Exhuming a UN for "We the Peoples".

UNITED States; IRAQ

Over the past several months I have sat nervously in fear, busily biting my lip, listening to my colleagues one by one declare the death of the United Nations. Their fears, and mine alike, were triggered by the unilateral U.S. declaration of war on Iraq without bringing a Security Council resolution to vote. The talk around the academic coffeehouse circuit says that the UN's legitimacy has been completely undermined and that its ability to effectively manage future conflicts is uncertain. Recently various liberal-minded editorials have attempted to reaffirm the UN's relevance, giving particular attention to post-war reconstruction and its continuous global work in human rights, health and environmental sustainability. But even these UN successes are not free from jeopardy. In its treatment of post-war Iraq the U.S. has managed to ignore or undermine the UN's experience in these regards as well. These editorials have stated the obvious: that the U.S. still scoffs at the idea of global governance and seemingly only wants to play by its own rules. While truthful, these observations remain locked in the nation-state military security paradigm. It existed when the UN was formed, and unfortunately remains just as dominant today. Perhaps the greatest threat posed by the belligerent U.S. security policy is that it undermines the hope provided by other UN functions, such as promoting human rights standards, clean water supplies, women's education and reproductive health, social and political justice, programs of disarmament, and environmental sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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