What’s Right about the UN?

General Assembly in session during the 

Sustainable Development Conference.

Having attended UN conferences and presentations for the past four years, I feel I can give my opinion regarding what the UN has achieved and continues to contribute to our global society.  Presently, much criticism is leveled against the United Nations: ineffective, poorly organized, unnecessary.  No institution is prefect and some of the remarks are justifiable, but I would like to tell one reason, of many that could be told, WHY the UN is needed.

We need the UN because it has given us the words we need to rise above the crassness, greed and bigotry of our unreflected lives. For example:

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW -This convention has yet to be passed by the United States Congress) 
Convention against Torture and other of Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment

Convention on the Rights of Children

Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers

Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities

Indigenous Peoples Human Rights

Sculpture at the entrance to the UN.

Check any of these Conventions on UN web sites and asked yourself,  “Which of these Human Rights is unnecessary in the present political reality?”  In addition to the ongoing work of the UN “to bring all nations of the world together to work for peace and development, based on the principles of justice, human dignity and the well-being of all people.”