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The United Nations: Has the Prodigal Returned?
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11888 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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8 / 1987 |
3,473 Words |
| Author
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David F. Forte
David F. Forte is associate dean and professor of law at
Cleveland State University. He was formerly counselor for
legal affairs at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. |
At daybreak on the East River, the United Nations building stands faceless and cold. The only movement is the turbulent tidal basin below. By 8:30, streams of men and women flow into the building's First Avenue entrance.
Most go directly to their offices among the 38 floors of the Secretariat building and among ancillary buildings nearby. Inside, above the handsome cafeteria and away from the splendid forum spaces of the General Assembly and conference buildings, the workers retire to dreary cubicles. Metal desks, translucent partitions, and the gray-green of the Spartan 1940s provide the environment. There, some begin to organize for the torrent of meetings to be held that day. Others prepare for negotiations of moment. Some of the employees dally and gossip. Most, however, plunge into their daily task of pushing paper: unceasing reams of it.
The printing and distribution of UN documents - to the hundreds of UN offices, UN missions, and depository libraries - not only consumes untold tons of wood pulp but also costs prodigious sums. Taking into account recording, transcribing, translating, printing, and distributing, each page of a UN document costs around $650, more than the annual per capita income of 62 members of the organization.
This prodigal paper production is but the effluent of thousands of meetings whole speeches, records, and reports fill the working hours of the UN employee. U.S. Ambassador Jose Sorzano, who served under Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, points out that in 1982 there were 11,672 meetings of UN bodies in New York and Geneva. Arithmetic translates that into more than 32 meetings a day, seven days a week,
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