I am saying this as someone who Grandfather worked there as part of a delegation and has fond memories of visits to the UN as a child.
Now that the military coup happened a couple of months ago, and seeing the UN being the same old, I am not surprised. Most of Myanmar people, including my mother who is living there, are pinning their hopes on the UN to save them from this coup. I feel really sorry for them about believing in such a false hope.
The pay disparity is very stark between foreign directors/managers vs. the local/native managers who actually have to do the grunt work. The foreigners are provided with very good housing allowance (my mom rent her home and she always says her dream is to rent it to a foreigner from an NGO because they pay the most money), car+driver, education support for their kids, plus a annual salary of $100K+ (that was 2004 when I volunteered) which is very good for the amount of work she actually puts in. In contrast, the average local/native manager's annual salary in the office ranges between $4000 and $6000 (maybe at most 2-3 local managers earned $6000 per year when I volunteered there).
In my opinion, the foreign managers/directors never took the time to understand what the local population needs and make decisions on what projects to do based on their biases (and what will look good for photo-op). They sit in their air-conditioned offices or houses and do bare minimum. The most important thing for them is to look good in front of donors and to be able to move to a better country (new country director arrives every 2-3 years). Since donation is important to them, they spend more time soliciting money than actually doing the job.
Please always keep in mind that these NGOs and UNGOs live off of donations and the more conflicts/issues they can conjure in the photos/news/media, the better it is for them. I volunteered at World Concern and World Vision as well. Same experience. My sister worked at a French NGO called ACTED [https://www.acted.org/en/] for 2+ years as a logistics and administrative staff. Same experience. That's why I never trust anything that the NGOs say and I always donate directly to local NGOs/groups.
https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/military
Peacekeeping missions have operated as recently as 2004-2017 in Haiti to stabilize the country after a coup (MINUSTAH).
I personally don't trust in UN and don't think of them as an effective organization.
Myanmar was under effective military rule for a long time and only made strides towards becoming a liberal democracy in the last decade - until the coup happened.
And sadly, the ones where really none of them have any interests, it's not on their radar to do anything about it.
I do wonder if it really had a hand in preventing world wars etc.. Somehow I doubt it as these things tend to get sorted out in direct negotiations (like back in the day with Reagan and Gorbachev, and the Cuban missile crisis - which was the trigger for a direct hotline to be set up between the US and USSR if I remember correctly).
I hope one day we grow up as a species... :(
Unfortunately if the UN could directly exercise authority over nations, many nations would simply just leave.
Beyond that completely devolved into a curruption feast.
Look no further than what entities made it into the current "UN human rights council": Usbekistan, Cuba, Russia and China.
And its not a coincidence: Prior to them Sudan, Lybia, Mauretania, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela got to be the Champions of Human Rights. A complete joke.
Meanwhile the same UN issued more condemnations of the democratic state of Israel than of all other nations combined (2006-2015: 61 against Israel, 54 all others, none against China).
I don't see what democracy has to do with it. Plenty of democratic countries have and still do violate human rights, and Israel is particularly egregious. Maybe the UN considers they have more authority/clout over Israel than Myanmar? Maybe it's due to this usually happening via the General Assembly, where there are quite a lot of Muslim countries who have a bone to pick with Israel by default, so jump at any opportunity ( and there are plenty of them)?
The complaining about supposed shortcomings of the UN is tired and misguided. The UN is far more than just the Security Council and matters of high politicking. It’s also UNHCR, on which million of refugees depend for their life. It’s security forces almost literally acting as hostages to secure the peace in dozens of stale conflicts. It’s the ITU, iSO, and whatever their mail agency is called providing the basic necessities for international trade, travel, and communication. It obviously has some power to establish international law and decency, or otherwise that Saudi two-bit dictator wouldn’t feel threatened enough to make threads himself, and it’s obviously relevant enough for that thread to remain all bark and no bite. In terms of international justice, the UN has successfully run dozens of tribunals and investigations, from Libanon to the Balkans to Ruanda.
