COMMENT Each year autumn in the northern hemisphere heralds certain rituals in international politics. Not least is the opening of the General Assembly of the United Nations, usually with grand speeches from prime ministers and presidents who then fly home, leaving the more mundane sessions and committee work to their representatives. This ritual is also accompanied by another - the bitter attacks upon the world body by right and leftwing political forces, especially in the US.
The right charges that the UN is soft on terrorism, tolerates dictatorial regimes, is prejudiced against Israel and still allows a country like France anachronistic veto rights. The left resents the domination of the world body by a mere five members of the Security Council, its incapacity to achieve greater global economic equity, the unchecked powers of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and the failure to fulfil the visions so nobly expressed in the 1945 Charter. Neither side shows even the slightest understanding of why the UN is the way it is: because, 60 years ago, governments of the world decided to structure it along certain lines and deliberately made it difficult to change things afterwards.
