN staff who are tirelessly working in non-family/hardship duty stations and reaching out to the most vulnerable.

I would like instead to share a brighter view, based on my working experience in various parts of the organization (including the Secretariat and other UN agencies)both at the Headquarters and in the field.

The UN is an immense political machinery, controlled by Members States, tasked with the most noble and difficult missions that an organization was ever mandated in the history. The UN is also comprised of myriads of different agencies, funds and programme with very different mandates, administrative capacities and organizational culture. It is too simplistic to lump together what is different.

Huge organizations, such as the UN, require rules and procedures to ensure transparency to its constituents. Bureaucracy creates these additional, more often cumbersome, layers. Bureaucracy is indeed a pain and, of course, processes can be simplified and streamlined. However, such changes do not come overnight as they require change of mind among the organization's staff, especially the “old guard”.This does not mean that the work of the organization should stop or colleagues should quit. In fact there are ways to "play along with the "administrative vortexes”; for example, a deep knowledge of the rules and regulations, advance planning and proactive actions can accelerate processes. A staff member will not get frustrated or get his/her submission rejected if he/she knew exactly what are the steps required, what documents to submit etc. Yes, we should focus more on the substantive/programmatic work which we are responsible to deliver, but as we are all very knowledgeable and quick to process our salary reimbursement claims, we could also do the same for the required administrative processes that are being mentioned in the article.

Once I was asked during an interview how I would overcome bottlenecks caused by bureaucracy. I responded, knowing the procedures, acting on time, using the right templates, following up with the right people, being motivated and having a good dose of patience can help in accelerating the process, at least the part of it I am in control, and will eventually lead to faster results. I did get that job.

Recruitment processes take forever. Most of the time this is true and it takes even more time and efforts to deploy competent staff during an emergency. Again, some UN organizations do better than others. For example, some organizations such as UNICEF has "fast track" recruitment procedures for emergency recruitments allowing staff deployment within weeks. UNFPA maintains rosters of pre-vetted candidates that successfully passed 2 days intensive screening. DPKO also keeps roster of pre-screened candidates which enables the organization to deploy staff in 3 months rather than taking 9-12 months as per regular recruitment. It is possible, I have witnesses once my successor being deployed within 3 months from my transfer notification. Indeed there are ways for improvement, especially by learning from where things works better.

There is nothing more atrocious than peacekeepers committing abusive acts to the same people they are supposed to protect. This is a major challenge for the UN, as it casts discredits to the entire organization as a whole, including those that are risking their lives daily to create a better world. Therefore, there should be zero tolerance for such abuses and the perpetrators should be properly condemned. At the same time, it is disappointing that most of the media coverage focuses on UN misconduct, committed by a few, rather than on what we do right.

However I wish to point out that most of these abuses are carried out by military personnel serving in peacekeeping missions. The UN does not have a standing military force and depends on the willing of countries to deploy their national troops temporary (normally 6-12 months) to serve under the UN flag (and their own flag), and fight someone else's wars. Consequently, these soldiers are national citizens, who bring their own training and culture to the UN, and when they commit these abuses they should be considered as such too. I have witnessed cases when abuses committed by just one or two soldiers resulted in the entire company (hundred soldiers) repatriating.

The majority of peacekeepers perform a tremendous job by ensuring peace in war-torns parts of this planet, far from their families, risking their life daily to defend peace but still too often unnoticed. This is what I would like to emphasize.

In conclusion, the UN needs constant improvement. It is up to its staff. Those who have served for long can help taking stock of the best practices of the organization's legacy with an eye to future challenges. It is also up to the organization’s newcomers, preferably more from the -outside- such as private sector, government secondment, to bring innovative ideas, enthusiasm and help the UN to keep up with the pace of a fast evolving world.

I believe this brighter view of the UN would be more beneficial to bring the necessary change to the United Nations.

I Love the U.N., but It Is Failing

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