ABSTRACT
In the halls of the United Nations, the standard diplomatic language implies the existence of a United Nations system. A search of the official records of the UN disclosed in early 2012 more than 30,000 listings of the phrase. It suggests a deliberately created harmonious operator based on unity of purpose, process, action, and result. Further scrutiny discloses that this phrase covers the existence and activity of more than 30 formal inter national organ iza tions. Aside from the United Nations itself, altogether they budget expenditures for 2011 of some $6.9 billion1 and directly employ several tens of thousands of personnel, yet the history and work of this institutional complex suggests that the UN system is at best a rather fuzzy metaphor, or perhaps only a euphemism for a “nonsystem,”2 rather than an accurate description.
