Herb London - Replace the United Nations

Let One New Flower Bloom: The UDN (United Democratic Nations)

by Herb London
President, Hudson Institute
April 12, 2007

Considering the precarious nature of international affairs, it seems reasonable that a world body might be necessary to adjudicate the differences among nation states. Yet the United Nations, designed to play this role, often undermines the international stability it was earmarked to uphold.

The question, of course, is what kind of role. What values does the U.N. promote? To name a few, the U.N.'s primary human-rights body, the Commission on Human Rights, includes such role models as China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. Not surprisingly, of 86 separate votes held at the 2004 Commission, the U.S. was in the minority 85 percent of the time. Reports estimate that more than two million people have been killed in Sudan over two decades of conflict, 70,000 have been murdered in the Darfur region since March, and another 1.6 million persons are currently displaced.

But there hasn't been a U.N. General Assembly emergency session…