Mary Robinson Quotes

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.

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

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

I have concluded that the U.N. can do a few things well.

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.

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.

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

I would never play any role in anything that involves the United Nations for obvious reasons.

There is no such thing as the United Nations.

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

If the U.N. didn't exist, we'd be inventing it right now.

I think U.N. organizations are important organizations. They exist for good reasons. And we also admit that there is room for us to improve the way we do business. The WHO will be a very positive and proactive partner in the overall U.N. reform, which is also important.

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

No one should abandon his county's interest upon entering the portals of the United Nations.

The United Nations is really the League of Nations 2.0

The League of Nations is the greatest humbug in history. They cannot even protect a little nation like Armenia. They do nothing but pass useless resolutions.

I'm doing more of my U.N. work and doing the African Union Summit and things like that.

The European vision is the United Nations' vision.

When we talk about the UN, what are we really talking about? We are talking about my country, your country, other countries and their collective will to stand together and apply pressure or offer incentives to steer things in the right direction. When the nations of the world come together, with collective will, on an issue and they speak with a united voice, they have a much greater impact. When there is division, then the impact is much, much less.

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.

The United Nations is our one great hope for a peaceful and free world.

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.

The U.N. is worse than disaster. The U.N. creates conflicts. Look at the disgraceful U.N. Human Rights Council: It transmits norms which are harmful, anti-liberty and anti-Semitic, among other things. The world would be better off in its absence.

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.