My work at the United Nations discomforted some members of the U.S. government, which exercises its power beyond collective understandings and international law.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I worked at the United Nations.
Addressing global resentment cannot be put off. If we do not learn to use our predominant power with great restraint, we will antagonize the world.
The failure of the United Nations - My failure is maybe, in retrospective, that I was not enough aggressive with the members of the Security Council.
Our work for human dignity is often lonely, and almost always an uphill climb. At times, our efforts are misunderstood, and we are mistaken for the enemy. There has been a clear erosion of respect for U.N. blue and our impartiality.
It may surprise people to know that I advocate the reform of the United Nations, not its abolishment.
Legislation that would withhold funding for the United Nations is fundamentally flawed in concept and practice, sets us back, is self-defeating, and doesn't work.
It is not uncommon in modern times to see governments straining every nerve to keep the peace, and the people whom they represent, with patriotic enthusiasm and resentment over real or fancied wrongs, urging them forward to war.
Like Canada, we very much wanted the United Nations to be a relevant and effective body. But once those efforts failed, we no longer saw things from a multilateral perspective. For us, now, it is much more basic than that. It is about family.
The U.N. can be very frustrating and at times impotent, but it can also be a valuable forum for discussion and resolution of world problems. We should not walk away from it just because it's failed to live up to its promise.
Ordinary citizens are obliged and, if need be, compelled by force to meet their commitments. But let higher obligations of an international order be involved, and governments repudiate them, more often than not with a disdainful shrug of the shoulders.
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