Kofi Annan Quotes

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

There is no such thing as the United Nations.

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

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

It's very liberating for me to realize that I don't have to step up to the plate with a plot that involves the U.N. Security Council.

What we need now is a Treaty of the World not a Treaty of Rome.

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 most tragic paradox of our time is to be found in the failure of nation-states to recognize the imperatives of internationalism.

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

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

It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation-states, however powerful. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the imperatives of global environmental cooperation.

The U.N. brings everybody together. And without it, we can't deal with Ebola or terrorism or climate change. But it's 70 years old. It's tired. It's acquired a lot of bad habits. And often it feels like only new bad habits get added and old bad habits don't get taken away.

Without American leadership at the U.N., countries just continue to talk and socialize and spend taxpayer dollars.

If the U.N. is ineffective, the whole concept of multilateralism will collapse.

In the United States, there is a broadly shared view that the U.N. is one of many potential instruments to advance U.S. issues, and we have to decide whether a particular issue is best done through the U.N. or best done through some other mechanism.

The U.N. is one of many competitors in a marketplace of global problem solving.

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.

There are many who criticise the United Nations. And those of us who know this institution well know that it is not immune from criticism. But those who argue against the United Nations advance no credible argument as to what should replace it. Whatever its imperfections, the United Nations represents a necessary democracy of states.

I'm a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy.

There are nearly 200 countries and a population of over 6 billion in today's world. International affairs should be addressed by all countries through consultations rather than monopolised by a few powers.

Now, the United Nations is an organization that I believe was founded with good intentions. As a matter of fact, a prominent Tennessean named Cordell Hull was very involved with it.

We shouldn't discuss the world of tomorrow in terms of becoming a balance to the United States. The real issue is whether the United States will define herself as part of the U.N. system-or not.

The U.N. can be very frustrating and at times impotent, but it can also be a valuable forum for discussion and resolution of world problems. We should not walk away from it just because it's failed to live up to its promise.

Legislation that would withhold funding for the United Nations is fundamentally flawed in concept and practice, sets us back, is self-defeating, and doesn't work.

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