By Tom Easter, Carol Moody Becker and Kay Scrimger
June 23, 2003

Responding to claims that the United Nations is irrelevant today, Shashi Tharoor, Under'secretary-General for Communications and Public Information for the U.N., countered that the U.N. has Abrought people a world of hope."

Fearful of perishing after World War II, if another world war were to break out, the international community formed the U.N. in 1945 to create common standards and opportunities for partnerships. "It was founded during a period when the world had known almost nothing but war and strife, book ended between two savage world wars that began within twenty-five years of each other," Tharoor said.

Tharoor pointed out that, "The overall record of the second half of the twentieth century is actually one of great advances, the world economy recovered from the devastation in 1945 and expanded as never before with amazing technical and technological progress. Child mortality has been reduced, literacy has spread, the peoples of the so-called third world threw off the yoke of colonialism, those of the Soviet bloc won political freedom. While democracy is not yet universal, it is now more the norm than the exception."

"Did all this happen by accident? No! It happened because in and after 1945 a group of farsighted leaders was determined to make the second half of the twentieth century different from the first. They saw that the human race had just one world to live in and that unless it managed its affairs better, the entire human race might suffer, indeed, might all perish.

"So they drew up rules to govern international behavior, and they founded institutions in which different nations could cooperate for the common good. The keystone of the arch, so to speak, charged with keeping the peace between all nations and bringing all of them together in the quest for freedom and prosperity was the United Nations itself.

"The United Nations was created to stand for a world in which people of different nations and cultures looked on each other, not as objects of fear and suspicion, but as potential partners able to exchange goods and ideas for their mutual benefit. It was a world of increasing openness, of imperial contraction making way for economic expansion, of growing mutual confidence, above all, a world of hope."

The United Nations is indispensable, Tharoor said. First, despite the recent disagreement between the United States and the U.N. over the war in Iraq, the United States is now working with the U.N. on post-war Iraq and a host of other issues.

Secondly, the United Nations' universality makes it indispensable, he said. "Every country on earth belongs to the United Nations, including the world's only superpower. Every newly independent state seeks entry almost as its first order of government business. No club that attracts every eligible member can easily be described as irrelevant.

"And of course disagreement on the Security Council on Iraq masks a great deal of agreement on everything else," he observed.

"We should not forget that the relevance of the United Nations does not stand or fall based on what its conduct is on any one issue alone. Beyond Iraq, the world continues to face what Secretary General Kofi Annan calls -problems without passports,- problems that cross all frontiers uninvited—problems of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, of the degradation of our common environment, of contagious disease and chronic starvation, of human rights and human wrongs, of mass illiteracy and massive displacement.

"These are problems that no one country, however powerful, can solve on its own, and yet which are the shared responsibility of humankind. . . .The U.N. exists to find these solutions through the common endeavor of all states.

"I know it is not perfect but it is, after all, a mirror of the world. It reflects our divisions and disagreements as much as our hopes and convictions. It is folly to discredit an entire institution for the disagreements of its members. None of you would scrap your city councils because a bill failed to pass, though I am sure you would be tempted sometimes to do so. In fact, the U.N.'s record of success and failure is no worse than that of the most highly regarded governments.

"Yet somehow it seems that it is only the U.N. that is apparently expected to succeed all the time. In the words of the late Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary General from 1953 until 1961, -The United Nations was not created to take mankind to paradise but merely to save humanity from hell.- And that it has innumerable times."

Using flight as an example, Tharoor pointed out that the safety and ease with which people traverse the world by air is due to the standards set by and monitored in the U.N., including the use of English by all flight controllers. And he reminded the mayors of the contributions of other U.N. bodies to their daily lives, such as the World Meteorological Organization, which studies global climate patterns; and the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization, Intellectual Property Organization, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, U.N. AID, the International Telecommunications Union, UNESCO, and the Universal Postal Union.

Tharoor urged the mayors to remember that while the U.N. is not a perfect structure, it is the only world government body that we have and that we cannot do without it.

"The problems without passports are those that no country, however powerful, can solve on its own. With the tragic horror of 9/11, it was the U.N. Security Council that passed two vital resolutions, which provided the international framework of the global battle against terrorism.

"The United Nations for all its imperfections, real or imagined, has built up real experience. It has brought humanitarian relief to millions in need. It has helped people rebuild their countries from the ruins of armed conflict. It has fought poverty, protected the rights of children, protected democracy and raised the profile of environmental issues.

"In the name of our common humanity, we need to build on that experience.

"The United Nations is the only effective instrument the world has available to confront the challenges that will remain when Iraq has passed from the headlines. The U.N. is continuing to sail on uncharted waters and we are continually being blamed for the squalls that assail us.

"But if we are guided by the compass of our determination to live in a world governed by shared values and common rules and to steer together in the multilateral institutions that enlightened leaders of the twentieth century gave the world, we can indeed fulfill those great hopes of making this century greater than the last."

Tharoor said that when he sees bumper stickers that say "Let's get the U.S. out of the U.N. and the U.N. out of the U.S., he is reminded of an old story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, when Adam finds that Eve is a bit indifferent to him. He says, "Eve, is there someone else?" "You could say that about the U.N. Is there anyone else, any other institution that brings together all the countries of the world who dream the same dreams? There is not.

"And I believe this is the only United Nations that we have, and we need to count on the support of responsible leaders like all of you present in this room to ensure that we can continue to make the U.N. work for the betterment of all of us."