What good are UN resolutions?

Great Debates
1

I was reading today that Iran is over the deadline for compliance with resolution 1696…a resolution demanding Iran halt uranium enrichment. It got me thinking about UN resolutions in general…and ask the question, what good are they really? It seems that nations ignore them as they choose. Iraq ignored repeated resolutions…and the US ignored them as well and invaded Iraq. Iran is not ignoring the resolutions directed at its nuclear program as they continue on their own course. This seems to be the norm…countries only honor resolutions or attempt to enforce them when they are resolutions they favor…then ignore those that they don’t like or that they feel run contrary to their national needs.

So, what good are they then? If the powerful and the not so powerful can ignore them pretty much at will, and seemingly DO ignore them at will, what do they accomplish in the end? Or do I have a jaded view of the resolution system, only seeing the failures and not the vast majority of success stories out there (sort of like someone who see’s only the successes of a psychic and so is convinced there is an effect…but fails to see all the failures)?

UN resolutions…are they effective? Are they worth while? Are they good for more than the paper they are printed on?

-XT

2

The resolutions, and the UN itself, are only sometimes useful. The biggest function is to let nations growl at each other publicly without bloodletting. When most of the world’s nation agree that another country is being uncivilized, sometimes it allows that nation to back off without looking wimpy. That doesn’t often work, and it seems to work less often than it once did. Maybe public disgrace has lost its sting.

Oh, sure, the UN has big projects for health, education, and famine, and I salute them for that. The main function, though, is letting countries climb into the ring and scream at each other like professional rasslers, harmlessly. It’s worth the effort, just for that.