Romeo Dallaire Quotes

The main thing that endears the United Nations to member governments, and so enables it to survive, is its proven capacity to fail, and to be seen to fail. If there is something you are expected to do, but don't want to do, or even have done for you, you can safely appeal to the UN in the comfortable certainty that it will let you down.

As long as the problem of world reconstruction remains the center of interest for all nations, blocs having similar attitudes will form and operate even within the League itself.

The interests of the United States are better served by demanding reform and seeing that reform takes place than by removing our influence from the UN.

In the United Nations, when China entered, we voted on the same position, and since then we have maintained the same position, that position has not changed.

The utter incompetence of the U.N. is literally incomprehensible.

The United Nations exists to help countries solve their problems. If it helps the Americans solve theirs by blaming me, I'll be a scapegoat.

We begin by not taking it [the United Nations] seriously.

I think that we should have a very serious discussion about defunding the United nations… Why should we be paying for the UN?

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.

The United Nations has come under the control of outlaw nations and self-serving special interest groups.

It may surprise people to know that I advocate the reform of the United Nations, not its abolishment.

All in all, the League of Nations is not inevitably bound, as some maintain from time to time, to degenerate into an impotent appendage of first one, then another of the competing great powers.

There is no such thing as the United Nations.

There are big issues, like the reform of the Security Council. These kinds of questions are something the President of the General Assembly must keep his eye on.

India seeks to be a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council... things like this don't happen automatically, you need constant dialogue and discussion with the world.

Every government is in some respects a problem for every other government.

According to the U. N. Charter, the Secretary General is the chief administrative officer, not its chief moralizer.

If governments do not want to work with the U.N. and the international organizations, there is a limit to what you can do. And there is also a limit to patience.

The United Nations is a failed institution in its current form.

Without the U. N., world politics is inconceivable.

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

You cannot have individual foreign policy. You cannot have celebrity foreign policy.

The President professes a faith in the United Nations but his actions and statements are not designed to give life or vitality to that organization.

The best thing that most Americans can say about the UN is that it is ineffectual. That’s the best thing.

International institutions like the UN can only be as effective as its members allow it to be.