I completely disagree. If we are going to call a spade a spade, most of UN problems in the horn, stems from the 5 permanent SC members choosing to push their own agendas at the expense of UN and international rule of law.

If we take the case of the Ehio Eritrean border, it does not suffer from lack of precisely defined goals in fact the opposite. The goals from day one was to identify the border by third party that the two antagonists agreed, the decision was final, binding and non negotiable. Clear open and shut case.

Yet when the decision put Eritrea morally and legally on the right, rather that enforcing its own ruling the UN was shamelessly arm twisted by the 3 members of the SC to do nothing and even worse to falsify monitoring reports about how more than 2000 Eritrean soldiers were present in Somalia, that turned out to be false. This has put it in the direct wrath of Eritrea, which rightly sees the UN as being manipulated and unfair.

There are other major UN inconsistencies like while Ethiopia is breaking UN sanctions and resolutions on the arming and invasion of Somalia, rather that penalizing it, UN is encouraging it.
e.g. The UN seems to be happy and keeping quite about the massive Ethiopian armaments purchase from North Korea, partial funded by the US but is breaking both US and UN sanctions, while whining and trying to block Zimbabwe's armed shipment from China that is not breaking any UN rules.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/08/news/arms.php
China and Russia are not any better when it comes to Sudan and other countries.

The only solution I see is, UN should shield itself from the interest of individual SC members, and concentrate more in fairly upholding international rule of law, come what may. As it stands it is rightly been criticized for its next to nothing existence.

Now that the Eritrean-Ethiopian border has been legally demarcated, how long will the UN wait to condemn the Military occupation of Eritrea by the US' "Ally," Ethiopia?

Are any of the Security Council members' interests more important than the interests of the International Community, whom it purportedly represents?

Stay tuned for the next episode of the "United Nations" realpolitik saga!

Featuring the puppet show and Sponsored by the cowboy.

Thia is nan true artikel i havr ever read. Dont you know that the world is tired the UN is onley keping to onley super power country that world sick with dablestandard of UN. I dont even belive that UN is exist.

The UN is Responsible for Majority of wars and war crimes in most third world countries and the Middle East.

Let?s look at the Preamble of the UN and The UN contribution in one of the peace mission known as UNMEE in The Eritrean and Ethiopian border war and the Algiers Agreement. The PREAMBLE
WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED
 to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
 to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
 to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
 to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

The PREAMBLE was clearly defined however the UN is a symbolic institution run by few nations? national interest not the world people?s interest. In fact The Preamble should read ?Me the people not we the people? because the faith of we the people rests in the hands of few Security Council who have the veto power to do everything they want. If the wheel is in the hands of few people and they take turns to drive the wheel with out sharing with all owners, what is the point of saying we have a nice vehicle.

In fact, the UN is the most corrupted institution in the entire planet. It created more suffers, agonies, wars, hunger, displacement and countless problems because its luck of standing to the reasons and the principles it was created for. The Eritrean and Ethiopian war, the Algiers agreement and the Eritrean and Ethiopian Boundary Commission Decision of April 13, 2002 is a prime example why the UN is to blame for the failure of implementing an agreement that was supposed to be final and binding by both parties. Instead of enforcing its mandate, it chose to blame Eritrea, a country that has accepted the ruling, lived up to its promise from day one of the April 13, 2002 decision of the boundary commission created by the Eritrean and Ethiopian Government. http://dehai.org/demarcation-watch/eebc/EEBC-Statement-Nov-27-2006.pdf. I just hope one day, a new institution will be created that addresses a real issues and solve conflicts in fairness so that the world can live in peace that is why there is no single peace treaty that worked under the United Nations. I could go on and on and talk about The Djibouti but there is no point, there is no such free media, it is the same as the UN, controlled by the power. As it was said ?right or wrong my country?, Eritrea will prevail.

The UN is undeniably made up of its members. But if the UN can't fill a role in its own right, if it is not given a mandate to act independently by the voluntary submission of jurisdiction and power from its members through compromise, if it has no way of independently enforcing resolutions, then it is really a meaningless organization. When the UN is called on to step in stop a fight between various parties, it depends on the cooperation of the fighting parties to do its job. This is absurd. I mean if the parties could cooperate, why would they need the UN in the 1st place? The Eritrean and Ethiopian border problem was resolved over 6 years ago in a court endorsed by the UN and based on a peace agreement (Algiers agreement) which included "guarantors" such as the US (guarantors as in they would ensure that the verdict whatever it is, would be enforced). Eritrea accepted the verdict fully, Ethiopia did not. The UN (and the "guarantors" i.e. USA) wasted millions of dollars maintaining a peacekeeping mission on the border ignoring the verdict of the court along with Ethiopia. 6 years of lip service by all parties resulted in nothing. This is obviously because the guarantor USA is a good buddy of Ethiopia's and very infuential in the UN, so they can obstruct justice for as long as they want. Eritrea of course has been sabotaging the UN mission's work out of frustration, which wasn't exactly constructive either. Imagine you call the police because you're being robbed, the police who are buddies of the robber arrive and say: "we can only keep you apart, we can't really do anything to the robber unless he agrees". Taxpayer money goes to maintain the police between you and the robber for 6 years until one of you backs off or buckles under the pressure. This is exactly what is going on between Eritrea and Ethiopia. International law should stick more than depending on self-serving "guarantors" to enforce it, such as the US (equivalent of depending on the mafia for law enforcement). There should be an international legal system which all states are bound to adhere to. In the absence of this: might makes right. If Ethiopia decided to invade Eritrea and destroy it thoroughly, no one in the world would bat an eye. The USA and allies would provide sattelite and aerial assistance as well as diplomatic and PR support as they did during the Eritrea Ethiopia war in itself. It would be dubbed a "fight against terrorism". Just like they did with Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia. The only thing holding Ethiopia and the US back is the deterring cost that breaking Eritrea's defenses would entail. But they have a cost effective plan for this as well. The 6 year delay in carrying out justice and demarcating Eritrea's borders is not the UN's fault (it has no power to be at fault). It is by design, by US design to be precise. The United States idea is that a small country like Eritrea, dwarfed 20 times over in population by Ethiopia, economically isolated and challenged, will buckle under all by itself under this no-war and no-peace situation with Ethiopia. Maintaining such a large army, Eritrea's tiny economy will crumble, morale will crumble and Eritrea will be all but a distant memory in the end.

Buhuhu poor UN. Bullcrap!!!

I agree with Dan and everyone else. US is the main culprit and UN its child it toys with.