U.N. Reform 
Shashi Tharoor
December 11, 2005
The New York Times
Original Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/opinion/l11nations.html
To the Editor:
Ruth Wedgwood (Op-Ed, Dec. 5) argues that United Nations reform would benefit from a jolt to the organization's monopoly under the guise of competitive multilateralism. 
In fact, Chapter VIII of the United Nations Charter provides for regional arrangements or agencies to deal with matters relating to the maintenance of international peace and security. Organizations like the European Union and the African Union do already handle many political, security, economic and human rights issues that affect their members. 
In an increasingly complex world, the United Nations welcomes this form of burden-sharing. But none of these agencies can seriously compete with the United Nations as a source of universal legitimacy, or even as an organizer and coordinator of global peacekeeping, peace building and humanitarian relief. 
NATO, for instance, is now playing a valuable role in Afghanistan, but neither it nor the African Union - even less the fledgling Community of Democracies - could contemplate taking over the eight peacekeeping missions that the United Nations currently has deployed in Africa.
Certainly the United States should support other multilateral organizations. But it must also persevere in its efforts to build consensus within the United Nations to enact the ambitious reform agenda proposed by the secretary general and endorsed by all world leaders at last September's summit meeting. 
Shashi Tharoor 
U.N. Under Secretary General for Communications and Public Information 
New York, Dec. 6, 2005