| Reforming the United Nations: Lessons from a History in Progress |
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The never-ending quest for reform, for improving the functioning of the
United Nations, has been an integral part of the life of the world body
since its earliest days. Indeed, one of the more controversial issues
at the United Nations’ founding conference in San Francisco during the
spring of 1945 was how the process of amending its Charter should be
structured and when a general review conference of the Charter’s
provisions should be called.
2003 - Edward C. Luck, International Relations Studies and the United Nations Occasional Papers Extract from introduction: Those delegations unhappy with some of the compromises reached in San Francisco, especially concerning the inequities of the veto power granted the “Big Five” Permanent Members of the Security Council (P-5), wanted to schedule a general review relatively soon and to make the hurdles to amendment relatively low. The Soviet Union and, to a lesser extent, the other “Big Five” powers, on the other hand, naturally preferred to keep the barriers to Charter change relatively high. On a more operational level, the United Nations had barely passed its second birthday before members of the US Congress started to call for sweeping reforms of UN finance and administration. In October 1947, the Senate expenditures committee launched a study that found serious problems of overlap, duplication of effort, weak coordination, proliferating mandates and programs, and overly generous compensation of staff within the infant, but rapidly growing, UN system.
Similar complaints have been voiced countless times since. Through the years, scores of independent commissions, governmental studies,
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