The Foreign Service Journal, November 2007

address its problems and sustain its peace and development. As currently constituted, the U.N. does not serve these purposes well. It is time to admit that it has lost the confidence of many of its members. We need to update it, as we must reform other institutions, such as the G-8, the World Bank and the Inter- national Monetary Fund, to be able to manage the challenges before us. And if we cannot bring these organi- zations into alignment with emerging realities, we should not shrink from starting over by creating alternatives to them. Like our own country, the United Nations was founded on the belief that liberty, tranquility and the gener- al welfare are best secured by the rule of law— universal adherence to rules that provide predictable order and protect the weak against the strong. That concept, like parliamentary democracy, is a unique contribution of Western culture to global civiliza- tion. It has been embraced, though not yet implemented, almost every- where. Embedding it firmly in the structure of the emerging world order should be at the very top of our foreign policy agenda. It must be at the center of any reaffirmation of the U.N.’s purposes through its reform or replacement. But if America and Europe, which originated and sponsored the idea of a tolerant, rule-bound international order as an alternative to the law of the jungle, are no longer united in support of the rule of law, it is unlike- ly to survive, still less to prevail, as the international system evolves. And as European arrest warrants for U.S. agents engaged in officially sanc- tioned kidnappings and torture attest, the Atlantic community is now seri- ously divided. If we Americans renew our adherence to the rule of law at home, as I believe we must, we would find the European Union N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 47 The membership and voting arrangements of the U.N. Security Council reflect both the colonial era and the outcome of World War II far better than they mirror current realities.