Hashishi

Something I've been thinking about.

The UN is a legislative body. Legislation, in essence, allows its adherers to do anything that isn't legislated against. Furthermore, adherers have to follow the procedures it lays out- thereby actively decreasing efficiency, roughly speaking.

My question: what would supersede the UN? Would nations--without being bound by the UN--be freer to act by accepted moral imperatives? To take an example, would NATO intervention in the Yugoslav crisis have come sooner and with greater efficacy without the fly-in-molasses reaction of the UN?

Can individual military, economic and political allegiances perform the role of the UN? Would that scenario function to a better or worse degree than the UN currently manages?

Food for thought.

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Trocisp

Personally, I've always been a fan of more complex inter-governmental alliances, rather than single Entity membership. This allows countries to set up networks and forge relationships as individuals and equals, rather than being forced into a cookie cutter mold of "Sit in your seat and be part of this delegation."


Edit: I just realized, I forgot to actually say "And this my opinion is that this would lead to swifter action in cases like Darfur, where the UN can't pick its collective ass out of their NYC HQ to save lives...

Bernie420

The UN is an example of a good idea that went bad. Its turned into nothing more than a soap box for third world countries to complain about first world countries. Let the US pull its funding of the UN and you'll see that organization collapse.

Hashishi

Where did you get that? Did you miss indictments of Iran and Korea by Western powers and Iraq sanctions a while back, to name but two?

It did, and the UN's still going strong. The US is still paying off arrears accumulated in the late 90s. It costs practically nada to fund the UN. As an example, the Netherlands is a tiny country which is regionally about the same size as London and it manages to pay annually a quarter of what the US does. Funding the UN is nothing to an economy.

Trocisp

I have never, and will never understand this strange obsession some people have with the UN. (In regards to Viper's post)

It's not like you can just join the UN and say whatever the hell you want. You can't just "take the floor," you have to have an actual complaint. Did other countries (not just Undeveloped nations, which is the correct term, not "3rd world") complain when we invaded another country? Yes. Did it stop us? No.

It's really not all that efficient at doing anything, because people are forced into its sanctions (which means people will do what they can to get around them, when they feel like it), where as a situation I described earlier would compel countries to use sanctions and other forms of non-violent intergovernmental discipline because it would truly be mutually beneficial.