UN

Rules of Order: Assessing the State of Global Governance (9/12/2023) Stewart Patrick Paper

UN Secretary General's 2021 report: Our Common Agenda

All the biggest challenges of our time are transnational: mass migration, growing inequality, the onset of ecological Armageddon. It's arguable that the politics of the nation state have become at best irrelevant, and at worst a hindrance, to tackling such global challenges. The outlook is grim. Democracy and Truth, A Short History: Sophia Rosenfeld

...In the past, when humanity lived in more than one hundred countries, it was like living in more than 100 boats. All we needed were rules to ensure that the boats did not collide. Each boat had a captain or crew to take care of it. Today, with the shrinking of the world, 7 billion people live in 193 cabins on the same boat. We have captains and crews taking care of each cabin. But we have no captain or crew taking care of the boat as a whole. Kishore Mahbubani: the Great Convergence

The Republican Party has long hoped to scale back the U.S. commitment to the United Nations and reduce the foreign aid budget as well. President Trump´s first budget was built to respond to those pledges by GOP leaders to pull America back from the rest of the world on humanitarian campaigns, while simultaneously increasing America´s capacities as a military superpower. This is the Way the World Ends, How Droughts and Die-Offs, Heat Waves and Hurricanes are converging on America by Jeff Nesbit. (pg 186)

UN website data suggests, by mid-October, one-third of the UN's membership dues and peacekeeping assessments are unpaid, amounting to $3.52 billion, of which the US accounts for two-thirds ($2.25 billion). These arrears include $1billion membership dues, $1.23 billion peacekeeping assessment and $19 million IRMCT (International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals) assessment. In membership dues alone, the US arrears are four times the sum of all other countries. It goes without saying, the US is the largest debtor of the UN and the culprit of the latter's predicament.
United States of Arrears: A real hegemon under disguise of fake multilateralism (11/11/2021)

To the best of my knowledge, not one senior New York figure seemed to be aware that there had been a long-standing Western strategy, led primarily by Washington, to keep the UN weak. Even during the Cold War, when Moscow and Washington disagreed on everything, both nations actively conspired together to keep the UN weak. They did so through a variety of instruments: selecting pliable secretaries-general, such as Kurt Waldheim, bullying the UN Secretary-general into dismissing or sidelining competent or conscientious UN civil servants who showed any backbone, squeezing UN budgets; and, of course, planting CIA and KGB spies in all corners of the UN system. All this was well known to anyone who worked within the UN system. The Great Convergence: Kishore Mahbubani

To the extent that the United States, or any other country, reverts to ultra-nationalism and stands against institutions such as the United Nations and the ICC, it endangers the future of not only Americans, but everyone else. Enemy of Our Future

“Where is the security that the Security Council needs to guarantee? It’s not there, although there is a security council. So where is the peace? Where are those guarantees that the United Nations needs to guarantee?
“Show how we can reform and work for peace,” otherwise, “dissolve yourself altogether, if there is nothing you can do besides conversation.”
Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky in remarks to the U.N. Security Council.

"Overall, a median of 58% across the 39 countries surveyed express favorable views of the UN, with just 27% holding an unfavorable opinion. South Koreans express the highest support (84%). Ban Ki-moon, who heads the UN, is South Korean. Meanwhile, roughly eight-in-ten Indonesians and Filipinos approve of the international body. Support is also high in Africa, and most of Europe and Latin America." Pew Research Center

US set to rejoin Unesco after leaving during Trump presidency (7/1/2023)

China concerns prompt US move to rejoin Unesco (5/12/2023)

Led by China and India: The Global South Is Trying To Fix the UN (5/22/2023)

The U.S. and the UN in 2023

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs ... Even the narrow notion of physical sustainability implies a concern for social equity between generations, a concern that must logically be extended to equity within each generation. Brundtland Report to the UN: Our Common Future 10/1987

UN chief calls for “a new model for global governance” (7/20/2020)

No Longer Leader of the Free World: Trump Admin. Humiliated at UN over Iran Arms Embargo (8/15/2020)

The Senate confirms Kelly Craft as the new UN ambassador (7/31/2019)

Meet the new UN ambassador nominee – a billionaire GOP donor and science denier who gave Trump millions (2/23/2019)

In a G-Zero World, We Need a Robust U.N. More Than Ever (8/23/2018)

U.N. Agrees on Migration Pact, but U.S. Is Conspicuously Absent (7/13/2018)

Trump Withdraws U.S. From UN Migrant And Refugee Compact (12/3/2017)

A blunt, fearful rant: Trump's UN speech left presidential norms in the dust (9/19/2017)

UN conference adopts treaty banning nuclear weapons (7/7/2017)

US leads boycott of UN conference to ban nuclear weapons (3/27/2017)

Why defunding the UN is a bad idea (1/8/2017)

Republicans Prep Bill To Defund the UN (1/6/2017)

" ...since work at the United Nations began in 1985 on a treaty seeking, as its title declares, the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space, the U.S. has not supported it. Canada, Russia and China have been leaders in urging passage of this PAROS treaty, and there has been virtually universal backing from nations around the world. But by balking, U.S. administration after administration has prevented its passage. With the Trump administration, more than non-support of the PAROS treaty is probable. A drive by the U.S. to weaponize space appears in the offing." Counterpunch (12/7/2016)

(October 31,2008) 147 states at the United Nations voted overwhelmingly to move forward with work on an Arms Trade Treaty. Only the US and Zimbabwe voted against it. Code of Conduct For Arms Sales

It is not suitable for member States to enjoy representation without taxation. Prime Minister Major address to the United Nations from Anthony Lake's book Nightmares.

UN will consider banning killer robots

The US Is Still Manipulating the UN After 70 Years (11/15/2015)

U.N. Chief Says World’s Failure to Act on Suffering Is a ‘Disgrace’ (10/31/2015)

The UN At 70 (8/15/2015)

UN to Examine US and UK Drone Strikes (1/23/2013)

5 Dumbest Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories on the UN (12/5/2012)

Republican Introduces Anti-UN Bill in the House (2011)

UN Trade Body Says Spending Cuts Threaten Economic Recovery (9/6/2011)

Revolting Republicans Now Want to Blackmail the UN Into Doing Their Bidding (8/30/2011)

Hillary Clinton Authorized US to Spy on Foreign Diplomats (11/29/2010)

The Trump admin. barred Iran’s top diplomat from entering the U.S. to address the UN Security Council about Soleimani’s assassination, violating terms of a 1947 HQ agreement requiring Washington to permit foreign officials into U.S. to conduct UN business. https://t.co/OJUS3k658s

— Jon Cooper 🇺🇸 (@joncoopertweets) January 7, 2020

We have a global economy run by transnational corporations--and no effective global governance at all to balance it.

The US owes 1.2 Billion to the UN (10/2010)

United Nations Foundation: Millennium Development Goals

SUMMARY OF THE EIGHTH SESSION OF THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY OPEN WORKING GROUP ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
3-7 FEBRUARY 2014

Agenda 21

Agenda 21

There is no such thing as the United Nations. United States makes the U.N. work when it wants it to work. If the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it would not make a bit of difference" John Bolton

Bibliography

• Every Nation For Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-ZERO World , Ian Bremmer
• Race Against Time: Stephen Lewis
• The Great Convergence, Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World: Kishore Mahbubani
• The Age of Deception: Mohamed Elbaradei
  
• Hersh, Seymour M. (foreword) (2005) in Scott Ritter: Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein ISBN 1-56025-852-7
• The Mobilization of Shame: Robert F Drinan. S.J.
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights