Ali Dessouki Quotes

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

The United Nations’ founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America’s consent the veto by Security Council permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The profound wisdom of this has underpinned the stability of international relations for decades.

It is a commonplace that the League of Nations is not yet-what its most enthusiastic protagonists intended it to be.

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.

But I would say if the Security Council is only relevant if it agrees with the United States, then we have come a long way in a direction that I do not like very much.

The United Nations system is still the best instrument for making the world less fragile.

The League is dead; long live the United Nations.

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

The rules that organizations such as the United Nations rely on were not written by the majority of the world’s people, who have long seen powerful states declare exceptions for themselves. Newly powerful states will challenge this system --

I wouldn't give up on the U.N. yet.

The U.N. system, born after the Second World War, collapsed. It's worthless.

U.S. academics and Upper East Side New Yorkers like to think of the United Nations as a place where foreign ambassadors have intellectual discussions about power and world peace.

It's one of my government's ambitions to secure a seat for Ireland on the U.N. Security Council so that we can play an even greater role in international affairs and try to build what we all believe in, which is a world of laws.

We have to acknowledge and discuss with citizens that Germany needs to take on more responsibility. One of the questions is, 'Can we keep a functioning international order?'

There was an implicit conviction that the UN would be stronger than the sum of its constituent member-states.

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.

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 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.

In the euphoria after the Cold War, there was a misplaced notion that the UN could solve every problem anywhere.

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.

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.

When the world lacks muscular and wise American leadership, it devolves into total chaos, which, in turn, produces unspeakable evils.

Attempts to settle crises by unilateral sanctions outside the framework of U.N. Security Council decisions threaten international peace and stability. Such attempts are counterproductive and contradict the norms and principles of international law.