Member to Member

In the past few years the United Nations has been viciously attacked in Iraq and Afghanistan by terrorists when it sought to give humanitarian aid, but it has also been severely attacked by politicians and the media. At a recent NGO meeting at the headquarters in New York, representatives of the UN sought to enlist public support by providing NGO representatives with additional facts to counter the claims of its many critics.

ONLY A DEBATING SOCIETY?
Shashi Tharoor, the Under Secretary General for Communications and Public Information at the UN, explained that critics of the UN often say that the UN is only a glorified, outdated, debating society. He pointed out that the UN was founded in 1945 after the worst world war in human history to enable countries to peaceably debate and hash out issues in a civilized matter rather than resorting to the chaos of war. To drive home the point, he quoted Winston Churchill as having said, "it is better to jaw jaw, than war war.”

A BLOATED BUREAUCRACY?
Another common charge against the UN is that it is a huge bureaucracy. However, as Mr. Tharoor pointed out, the UN employs about 51,000 people world-wide to handle the most pressing problems of the world, -- hunger, poverty, health problems, human rights, education as well as peacekeeping. This number is less than those employed by the Disney Corporation to manage its amusements parks. In contrast, the US government alone employs 2.7 million people just to deal with domestic problems, let alone the problems of the world. In addition, over the last 10 years, the UN has cut the number of employees by 25%.

TOO EXPENSIVE?
The entire UN budget for all of its operations worldwide is less than the combined budgets of the New York City Police and Fire Departments… and the UN is expected to not only police the world, but also put out the many diplomatic fires which crop up all too frequently. In terms of the cost to the individual US taxpayer, the cost per person is less than the cost of a NYC bus fare ($2.00).

JUST A PAPERWORK FACTORY?
All of the paper and all of the translations used for all of the UN offices around the world for one year, total less than the amount of paper used for one edition of the Sunday New York Times.

ADDRESSING A POPULAR MYTH

According to Gillian Sorenson, Senior Advisor of the UN Foundation, there are some specific myths about the UN which many Americans hold. Ms. Sorenson
addressed these myths below:

Myth #1 - The UN is only involved in peacekeeping missions.
Actually peacekeeping is only 20% of the UN budget. The UN is also involved in programs related to disarmament, the environment, education, health issues, humanitarian relief, democratization and human rights to name just a few.

Myth #2 - The UN is involved only in peacekeeping operations in Iraq.
The UN now has 13 peacekeeping missions at various hotspots around the globe however, news about them rarely appears in the headlines because they are …peaceful. Peace does not make the news headlines.

Myth #3 - The US is often dragged into conflicts at the UN it doesn’t want to get involved in.
The US is one of five countries with veto power at the Security Council which votes on involvement of member countries and commitments to peacekeeping missions. The US can veto anything it does not want to get participate in and it frequently does.

Myth #4 - The UN is a plot hatched by the liberal Democrats
The US involvement in founding of the UN in 1945 was a bi-partisan effort. The US delegation to the founding convention had key members of both parties including well known Republicans such as Harold Stasson, Nelson Rockefeller and Arthur Vandenberg, Thomas Dewey as well as John Foster Dulles as Legal Advisor. In the wake of World War II, partisan bickering was set aside to create what was to be considered the greatest peacekeeping effort of all time – the UN itself.

Myth #5 - US soldiers shoulder unfair burden in peacekeeping efforts today
Actually only 4% of the soldiers currently on peacekeeping missions are Americans.
All soldiers are volunteers but the British, Canadian and Norwegians all have more
troops serving in peacekeeping missions than Americans.

Myth #6 - The UN is a world government and a threat to US sovereignty
The UN is an association of governments. The UN has no independent powers separate from the states. The UN has no power to tax and all mandates are voted on by the member states. Sometimes the UN can actually enhance the power and legitimacy of the individual states by allowing any country of the General Assembly to bring up issues for debate before the entire Assembly.

The world’s problems no longer can be solved by just one country alone. Issues related to health and the environment as well as terrorism, do not respect national boundaries. Sovereign countries must work together through institutions like the UN if there is any hope of solutions. Even superpowers have found that states need friends in the world community and that the UN serves as an important focal point to rally support.

Myth #7 - The UN is irrelevant and ineffectual
It may be imperfect but, it IS indispensable. It is the only world forum of its kind and if it did not exist someone would try to reinvent it. Even the recent question of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq proved that the UN can provide not only a necessary forum for debate, but also can provide impartial, specialized expertise in sensitive situations. As for those who say it is ineffectual, one has to ask, as compared to what? There are no real alternatives to the UN.

Dag Hamarskjold former Secretary General once said “The UN was not created to take the world to heaven; it was created to save it from going to hell.”

Myth #8 - The UN is anti-American
Many members of the UN General Assembly have said that they welcome Americanleadership at the UN. However, many feel that the US sends mixed signals to the UN. This makes officials wonder whether the US really wants the UN to succeed. For example, while having been the initial driving force behind the creation of the UN, for 12 years the US refused to pay its dues which caused much resentment among member states, particularly the poorer states which struggled to pay their dues. And, while championing the virtues of democracy around the world, the US constantly complains about votes at the General Assembly which did not coincide with US interests.

Where once America led the world in encouraging countries ratify much-needed treaties on key issues, it now steadfastly refuses to sign treaties on the rights of women, the rights of children, the Kyoto environmental treaty, the land mines treaty as well as the world court. It also took 35 years for the US Congress to ratify the treaty on genocide.

Recent events at the UN regarding Iraq also put the UN on the defensive making officials wonder why the US’s stated principles and rhetoric do not always appear match what it does in practice.