Video Transcript

What do you know about the United Nations? 

At the end of World War II, the victorious powers founded the United Nations, with a noble goal… “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” 

The UN’s charter mission includes encouraging & promoting global peace and prosperity, fundamental "human rights” and “freedoms for all.” 

Unfortunately, the UN has not lived up to this promise. 

Too often, the UN actively undermines basic freedoms and human rights, among other world-impacting failings. 

The UN legitimizes dictators, giving them membership, voting rights, & seats in the General Assembly, alongside democratic peace-loving governments. 

Scandals at the UN have ranged from financial scams to raw anti-Semitism to grotesque complicity with dictators. 

UN failings trace back to fundamental flaws in its design. 

The UN is not accountable to any coherent legal jurisdiction or any genuinely empowered constituency of voters. 

There is no mechanism for reliably enforcing UN compliance with its own charter. 

Since the UN’s founding, the U.S. has been by far the single biggest financial contributor. 

Yet in some important ways, the U.S. gets less than nothing for all that taxpayer money. The world deserves better than the UN. 

Visit IWF.org to read the policy focus and learn more.