The United Nations, take 3

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan is not pleased with his organization, and it is easy to see why. Member states make empty pledges of aid, Annan's own son is at the center of the U.N. oil-for-food scandal, and Libya, of all countries, oversees the U.N. human rights division. Thus, Annan has decided to clean house.\nTwo weeks ago, he proposed implementing a series of ambitious reforms over the next decade to rebuild the credibility of the United Nations and give it a more appropriate role in the modern world.\nFirst on Annan's list is for member states to actually do what they promised. Many years ago, the United Nations laid out The Millennium Development Goals, an eight-item prioritized list of human strife, and spoke of pursuing aggressive remedies. The list includes such noble tasks as halving extreme poverty and hunger within the next decade, reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS, and dramatically reducing the child and maternal mortality ratios -- all by 2015.\nAccording to Annan's report, "In Larger Freedom," there has been progress, primarily in Asia, but drastic action is needed to fulfill the goals within the next decade. Developing countries are supposed to construct viable development strategies and combat corruption, while developed countries are supposed to provide full assistance to these pro-active countries.\n"All of this has been promised but not delivered," Annan's report said.\nIn the 1990s, developed countries promised to increase official development assistance to 0.7 percent of gross domestic product. That has yet to happen. Currently global ODA sits at 0.25 percent of GDP, or about one-third of the pledged amount.\nThe United States is at the forefront of international assistance, but the federal government can surely reach deeper into its pockets. According to the USAID publication "Foreign Aid in the National Interest," the United States ODA in 2000 was $9.9 billion, only 0.1 percent of its $9.8 trillion GDP in the same year.\nU.S. private assistance, from John Doe up to Bill Gates, is nearly four times that amount at $33.6 billion. However, even when you take that into account, we still fall short of the 0.7 percent benchmark.\nIt is in the interest of the United States, which has become obsessed with terrorism, to turn kind eyes on the poorest parts of the world. Destitute regions produce desperate people, al-Qaida's cannon fodder of choice. Additionally, as countries develop so do economic markets -- a relationship our capitalist society should always encourage.\nAnnan also addressed the need for collective security as a major priority in his new United Nations. "This year, if ever, we must transform the United Nations into the effective instrument for preventing conflict that it was always meant to be," Annan said in his report.\nWith this ideal in mind, Annan proposed revamping the travesty of The Commission on Human Rights into a smaller council with a direct voice in Security Council deliberations. He also proposed expanding the U.N. Security Council from 15 to 24 seats in order to create a more representative council, according to The Economist (March 26).\nThe changes will be an improvement, but not a perfect solution. Diverse representation is always a good thing; however, more voices will not keep countries from acting outside the United Nations when it suits them, as the United States and its allies did in the war in Iraq.\nUnfortunately, the underlying problem of obedience to U.N. regulations has not been solved. Professors teach of "social contracts" in introductory political science classes, which, in effect, mean each citizen in a democracy obeys all the laws of the governing body, even though an individual might not agree with everything. Until governments are willing to accept a similar social contract with an international body, the United Nations will always be flawed.