UN: A Symbol of a Disfunctional World

The South Korean Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has startd his tenure at the head of the disfunctional world body. The reason for the ineptness of this instituion is, of course, its anachronistic nature. An exerpt below from UK weekly Economist makes it clear:


When the UN was created in 1945, its founder-nations—the four main victors of the second world war, America, Britain, China and Russia, plus France—allocated to themselves the only five permanent seats, with veto powers, on what was then an 11-seat Security Council. The other members, all elected by the General Assembly, held two-year non-renewable seats without a veto. Since then, the number of the UN's member states has almost quadrupled from 51 to 192, two-thirds of them in the developing world.

Yet apart from the addition of four more non-permanent seats in 1965, membership of the Security Council, the only UN body whose decisions are binding, has remained unchanged. The system is not only undemocratic, anachronistic and unfair, but also—as Paul Kennedy, professor of history at Yale, suggests in his new book, “The Parliament of Man”—outrageous. Yet it cannot be changed without inviting a veto from one of the very nations whose powers might be diminished.

The UN security counsil seats should be expanded to reflect the present world and give representation to all continents and people. There should be no provision for veto power to anyone.

Link to the article: http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8490176