Mahathir Mohamad Quotes

The UN system is not very democratic, everyone knows that the Security Council is not democratic.

Consider in 1945, when the United Nations was first formed, there were something like fifty-one original member countries. Now the United Nations is made up of 193 nations, but it follows the same structure in which five nations control it. It's an anti-democratic structure.

I thought that the United Nations is a creature of the five super-powers who were given veto powers. I don't like veto powers at all.

There is an ongoing debate about the reform of the U.N. system.

The United Nations is an indispensable but deeply flawed organization. It is valuable to the United States, and the United States is invaluable to it. We need to reform it.

The key to U.N. reform is giving Americans a clearer picture of what the U.N. is and what it isn't, what it can be and what it can't be.

Of course what is talked about in the U.N. General Assembly is very important. Officials, the leaders of nations, appear there to speak of the most important topics - what they perceive to be the most important topics.

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.

The League is dead; long live the United Nations.

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

The United Nations is an indispensable but deeply flawed institution.

Everybody knows that the United Nations is not the Secretary-General; he has an important position, but the United Nations is the states within this organization, and to be frank, most of the people say only the five permanent members; this is the United Nations because they have the veto, they can do whatever they want and they can refuse whatever they want, and if there's a reform that is very much needed for this organization.

I have often said that we have two UNs; the UN that is a Secretariat, that implements the mandates handed over to it by the General Assembly and the Security Council, and the UN that is the member states who sit in the Council, take the decisions, hand over the mandates, or take decisions in the General Assembly.

Having elected a government, we will be best advised to let it govern and to let it speak for us as it will in the councils of the nations.

Multilateralism is the democracy of international society.

Out of these troubled times … a new world order may emerge.

When the big powers are in agreement, the U. N. performs. When they aren't, the U. N. is paralyzed.

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

The nebulocity known as the international community is ultimately accountable to nobody.

In England, a Majority of Citizens does not elect the Majority of Representatives.

Many nations want the United Nations Secretary General to be less general and more secretary.

The UN is a great rusting hulk of a bureaucratic superstructure.

...the UN is in the hands of America. The Security Council is in the hands of America. The IAEA Board of Governors is in the hands of America.

It is the case that the Russians are misusing the veto in the United Nations, but you must recall that it was we who insisted upon the veto. Without the veto we could not gotten it through Congress.

The task of creating a sound international organization is complicated and difficult. Yet, without such organization, the rights of man on earth cannot be protected. Machinery for the just settlement of international differences must be found. Without such machinery, the entire world will have to remain an armed camp. The world will be doomed to deadly conflict, devoid of hope for real peace.