United Nations

"I hope the United Nations will ever remain the supreme forum of peace and justice, the authentic seat of freedom."

"How many people outside China are aware of the responsible way China acts internationally? Take the UN for example. According to the respected journalist Fareed Zakaria, writing in this month’s Foreign Affairs, “Beijing is now the second-largest funder of the UN and UN peacekeepers. It has deployed 2,500 peacekeepers, more than all the other permanent members of the Security Council combined. Between 2000 and 2008 it supported 182 of 190 Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on nations deemed to have violated international rules or norms”. This is a very different China than the one projected by many Western politicians and journalists. Usually, China is reported as being an impediment at the Security Council, using its veto fast and furiously."

"The [United Nations] has been and is weak in moments and places when strength was and is needed. Several of its resolutions remain just on paper. Signs of serious ideological bias multiply. Its upheld notion of human rights is so undefined to let tyrants free to roam. Its upheld notion of human dignity is so vague to allow nasty abuses. It ignores many people, at the extent that a counterpoint organization, the Unrepresented Nations & Peoples Organization (UNPO), was conceived in the late 1980s by exiled leaders of people living under communist oppression to be formally established in Brussels, Belgium, in 1991. Totalitarian regimes are condoned by the UN, even permitted to paralyze its security council through their veto powers. In one word, the main institution in the world promoting tolerance often tolerates evil."

"Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just one step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down."

"Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try. For one thing we know beyond all doubt: Nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says, ‘It can’t be done.’"

"The world of the future is in our making. Tomorrow is now."

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighbourhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."

"It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it."

"The UN is our greatest hope for future peace. Alone we cannot keep the peace of the world, but in cooperation with others we have to achieve this much longed-for security.”"

"We have been determined . . . to so organize the peace-loving nations that they may through unity of desire, unity of will, and unity of strength be in position to assure that no other would-be aggressor or conqueror shall even get started. That is why from the very beginning of the war, and paralleling our military plans, we have begun to lay the foundations for the general organization for the maintenance of peace and security."

"The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man, or one party, or one nation...it must be a peace which rests on the cooperative effort of the whole world.""

"We pay tribute to the soldiers and fliers and seamen of others of the United Nations whose countries have been overrun by Axis hordes. As a result of the Allied occupation of North Africa, powerful units of the French Army and Navy are going into action. They are in action with the United Nations forces. We welcome them as allies and as friends. They join with those Frenchmen who, since the dark days of June, 1940, have been fighting valiantly... We pay tribute to the fighting leaders of our allies, to Winston Churchill, to Joseph Stalin, and to the Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. Yes, there is a very great unanimity between the leaders of the United Nations... I cannot tell you when or where the United Nations are going to strike next in Europe. But we are going to strike--and strike hard. I cannot tell you whether we are going to hit them in Norway... through Poland--or at several points simultaneously. But I can tell you that no matter where and when we strike by land, we and the British and the Russians will hit them from the air heavily and relentlessly... Hitler and Mussolini will understand now the enormity of their miscalculations--that the Nazis would always have the advantage of superior air power...That superiority has gone--forever. Yes, the Nazis and the Fascists have asked for it--and they are going to get it."

"The idea that the UN system could provide real leadership on the great development challenges will strain credulity in some quarters."

"So, yes, we have a global food system, but we need a different system. That different system must be based on the principle of universal human dignity in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the principle of national sovereignty in the UN Charter, and the economic rights in the Universal Declaration and the International Covenant of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. In the Universal Declaration, all governments agreed that social protection is a human right, not merely a “nice thing,” or a pleasant thing, but a basic human right. That was 73 years ago. The Sustainable Development Goals are our generation’s pledge to honor the Universal Declaration of Human Rights..."

"We need the United Nations as the core and central institution of our world. The only way we’re going to have a peaceful, civilized world is through a strong UN. It’s absurd that the UN core budget is a mere $3 billion per year, when New York City’s budget is around $100 billion. We chronically underfund the UN system and then ask, “Why don’t things work well?”"

"It was a question of: “All right, what now?” And I didn’t really have an idea... I talked with lawyers that were introduced to me by the journalists — human rights lawyers — and tried to plan my next stage....I talked to the United Nations. And ultimately, the United Nations came back and went..."...the U.S. has enormous sway in our organization. They pay an enormous amount of our budget. And the U.S. gets what the U.S. wants. We probably can’t help you...”"

"The United Nations, the whole international community, every free man in the world recognizes our right to fight. Allah, himself, may his name be praised, requires it. Why do we wait?"

"As far as I've ever heard, the U. N. hasn’t meant anything to anyone for years, except an idealistic, sappy idea that got taken over by Third Worlders and went broke."

"Protocol, alcohol, and Geritol."

"What is the United Nations, even? What, are you just a support system for a diverse and pleasing food court? What are you?!"

"Our support of European recovery is in full accord with our support of the United Nations. The success of the United Nations depends upon the independent strength of its members and their determination and ability to adhere to the ideals and principles embodied in the Charter."

"The principles and the purposes expressed in the Charter of the United Nations continue to represent our hope for the eventual establishment of the rule of law in international affairs. The Charter constitutes the basic expression of the code of international ethics to which this country is dedicated."