Yes, other matters see little progress. Politics is slowly boring holes into thick wood or whatever the saying is. That has little to do with the UN, which is just a forum for nation states to talk. Those matters simply have no solution that everyone agrees to (yet),
In that vain, it’s a mistake to even expect the UN to have the sort of power to force its own will onto states, or to even expect it to have any such will at all. For political questions, the UN does not have an identity, or any power, separate from that of its member states. That’s why it’s headed by a Secretary General, not a President or Prime Minister.
I'm asking because the UN has arguably more power and influence now than it had during Cold War, although its primary purpose was to get East and West on the same table during Cold War and provide a platform where all countries on earth could meet. It nowadays organizes and serves as an umbrella for a vast number of cultural and developmental programs, from concrete food relief missions to counter-terrorism.[1]
You need to keep in mind that the UN's purpose never was and never has been to confront nations or blocks, let alone to govern or serve as an international police force. That's not its purpose and could never be, given that almost all countries are part of it.
That's funny, because Wikipedia tells us that UN "aims to maintain international peace and security" and it was involved in a war shortly after its establishment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War
If the UN is unable to censure / expel a member for a threat on a UN staffers life as a matter of government policy then the UN should just not even spend the time on these type of issues. The reality is for all the good it does, it powerless in most things because the member states do not stand up for the basic founding principles. I think that the western democracies would be better off building their own replacement where membership is predicated on a shared set of rules around freedom and human rights. Neither Russia, China or Saudi Arabia would qualify.
The main goal of the UN was (and still is) to prevent WW3 and the destruction of humanity, that's why maintaining peace is its main goal. I'm sure your grandfather told you that but maybe you don't remember it.
Building your own "replacement" is kind of silly. Not only are there already plenty of such organizations that only include allied countries (on all sides), they could not possibly replace an organization whose purpose is to bring all nations to a common table - especially those nations who are not befriended with each other.
A platform to meet and talk outside of mere bilateral diplomacy is a prerequisite for preventing large scale wars and conflicts, and that's the primary reason why the UN exists. Read the UN preamble.
How would this analysis look if applied to the USA? Steve Bannon publicly called for the beheading of Dr. Fauci, a government official, and faces no real repercussions.
Is the US government useless?
The UN thing is a sitting government official threatening the life of a member of an international body of which they are a member of. The question is that the policy of Saudi Arabia? If so the UN should hold them accountable with censure or being expelled as this is obvious a volition of their membership. The fact that the UN can basically do zero is the reason it is useless.
True threats, such as calling for someone to be murdered, are not covered by the first amendment.
In the US, the Brandenburg v. Ohio case in 1969 limited the scope of banned speech to that which would be directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action.
In the case here with the UN, the Saudi government has been proven to be responsible for the planning and death of a dissident, which apply the logic above the threat was credible and the police should show up at their door. The issue is there is no "police" here expect the UN itself and they will do nothing because they are powerless.
Fauci has 24/7 protection from a security detail for himself and his family. Clearly this “blowhard” blew hard enough for the US Marshals to be worried.
I am quite sure that it was never the concern that Bannon himself would actually commit the murder.
[1] https://sites.psu.edu/2civichofman/2016/04/17/advocacy-of-vi...
[2] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1025/true-threats
As I’m sure you would know better than I, the UN is an attempt to address what is likely the most difficult and important problem that humanity has ever tried to address: global cooperation. It is an extremely easy target to throw shade at, I find it unhelpful and even inaccurate to call it “useless” writ large.
https://www.wionews.com/world/whistleblower-accuses-un-human...
The folks being tried at the ICTY probably don't think it's very toothless.
Basically, the UN is not Team America, and I don't think it should be.
(That's a reference to the movie by the same name btw, not a comment on relations with any nation)
The function of the UN is to formalize dialogue to prevent the confusion that escalated the first world war, and some degree of coordination among the nuclear powers to help prevent WWIII.
It was not then - and is not now, an organization meant to further human rights, nor to enforce global will upon its members.
It's supposed to be a forum for countries to talk to eachother. And it's pretty successful at being that.