UN made a tool again

By Mugabe for attending an international food summit.

The irony of the situation is doubled when we consider that not only Mugabe is exploiting a loophole that allows him to travel anywhere in the world, but he is also attending a summit where his contribution is certain to be nil. He is, however, almost certain to contribute to the Rome economy by spending lavishly in the local fashion stores, as the Telegraph reminds us he did at an earlier UN trip.

The butcherous nature of Mugabe's tyranny has been highlighted repeatedly in the past months, particularly after he nearly lost a dramatically rigged ballot (that takes some effort). What stands out, however, is the role of the United Nations as both a laughing stock and a tool. First they allow the election of Zimbabwe to chair the Commission for Sustainable Development, along with Lybia getting a top human rights portfolio. Then, while the world starves, the FAO head office staff in Rome are possibly the highest-paid UN employees and the UN HQ in New York get a billion-dollar makeover. The UNIFIL force in Lebanon comes under fire both physically and politically, meanwhile a scandal erupts around peacekeepers abusing children in areas of deployment.

Combined with the Oil for Food sleaze, the Iraq war fiasco, the stalemate over Darfur and the IAEA's apparent backtracking on Iran's nuclear innocence we have to seriously ask ourselves the question of what exactly is wrong with the UN and whether it's time to pull the plug on geography-based arrangements, such as rotating commission chairs by continent (which allowed African nations to nominate Zimbabwe). Certain aspects of UN running trascend the ridiculous, such as headquartering the FAO in a country best described as flooded with food.

The UN was founded on the noble principle of resolving disputes by diplomacy and on the naive assumption that everyone wanted to do just that. The naivete was compounded by the consensus system among the Security Council's big five, which ensured nothing meaningful could be done quickly. The organization has taken in all sorts of members without holding them accountable for their actions, resulting in democratic and well-intentioned members being on the same standing with (and being abused with impunity by) the most rogue regimes this planet has ever seen. Seen from this angle the disproportionate representation microstates get is definitely the UN's smallest of problems.

As it is now the UN is just a talking shop of cyclopic proportions that can sometimes display a few teeth. No benchmark of good governance or respect for human rights is enforced for admission and continued membership, giving butchers free rein. Money from the greatest donors is wasted while draconian principles govern the day-to-day running of the behemoth.

Seeing that reform is slow and laborious, we should first and foremost show the UN its place, which is NOT the top of the heap, focusing instead on more close-knit and efficient organizations at the regional level such as NATO. Secondly, the organization must be made accountable for its expenditures, because in its present state it certainly doesn't deliver value for money. Thirdly, the UN must focus on maintaining good standards within its ranks, giving miscreant nations a good spanking or ejecting them altogether (the list is long).

Overall, however, the UN is a living testimony of the failure of governments to act for the good of mankind. Rarely can good outcomes originate from a hen-house full of roosters fighting over their small territory and petty interests. Whatever the charter may claim, governments out of touch with their own populace assembled under a large roof form an assembly that's out-of-touch with the entire world.

Perhaps the extra-territoriality of the UN HQ is ironically the best way to describe the organization: they're out of this world and don't know what to do about it.