The United Nations Isn't Failing—Its Members Are

Last week was a grim one for the reputation of the United Nations. In the face of mounting evidence of a large-scale chemical weapons attack by the Syrian regime, and with more than one million children made refugees by the civil war, the U.N. Security Council responded with a statement of “serious concern.” It is doubtful that this was much comfort to the victims and their families.

It is hardly the first time the international body dedicated to global peace and development has looked irrelevant in the face of crisis. But for all of those failures, alongside the corruption and byzantine bureaucracy of the organization, two recent academic studies suggest that adequately supported U.N. operations have often had a big role in promoting peace and stability—significantly reducing civilian deaths in conflict and helping to consolidate democracies. This suggests that the blame for the U.N.’s failures should be borne in large part by the countries that provide the authorization, troops, and funding for operations, not the organization itself.