Regardless of its success in drawing attention to global issues involving the worst off and powerless, and its better cooperation with other institutions such as the World Bank in addressing the issues of poverty and education, the United Nations continues to be judged against its poor record as the world's guardian of peace. Yet, the United Nations, or more accurately the permanent members of its Security Council, has stubbornly resisted change and the necessity to reform so that the Organization can deal with some of the worst human disasters in places like Sierra Leone or Kosovo. It remained what former UN Secretary-General U Thant described as "a last resort affair, and then blamed for "failing to solve problems that have already been found to be insoluble by Governments".

Indeed, the United Nations is not set up on a model of a well-ordered sovereign society, with substantial and regular funding, and with a constitution and a standing army that have the legitimate authority to use force in defence of peace and order.

In other words, the United Nations lacks the freedom to function as a nation-State and simply reflects short-term interests of Member States, most notably the permanent members of the Security Council. There is little reason to believe that this will change in the first years of the new century, and perhaps reform of the United Nations should focus on two major structural problems that need to be redressed -- the perceptions of sovereignty and of impartiality -- if it is ever to be more able to deal with evils it has professed to combat, as both are the cornerstones of the United Nations, while at the same time the major stumbling blocks of its missions.

The United Nations is poorly equipped to deal with interstate conflicts, even less with intrastate conflicts.

Its provisions leave one at best in confusion when conflicts occur within States that are remote from the concept traditionally described as "rational" and basic units of an international system. Dynamics of the modern international system, with growing interdependence, changed perceptions of power and security, and activities of international institutions that complement and compete with States as actors encouraged the claims that the time of absolute sovereignty has passed. Its principle has been seriously challenged and undermined from above and below as globalization and ethnic cleansing occur simultaneously.

Although this principle is no longer sacrosanct, it is still very much alive at the world Organization, and the United Nations must reform in the way that can allow it to deal with conflict management according to new realities.

As States take pride in their sovereignty, the United Nations does so in its impartiality. The big powers' inability to bypass short-termism was largely reflected when dealing with human tragedies in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Rwanda, because the decision-makers in the United Nations opted for a middle course. As the cases of Srebrenica and Somalia showed, Member States must believe that the cost of action does not exceed the cost of neutrality. The notion of a more partial humanitarian intervention is still seen as somewhat blasphemous; however, the international community is making some progress. The United Nations should continue to look to regional forces.

Finally, the United Nations was vested with the arduous tasks of repairing devastated societies in Kosovo and East Timor. The sustainable degree of order and justice after the termination of hostilities is not easily achieved. It is a piecemeal process of building up a legitimate regime of norms, institutions and arrangements capable of keeping the war-torn society in cohesion and which may mitigate propensity to resume violence. But wars and human tragedies are equally man-made as is the world Organization. Why then should "we the peoples" allow the capacity of humans to destroy and inflict pain a better chance than the capacity to build and repair?

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