---

Lidt morskabslæsning om hvordan FN bliver mere og mere absurd, - og det er
ikke engang om det menneskerettighedbekæmpende "Menneskerettighedsråd".


Rather than discussing and producing real political measures to tackle the
world's many crises, the Security Council is proliferating forms of
expression, unnecessarily complicating its already-opaque communication with
the world. There are now no less than four different forms of council
expression - resolutions, presidential statements, press statements and
"remarks to the press"; distinctions which are unintelligible to all but the
cognoscenti. Meanwhile, the councilbusies itself agreeing new formats in
which to meet, one of which requires non-council UN states to apply - in
writing - to the president of the council to attend misnamed "open" or
public meetings of the council.


So nugatory and trivial is this fiddling-while-Rome-burns-type behaviour
that it escapes international attention and concern. Journalists still write
about the Security Council as if it is a serious body, even though the
dwindling UN press corps and even diplomats inside the council despair at
the ineffectiveness and absurdities of a bodycharged with nothing less than
preventing war and promoting peace.



-------



The only remedy

It is depressing how little creative thinking goes on at the UN to remedy
its many deficits. Diplomats posted to the UN tend to come and go for three
or four-year tours making little impression, and often leave demoralised and
defeated by the UN's absurd and seemingly intractable conundrums. Most UN
member-states are small, and have commensurately small diplomatic missions,
and most of these admit that are completely overwhelmed with the number and
complexity of committees and processes they must keep up with; many barely
comprehend them at all (pity the rest of us). Staff in the
deeply-hierarchicalsecretariat are discouraged from action, fearful that
their next posting will be to Congo rather than up the greasy, corrupt pole
that is the promotion system in the UN. Note, by the way, how virtually no
senior staff member is under 50, a clear indicator that subservience is
valued higher than competence.

The only solution is a severe jolt of electricity. Some say that only a war
will at last trigger the energy for change. But there already is one, in
fact many. The leading states should agree to have a conference with the
goal of nothing less than a renovated and revivified UN. Take discussion
away from the corridors and stale arguments of the New York UN complex. Set
an ambitious agenda and aim high, but for something simple and ideal.



FN er efterhånden KUN en korruptions- og sinecurepostfabrik, hvor der dog
før OGSÅ foregik fornuftige ting.



Suk, suk og atter suk.