Seems like this blog would be a natural place to explore the current state of the United Nations. After all, it is hosted by the Center for Ethics and Culture, and the UN is certainly an institution worthy of attention.

This attention is especially important for Catholics, since the UN is often viewed by the Vatican, particularly the Secretariat of State, as a preferred venue for projecting influence in foreign affairs. The Curia, over the past few decades, has placed an enormous amount of political capital behind the UN, in the hope that it can be harnessed as a force for good in international affairs.

Alas, the UN has rarely reciprocated. In fact, it has often led the charge against a variety of issues of high importance to Rome, especially on abortion and population.

But I digress. The issue here is the ethics and culture of the UN, not the Vatican. And on this issue, I am afraid that there is growing evidence that the UN is a corrupt and incompetent organization. Let's look at a few recent examples:

1. The Corruption of the "Oil For Food" Program
There has been much written of this scandal of late, and there is much yet to be discovered. The essence of the corruption is that Saddam Hussein used money from the UN-managed "Oil For Food" (OFF) program to buy influence on the UN Security Council in the run-up to the non-vote on Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.

Essentially, the scheme was for Saddam to issue vouchers to people of influence to purchase oil at a discount under OFF, so that those people could resell the oil on the open market, and pocket the difference. It appears now that as much as $11 billion was siphoned off in that way, and those people of influence included Benon Sevan, the UN bureaucrat who was in charge of the program, and Kojo Annan, son of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. It also appears that there were a number of large beneficiaries in France, Russia, and China. (For comparison, consider that Halliburton has alleged to have bilked the US government for "only" about $128 million, or around 1% of the OFF corruption – and likely to be repaid at the end of the day.)

The details remain murky at this time, and there are a number of ongoing investigations. However, sufficient evidence has emerged to make it very likely that such corruption was widespread.

The money corruption, however, pales in comparison to the political corruption. The money, it appears, was used to buy protection on the UN Security Council. Many of the powerful interests in France, Russia, and China who were benefiting from OFF were using their influence to build opposition to the US-led coalition in the Security Council.

In other words, the UN bureaucracy abetted the rigging of the Security Council in 2003. For shame!

For more coverage of OFF, see many of Claudia Rosett's articles in the Wall Street Journal, especially "Oil-for-Terror" on 28 April 2004.


2. The Footdragging During the Darfur Genocide
One of the principal rallying cries for the creation of the UN was "never again" on genocide. The horror and shame of the Holocaust helped build support for a supra-national organization that could help prevent future genocide.

In fact, the UN has generally failed in this area. The purges and mass murders in Russia, China, Cambodia, Uganda, Rwanda, and Serbia were met with hand-wringing (at best) and complicity (at worst) on the part of the UN.

This shame continues even today, in the Darfur region of the Sudan, where thousands of predominantly Christian Africans have been beaten, raped, and slaughtered by the Janjaweed, a brutal Islamicist militia force. These roving marauders have been ignored (at best) and actively supported (at worst) by the Sudanese government. USAID has estimated that 350,000 people or more could die in the coming months.

Yet the UN has done nothing except issues "strong statements" and weak resolutions while the crisis deepens.

For more information on the Darfur crisis, check out www.savedarfur.org and the Darfur section of the Human Rights Watch website.

3. The Prostitution of the UN Commission on Human Rights
The UN sponsors a series of commissions, and these organs of the bureaucracy have grown steadily more cancerous. A prime example is the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR).

This commission has been noted by UN Watch as having some of the most repressive regimes among its member. For instance, at this time, for example, the UN Commission on Human Rights includes representatives from Cuba, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria – all of them noted abusers of human rights. At a critical period during the run-up to the Iraq war, Libya was elected chairman of the UNCHR, despite a three decade history of abusing civil rights.

This sort of systematic abuse of UNCHR to allow tyrants and despots to have influence over the investigation of and elimination of human rights violations is unsupportable and damages the credibility of the UN

For more information on the UNCHR, go to their website. For news coverage at the time of Libya's election to chairman, see this BBC news article.

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These are just three examples of recent vintage, but there are many more. They indicate a level moral decay at the UN that makes ongoing support from the Vatican something of a scandal.

How many times throughout history have we seen Catholic institutions make the mistake of aligning themselves with some secular regime in the hope of using the regime for good purposes, only to see the Church herself compromised by such an alliance?

It is time for the Vatican to re-evaluate its cozy relationship with the United Nations, and push forcefully for a house-cleaning and bureaucratic reform.

In fact, given the deep decay in the UN, at this point wouldn't we be better off with a new organization made up of countries dedicated to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

This is the real question about the future of the UN and international cooperation. And it deserves an answer.