Carne Ross (former British diplomat) urges urgent reform of the UN:

It is depressing how little creative thinking goes on at the UN to remedy its many deficits. Diplomats posted to the UN tend to come and go for three or four-year tours making little impression, and often leave demoralised and defeated by the UN’s absurd and seemingly intractable conundrums.

Most UN member-states are small, and have commensurately small diplomatic missions, and most of these admit that are completely overwhelmed with the number and complexity of committees and processes they must keep up with; many barely comprehend them at all (pity the rest of us).

Staff in the deeply-hierarchical secretariat are discouraged from action, fearful that their next posting will be to Congo rather than up the greasy, corrupt pole that is the promotion system in the UN. Note, by the way, how virtually no senior staff member is under 50, a clear indicator that subservience is valued higher than competence.

The only solution is a severe jolt of electricity. Some say that only a war will at last trigger the energy for change. But there already is one, in fact many.

The leading states should agree to have a conference with the goal of nothing less than a renovated and revivified UN. Take discussion away from the corridors and stale arguments of the New York UN complex. Set an ambitious agenda and aim high, but for something simple and ideal.

All of which will not happen, if only for the simple reason that it suits most states to keep the UN exactly as it is. For many governments round the world the UN is a superb place to dump annoying enemies and relatives. They get nice fat salaries for no work, and in return they have to shut up.

In any case how to agree on which ‘leading states’ might summon and attend this new gathering?

Those states with the largest populations? Those which pay the most into the UN pot? Those with the biggest armies/economies/ambitions? Those which have a convincing internationalist track record? Those with honest leaders, accountable to their own people?

The decadent status quo at least has the advantage of clear if largely anachronistic rules.

And a certain acquired legitimacy. Would a new body really mean a step-change in clarity and legitimacy, let alone efficacy?

I would start to reform the UN by simply making it smaller. Cut its budget.

Carne’s idea here makes sense:

Senior UN appointments should not be, as they are today, a function of under-the-table national pressure for jobs, an odious internationalised version of "buggins’ turn" in which even the most pious UN members (including the UK) indulge.

The secretary-general must be free to invite applications from qualified candidates worldwide, and to hire on merit. That such an obvious proposal should seem so radical at the UN is an indication of the depth of the crisis.

Those who pay the most into the UN pot should start to go slow on their contributions until a number of core modernising reforms such as this are brought in.

Pruning shears first. Get the tree a bit healthier. Axe later, as necessary.

Update: a reader points out in the Good Writing context that I have used a tired management cliché, ‘step-change’, in this posting. He’s right. Amazing how they creep in.