Turtle Bay Tango

McFaul
Michael A. McFaul - First, the U.N. is not the world's legislature. Pretending that U.N. resolutions approximate laws is misleading in practice and misguided in principle. In practice, the barrage of resolutions passed every year by the General Assembly has little meaning beyond the U.N. walls. The notion, expressed by U.N. Undersecretary-General for Communications Shashi Tharoor in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, that Security Council resolutions passed under Chapter VII of the charter are "legally binding on all member states" is also deceptive. A Security Council resolution only becomes binding when a powerful state -- i.e., the U.S. -- makes it so. Nor should U.N. "legislation" be viewed as "international law" under the current rules for membership in the U.N. How can Syria's ambassador to the U.N. claim to represent the will of his people, when his government does not? What kind of legislative body allows one royal family an equal vote to a democratic India representing a billion people?