Humanity's Last Best Hope - the United Nations

If the late great statesman and former Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), Kofi Annan, of Ghana, was correct in describing the international organization as: "The last best hope of humanity", then substantial progress toward world harmony and global peace and stability would emerge out of the present 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), taking place in New York City, New York, that concludes on October 1.

But I submit that no measurable consensus toward a better world will emerge following the 73rd Session of the UNGA. Instead, humanity could expect wordy rhetoric, political posturing, gloating, finger pointing and accusations to emerge from the world list of leaders, who will address the body. At the conclusion, the world could emerge as a more dangerous place rather than being a better place.

Not that Kofi Annan's premise is false, for it is true, however, the flawed character of man - many of those in leadership positions, coupled with the inherent flawed structure of the UN, do combine to make the world body often impotent to realizing Annan's hope.

While the character of some world leaders contributing to the ineffectiveness of the UN is self evident to many, the structure of the UN Security Council (UNSC) remains flawed by giving super veto power to individual members of the Permanent Five - Russia, the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), France and China. Thus, as Russia has demonstrated over and over again with vetoes of measures that could have ended the Syrian war years ago, therein lies the problem of the super veto.

Until the UN is reformed to replace the single super veto with a simple majority of the SC, then the world body will continue to stand in its own way to realizing humanity's best hope to stability and peace.