Samantha Power Quotes

When states decide to use force to deal with broader threats to international peace and security, they need the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations.

The United Nations is your instrument for peace and justice. Use it.

During the three decades of its existence, the effectiveness of the United Nations has, on the whole, tended to decrease, particularly in the field of peace and security and, more generally, all issues in which the developed countries feel they have important stakes.

Within a few weeks the organization for the maintenance of international peace and security, established by the San Francisco Charter, will be formally launched through the convocation of the first General Assembly of the United Nations.

The purpose of the United Nations should be to protect the essential sovereignty of nations, large and small.

Let us face it, the U.N. has failed. It has failed in its mission to promote world peace.

So I've gone in and out of the U.N., working on counter-terrorism, on U.N. reform, on peacekeeping, peace and security issues, many things through the years but always with a strong interest in humanitarian issues, and human rights issues as well.

As Brian Urquhart has said quite correctly, I don't think that individual countries in the international community can stand aside and let all of these slaughters continue without doing anything.

Well, the U.N. Security Council resolution 1973 is very clear. It says all necessary measures to be taken to protect civilians and civilian areas. I mean, that to me is very clear.

The United Nations was founded in the aftermath of World War II, just as the world was beginning to learn the full horrors of history's worst genocide, the Holocaust that consumed 6 million Jews and 3 million others in Europe.

What makes the United Nations an appropriate source of legitimacy for intervention is that it is the only place where the claims of the strong are put through the test of justification in front of the weak.

The United Nations has become a largely irrelevant, if not positively destructive institution, and the just-released U.N. report on the atrocities in Darfur, Sudan, proves the point.

If the American people are to say yes to U. N. peace keeping, the United Nations must know when to say no.

One thing the United Nation is good at is producing documents.

When did the American people decide that U. S. foreign policy should be conducted through the United Nations.

Unilateral preemption should not in any way be the model for how we conduct international relations... It brings us into very dangerous territory and it could be used and abused by any other country. We need to continue to base our security on multilateralism, and on the Security Council.

To demand the requirements of nations to contribute to the struggle against terrorism, we need much more precise definitions so that the war against terrorism is not used, [even] as it protects, to justify other purposes -- domestic purposes or external purposes. This discredits the very notion of a joint fight against terrorism.

In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations, its Members confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and agree that in carrying out its duties under this responsibility the Security Council acts on their behalf.

The United Nations inspectors cannot tell us anything that we do not already know nor can they galvanize the world to the action that should be taken.

It [the UN] has given uniquely valuable services in many places where violence threatened. It is the only real world forum where we have the opportunity for international presentation and rebuttal…. The United Nation deserves our continued firm support.

A peaceful world requires collective measures for the prevention of war, international cooperation to solve economic and social problems, and respect for human rights.

The U.N. must have adequate resources and the right capabilities to fully engage in global peacekeeping.

The U.N. was there to protect other Rwandese.

When human rights are systematically abused, it raises the question whether it may be legitimate in some circumstances for the international community to intervene within individual states as well as in conflicts between states.

I think the international community should unite to fight such inhuman phenomena as terror attacks and the murder of totally innocent people.