"The United Nations provides, or should provide, the means by which all nations, great and small, participate on a basis of sovereign equality in the political process of establishing and maintaining international peace and security, in facing common problems through co-operation, and in planning and organizing for a better future. The improvement of great Power relations through bilateral diplomacy is certainly of fundamental importance to this process, but past experience indicates that it needs to be complemented and balanced by the multilateral diplomacy of the global Organization as a safeguard against misunderstandings, as a safety valve in critical times and as an instrument for the peaceful settlement of international disputes. Despite its obvious shortcomings and despite the current popular tendency in some parts of the world to downgrade the United Nations, the Organization still remains the best long-term basis on which the international community as a whole can opt for survival, justice and progress with the participation of all nations. In the long run there is no substitute for such an instrumentality. The problem is how to make it work in the political realities of today."

"You must not expect the United Nations to accomplish miracles. We are made up of sovereign nations. We can only accomplish what our member nations allow us to accomplish."

"I am convinced that the United Nations provides the best road to the future for those who have confidence in our capacity to shape our own fate on this planet."

"Beijing is now the second-largest funder of the UN and UN peacekeepers. It has deployed 2,500 peacekeepers, more than all the other permanent members of the Security Council combined. Between 2000 and 2008 it supported 182 of 190 Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on nations deemed to have violated international rules or norms."

"I believe the United Nations has been gradually weakened since the end of the Cold War, despite the fact that important initiatives have been passed recently. In 1954, UN officials realized that the world needed to share its resources better, and that it was unfair that some countries were so poor and others so wealthy. Back then, the first most important programme was created: the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Suddenly, the international community realized that sharing was the key. And what’s the best course of action for sharing? Development. Then came a long debate over how to develop all countries to the same level, and whether political, educational and cultural developments were necessary for economic development. This is what we now call ‘integral development’. But then another notion emerged which is even more important: ‘endogenous development’, helping countries to help themselves. This is ‘capacity building’, but at present we are not doing this at all; if we were, every rich country would give 0.7 per cent of its GDP [Gross Domestic Product]. A third big step in the field of development came with the notion of ‘sustainability’. Gro Harlem Brundtland was the first to say that development is useless if we exhaust natural resources. Therefore, every resource we use must be replenished in equal proportion. It goes without saying that we are not taking any of these three basic and commonsense steps in development. We are not bringing about development with a human face..."

"The time has come to replace groups of plutocrats (created by President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher that have proved to be totally useless) by a strong United Nations, endowed with the personal, technical and financial resources that would enable it to fulfill its noble mission (of ensuring international security; guaranteeing democratic principles; freedom of expression and access to accurate information; of coordinated action to reduce the impact of natural and man-made catastrophes; protecting the environment; providing appropriately applied guidelines for social and economic development)... p. 4 & 5"

"International trusts operate with absolute impunity, due to the United Nations not being strong enough to impose the authority that could benefit each and everyone, the oil tankers from different countries –who nonetheless sail under the same two or three ―flags – continue to pollute the sea, and the lawbreakers –such as the ones who traffic in weapons, drugs and human beings and who seek shelter in tax heavens to escape from their responsibilities– cannot be either arrested or taken before the courts. p. 11"

"News of important events that might make us reflect and adopt our own decisions and attitudes (and this is precisely what education is all about) are concealed, distorted or otherwise disguised. The meetings of the G8 (a group of plutocrats who attempt to govern the world) fill pages upon pages, while proposals for reform made by the United Nations as a whole or by its financial institutions (managed by the President of the General Assembly with the participation of Nobel Prize Laureates in Economics) receive only a few paragraphs. The same may be said of worldwide meetings such as the recent UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education (not even a line!) or with respect to the topic that for me (and for that reason I reiterate this) constitutes our greatest problem of conscience: the extreme poverty and hunger, which, in a horrendous genocide, results in the death of 60,000 persons daily, while we invest over 2500 million euros in useless weapons. p. 13/14"

"Can The World Be Fixed? 1) If democracy is consolidated and political leaders take the reins instead of bowing to pressure from financial institutions, and replace our present speculation-based economy with a knowledge-based economy. 2) If investment in weapons and military spending is reduced and more money is devoted to global sustainable development, significantly increasing the number of people who benefit from progress. 3) If tax havens are decisively closed down and alternative financing measures are put into place, such as fees for electronic transactions. 4) If, for once and for all, the plutocratic G-7, G-8, G-20... factions imposed by the ―globalizers" are dissolved and the United Nations is reinforced and endowed with the means for fulfilling its worldwide security missions, enforcing international law, including the World Trade Organization and ensuring that the World Bank and International Monetary Fund carry out the goals for which they were founded, with rapid deployment of UN Blue Helmets, rather than remaining as passive witnesses to genocide and massive human rights violations... 5) If it is decided overnight that drugs are worthless and are made universally available at reasonable prices, as is the case with alcohol and tobacco. This ―legalization would be accompanied, as warranted, by a campaign in the communications media, educational institutions, etc. to discourage drug use and [encourage] clinical treatment to cure addiction. 6) If citizens the world over, aware of the power of distance participation, cease to be resigned ―receivers and turn to action. The world can be fixed. p. 21."

"The United Nations have been reduced to an international humanitarian agency and an institutional refuge of convenience, conferring real power to groups of the world’s wealthiest nations (G6, G-7, G-8.... G-20). Since the 1980s when values (social justice, equity, solidarity …) were replaced by the rules of the market and the ―democracy that the UN represented was replaced by plutocracy, it became clear that inequalities would increase, production would be outsourced, tax havens would overflow instead of being shut down once and for all, supranational trafficking (drugs, arms, people) would go unpunished, financial transactions would remain unregulated… p. 23/24."