ABSTRACT
It is sometimes said in New York that the UN muddles through watched by ‘uncritical lovers and unloving critics’. The UN at 50 is not short of critics nor, in many places, of rather complacent followers. As the millennium approaches the mood of reform is also to be caught inside the UN Building. The former Secretary-General, Dr Boutros Boutros-Ghali, has put in motion a fairly far-reaching restructuring of departments and staff, and he has sponsored a series of keen organisation and methods scrutinies. It has not helped that elements in the US Congress have been so virulent and generalising about UN personnel, financing, policies and programmes. Inevitably, some sections of UN opinion have taken the hostility hard, accusing Washington of a wrecking escapade and of blindness to what the UN has already done and can still do. Politics and press indulge in ‘UN bashing’. The American eagle has become an ostrich.
