All bureaucracies need heroes. The employees of most large organizations spend their days taking notes and bickering over their vacation dates. They require a few exemplary individuals, past or present, to inspire them. Bankers laud the financial wizards who landed big deals. Lawyers lionize the legal eagles who won famous cases. The United Nations is no different. U.N. officials tend to be smart, highly educated and distinctly frustrated by the organization’s struggle to stay relevant on the world stage. Anyone who has encountered this admirably cosmopolitan tribe of officials knows that they are also collectively obsessed by their right to [...]
In the past two months, three of the most influential individuals at the United Nations have made their exits. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon bade farewell in December. U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power quit as the Obama administration wrapped up in January. And this week, Russian representative Vitaly Churkin died unexpectedly at his office at the Russian mission in New York. His departure may be the most significant of all three. Ban was a stodgy bureaucrat. Power was a fiery but often frustrated advocate for serious U.N. interventions in trouble spots like the Central African Republic and South Sudan. Churkin was an old-school [...]
In November, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus warned that a growing gap between the super rich and the rest of the world’s population is a “ticking time bomb” that will lead to exploitation of the poor, immigrants and minorities. There is good evidence that time is running out to keep that bomb from going off. Economic fragility in the eurozone has fueled the rise of populist and nationalist parties in European elections since 2008. The refugee crisis confronting Europe compounded the swing. A wave of populist wins in 2016, from Brexit and Italy’s rejection of constitutional reform to the election of [...]
