1999 E-mail Exchange with Sir Brian Urquhart: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

E-mail Exchange with Sir Brian Urquhart and students from Marin Academy High School, UC Berkeley's Model UN Program, and Boalt School of Law: March 1999 with Harry Kreisler

UN Reform

Do you feel that the UN has too much, not enough, or just the right amount of power to complete its mission of keeping peace throughout the world?

Eric C., Marin Academy High School

I think it is misleading to talk about power in relation to the United Nations. The organization, unlike the smallest nation state, has no sovereign authority to act. Its function is to bring together the nations of the world to react to threats to the peace or other great problems which threaten the world community in one way or another. This is usually quite difficult to do. For example, the UN was very limited in its capacity to act in Bosnia because there was serious disagreement among the members of the Security Council as to what ought to be done. At the present time, the same applies to action concerning Iraq, and there are a number of questions -- Sierra Leone or Central Africa, for example -- on which there is no agreement to take any action at all. The UN, apart from having no sovereignty, has no standing military capacity and has no standing authority to enforce international law. Only in particularly serious cases -- for example, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 -- is there sufficient international consensus to authorize action. Even then the action is taken by a coalition of sovereign states under the general authorization of the Security Council. In short, the UN does not have power but on occasion can exert considerable influence in the solution of problems.

You have in the past considered yourself a pragmatic optimist, yet on the subject of the UN, you seem to feel that the bureaucracy has made the organization inefficient. What suggestions would you make for the UN to reform itself, on a basic, fundamental level, and do you believe that the UN can be effective once again?

David B., Model UN Program, UC Berkeley

Bureaucratic difficulties are only one part of the problem. Of course, all bureaucracies need constant shaking up and reform. This is more difficult in the UN than in national governments because the UN has 186 sovereign governments as its joint boss. Nonetheless, great efforts are now being made to curtail the UN bureaucracy and make it more efficient (for example, a one-quarter cut in personnel and consolidation of a number of related activities.) However, the real problem of the UN is the intention, or lack of intention, of its member governments to make it work. At the present time there is no overwhelming threat to the security or survival of most governments. They, therefore, tend to attach less importance to the organization which has been and is their safety net in really dangerous times. This is particularly true of Washington, the capital of the world's leading nation and incidentally of the founder of the United Nations. At the age of 80, with the experiences of most of this century in mind, I am concerned that when the time comes, as it will, that the United Nations is the only way out of a serious threat to human society, the organization will be so run-down and discredited that it will not be able to perform its function. This is what happened to the League of Nations in the 1930s and the result was World War II. It is therefore essential that governments focus their attentions on the authority and resources required to make the UN capable of performing its basic and essential functions in security, conflict control, and economic, social, and humanitarian situations.