Annan urges overhaul of U.N.

Imagine the timing of this!

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is urging world leaders to adopt a wide-ranging change in the agency.

In a report that will be delivered to the general assembly on Monday, Annan includes proposals that recommend expanding the 15-member Security Council to 24 to make it more representative of the whole world and the "geopolitical realities of today."

The report is asking member countries to consider two models for change.

Under the first model, there would be six new permanent seats, two from Africa, two from Asia, one in Europe and one in the Americas, but they would have no veto rights.

There would also be three new non-permanent seats lasting for two-year terms.

more...

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/03/20/un.reform/

for years, and there have been delays, but it was finally promised for this month.

take away U$ veto power.

Though now it looks like they want to make it possibly worse by giving more nations the veto power on the Security Council

outside of some of their quasi-independent bodies like the WHO or UNESCO the UN is getting to be about as useful as the League of Nations which is rather sad for an organization that started with such promise.

what the individual UN members allow it to.

It cannot act independently. It's just a very large committee.

It takes far too LONG for it at times to get into action or sometimes it doesn't do anything at all. For example pratically every other military on the planet of quality has organized rapid deployment forces to head out to trouble if needed. Why can't the UN have such a group and the Secretary General in times of extreme crisis be able to say head out. Imagine what a group might have been able to do in Rwanda, where they tried to break the record for comitting genocide in the shortest amount of time. What was the final total a million dead in a month? Mostly the hard way with machetes and bullets. Imagine what a group of well trained soldiers, who were also well armed and not had their hands tied by draconian rules of engagement could have done.

When decisions ultimately get decided by two or three countries with conflicting agendas, nothing gets done.

Put most major decisions to a full vote of the General Assembly, and you'd see a lot more done (and a lot more that the US wouldn't like, I might add).

on the genocide, they aren't going to let it stop. End the veto power.

That's the single most progressive change they could make and by far
the most productive for the world at large.

...doing what he has been ordered to do.

Don

currently holding that power, any reform is superficial at best, imo. It is the imbalance of 'power' in the Security Council that causes the problems at the UN, stops the UN from acting on issues solely because it is not in the self interest of only one of the five.