“For the United Nations to come into existence, it was necessary for a large body of persons to believe in the human capacity for good, and to feel that their hopes might be justified,” says the book Defeat of an Ideal by Shirley Hazzard, who worked for a decade in the United Nations Secretariat.

A second problem is touched on by Shirley Hazzard: “Powers of compulsion were not invested in the United Nations Organization, except in so far as they might reside in the very members most likely to need compelling.” In other words, the organization can make decisions, but for the most part it cannot enforce them. Weighty world problems are regularly discussed at length. Resolutions are solemnly passed​—and then forgotten.