So I think what the UN does, that's very important.

Not just in the humanitarian field but in general,

is set the framework.

So you can't have lots of companies or NGOs or

states operating without any idea of what a principle,

the humanitarian principles, should be.

What the ground rules are.

What kind of frameworks they're observing in terms of human rights,

best practice involving local communities, and so on.

And ultimately, to whom are they accountable.

Well, it started out being bad and then it got worse.

It started out being the bad state of affairs

that the United Nations conceived as a world peace,

world order organization, was reduced to being an international relief organization,

a sort of supplementary International Red Cross in emergencies.

It got worse when you had things like the cholera episode in Haiti where

the UN actually brought natural disaster in giving relief of a natural disaster.

But I think they're connected.

I think that the lowering of the morale or the prestige

of the United Nations trickles down through all its operative bodies.

I think if there was an esprit and a prestige to be

maintained and a political consensus of the P5 behind the larger organization,

perhaps it could clean up the Implementation Act more readily.

The private sector's criteria for helping

is different and would be different than an international organization.

You don't want to introduce brand name advantage or profit-making

opportunities or balancing of costs and risks into these operations.

We are, after all,

try to represent at least a minimal degree of international humanity and decency,

and I think this is the organizational way to do it.

You look at probably hundreds of thousands

of North Koreans would have starved to death without the World Food Organization.

I suppose the counterargument is if they-- enough of them had starved to death,

they would have overthrown their regime and that might have been a good thing,

but I don't do that kind of moral calculus when people's lives are at stake.

I think that, you know, from relief organizations in Europe after the Second World War,

through Palestine, through North Korea,

through enumerous-- innumerable disasters,

these organizations have been lifesavers and have operated where,

in their absence, there might have been nothing

else and people would have died in large numbers.

At the end of the day, the UN Security Council veto can stop any UN action,

and a Security Council resolution can also enable action.

It's not always negative.

If you look at like an Ebola response,

the resolution that was crafted enabled a regional response for

the Ebola-affected countries that enabled a lot more flexibility with the UN to respond.

The UN is always invited by a country that's affected by disaster to participate.

The UN is a political entity,

and it's a product of the member states.

So it's a fait accompli that the vested interests of the member states drive the help.

If you look at – and this also goes to budget.

The Director-General of WHO has made it very clear that,

as a result of the Ebola outbreak,

WHO needed to look at improving its operational capacity –

the ability to detect outbreaks,

unusual events going on,

do really strong risk assessments with ministries of health,

and then to have an institutional response that can ensure

that when countries need technical support in the area of outbreaks,

that WHO is ready to support them.

Because I think the other thing that's important with WHO,

that's perhaps a bit different to some of

the other UN agencies is that we work hand-in-hand with the ministries of health.

Because of the structure of the organization,

WHO's role in the field is to support the ministries of health.

Strangely, the big success during the Cold War years

at the UN was in the humanitarian field.

It was a period where there was gridlock on politics at the international level,

but a space allowed to protect the civilian victims of conflict or natural disasters.

And that space was governed by international humanitarian law or principles,

the Geneva Conventions, you know,

the refugee conventions, etc.,

and was not subject to political interference from

the UN Security Council by common standing or understanding.

And it's only really in the post-1989 years that a more activist, briefly more united,

Security Council intruded into

this space on the grounds that putting some real political punch

behind issues of humanitarian intervention would secure more help more speedily,

and that same political punch could be

applied to try and find solutions to these problems because, you know,

a perennial concern is you help people but you keep them in

a state therefore of suspended animation.

You're helping them in refugee camps or somewhere else,

but you're freezing a longer-term solution to the problem.

And so, you know,

allying the humanitarian intervention with the political side of the UN,

to try and secure a solution,

seemed at the time that the Security Council was working more

collectively and effectively together to be a good idea.

Subsequently, as the Security Council has fallen out with itself again,

it's become a real handicap to effective action.

How does the UN respond to crises?

Global Diplomacy: the United Nations in the World

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