Donald McHenry Quotes

It's true that America can't solve every problem, but I don't know of any major problem in the world that can be solved without us.

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.

I don't know that there is much the United States can do except work with the international community.

The United States is necessary for the solution to many problems in the world today. However, we are no longer sufficient..

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

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.

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.

Time and again, when member states and the governments are faced with an insoluble problem, and they're under pressure to do something, that something usually ends up being referred to the U.N.

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.

When our vital interests are challenged, or the will and conscience of the international community is defied, we will act; with peaceful diplomacy whenever possible, with force when necessary.

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.

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

People think that it only takes an American decision to solve this or that problem [in foreign affairs].

Americans must step back and realize that an effective foreign policy is very difficult to devise, and we must present a united front to make it work.

Whatever its flaws, the United Nations is still the only institution that brings together all the countries of the world. And it is the best forum for the United States to spur countries to act - and to hold them accountable when they don't.

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.

It's important that all around the globe that the United States is pursuing the most effective foreign policy possible.

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.

There is no international problem that can be addressed or solved without the engagement and leadership of the United States and everybody in the world knows that, its just fact of life. So sometimes I think we could conduct ourselves with a little more humility.

The U.N. is much more than the case of Iraq.

To solve the problem of organizing world peace we must establish world law and order.

I'm a member of the US committee o the United Nations.

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.