Michael van Maanen is a Founding Editor of Incite between March and May 1999, Michael worked as an intern at the Australian Mission to the United Nations in New York. He has currently suspended his Masters thesis on Private Military Organisations to take a position with the Australian Department of Defence.

It was a cold day in New York City. My first ride on the subway had left me frustrated, nervous and smelling of ham. Although I did not know it at the time, every subsequent subway ride would have precisely the same effect on me, with various olfactory variations on the ham theme. Heady optimism dies hard and fast in the Big Apple.

Having navigated my way out of Grand Central Station, I strode purposefully towards the Mobil Building on 42nd Street - home of the Australian Mission to the United Nations. The chestnut-paneled elevator whisked me 33 floors above the sea of yellow taxis and hot dog stands. The wail of sirens and car horns which had seemed so deafening 30 seconds ago was scarcely audible in the climate controlled luxury of that massive skyscraper.

As the elevator doors slid back, I could not help but feel reassured by the fact that I was about to step, quite literally, onto Australian territory once again. I established my credentials with the secretary who sat smiling behind one-inch of bullet proof glass. My heart slowed discernibly from life-threateningly fast to rapid. I must have looked like Basil Fawlty on crack.

The buzz of electronic doors heralded the arrival my supervisor, the Deputy Permanent Representative of Australia to the UN. Former Ambassador to Egypt, fluent speaker of Arabic, consummate diplomat and one time intelligence analyst at the Office of National Assessments in Canberra, I focussed all my energies on trying not to look and sound like a half-wit. "G'day. You made it", he said. "I did, yes. It's a pleasure to finally meet you Minister", said I. "Christ, just call me John mate".

It was at that point that I noticed he was not wearing shoes and that a big, white, hairy toe was peeping out from a hole in his sock. Never before and never since have I encountered an equally powerful antidote to the vicious case of first day nerves that had me in their vice-like grip that day. John will never know what that sock meant to me but from that moment on I worshipped the ground he walked on.

But seriously…

Early in the morning on day two, I embarked on the first of my many walks crosstown to the United Nations. The first thing that struck me about the Secretariat building, which is nestled on prime real estate (thank you Mr. Rockefeller) bordering the East River and First Avenue, was its age. I had always suspected that the United Nations was nothing more than a crumbling edifice to the notion of international cooperation, but now I know that it is a crumbling edifice full stop.

From the inside, things do not look much better. The carpet is woefully worn, the décor is distinctly 1970's, and tacky Norwegian wood haunts you at every turn. To add to this, every single item within the building from the plastic plants upwards, positively oozes the most multicultural cocktail of nicotine and tar you are likely to find anywhere in the world. One of quirky things about the United Nations is that you are free to smoke cigarettes anywhere within the complex. This seemed very odd to me at time and it blew the minds of the interns from Los Angeles – a city where you can be arrested for smoking in your own home.

The reason is that there are as yet no international laws governing the use of tobacco in public. And, since the United Nations is officially recognised as international territory, you are free to smoke wherever and whenever you damn well please. It always made me laugh to read the signs which boldly proclaimed: "smoking is discouraged".

In fact, it was a poignant reminder that UN was very much a toothless tiger. I thought it might be fun to mount a few more plaques in the Security Council chamber: "wars are discouraged", "compromise is encouraged", "payment of membership dues is strongly encouraged". Then again, you could be pretty sure that, at the end of the day, most diplomats and politicians would treat these signs about as seriously as the much-talked-about-but-often-ignored, smoking notice. Why is this?

At the heart of the United Nations dilemma lies the issue of Security Council reform. All the debates about non-payment of dues or fiscal irresponsibility on behalf of the Secretariat – important though they are – are largely symptomatic of this central problem.

The Council's principal function is to promote international peace and security. It is the only organ within the UN that has the power to enforce its recommendations through economic sanctions, armed force or "all necessary means" as set out in the Charter. In theory, these are lofty powers indeed. But their expression and implementation articulates around the myth of consensus politics within the Council. During the Cold War, it would have been churlish to lament such a predicament. In the post-Cold War world it threatens to seriously undermine any and all claims to legitimacy which the UN might currently enjoy.

As it stands the Council has fifteen members. Five of these are permanent members who wield the all-important power of veto (UK, US, Russia, China &France). The remaining ten are elected by the General Assembly for fixed terms on a quasi-rotational basis. They do not wield power of veto. Since 1946 the most daring structural change affecting the Council has been to increase the number of non-permanent seats from six to ten. This is particularly astounding given the developments in world politics in the intervening years.

The Cold War ended a decade ago yet the Council has conspicuously failed to keep pace with major geopolitical shifts. The lesson is: while the world changes the UNSC stays still. This means that the UN's response to emerging international crises is frequently inadequate and, at times, negligent.

Political tensions within the Council are exploited to their full extent by the likes of Slobodan Milosovic or Saddam Hussein. Kofi Annan fumed when NATO bypassed the Council on their way to bomb the FRY. But NATO's decision exposed some truths about its emerging role in the international system. In real terms, it is an unrepresentative, inequitable and irrelevant institutional dinosaur in need of quite serious reform. But where does one start? Taking a more enlightened look at the assessed contributions of member states is the most obvious place, if not the most crucial.

The UN is a club like any other, and to be a member you must pay a fee. Contributions to the UN's bank account are assessed as a percentage of a member state's GDP. Rich countries such as the USA or Japan pay more, poor countries such as Togo or Chad pay less. This is all fairly basic stuff. The sticking-point is that there is only a co-incidental relationship between the scale of assessed contributions of any given member state and their representation within the UN's most powerful body.

It may seem a crude measure but the contribution of member states to international peace and security can be distilled down to the amount of cash they surrender. True, developing countries such as Bangladesh or India contribute to UN field operations in terms of personnel or equipment, but they get paid to do so. No prizes for guessing who pays for the bulk of these missions. Rich countries who can spare the cash – fair enough? Well, no.

Out of the five top-ranked contributors to the UN's budget only two occupy permanent seats on the Council – the USA and France (the latter being lucky enough to score the sympathy vote for membership in 1946). The remaining three member states are very much left out in the cold.

Rank by contribution	% UN budget	% of world GDP
1. USA*	25.0	20.8
2. Japan	18.0	8.3
3. Germany	9.6	4.8
4. France*	6.5	3.5
5. Italy	5.4	3.2

You do not have to be an IMF official to appreciate that Germany, Japan and others like it are getting a raw deal. This astonishing state of affairs is thrown into sharper relief the further down the list you get. Try not to laugh when you reach number 18. China, which accounts for 11.3 per cent of world GDP contributes a mere 0.9 per cent to the regular budget. Yet China is extremely enthusiastic with the use of its veto powers.

One of the more appalling displays of diplomatic atavism that I witnessed while at the UN, was China's decision to veto the extension of the UN's Preventative Deployment Force in Macedonia (UNPREDEP). This particular mission was one of the true success stories of recent years. Extension of their mandate should have been a mere formality. That was until Macedonia (perhaps foolishly) established diplomatic relations with Taiwan. China, deeply offended by all of this, decided to put the kibosh on the entire operation. The fact that the other fourteen Council members voted to extend the mission did not seem to bother the Chinese that much.

The clear lesson to emerge from all of this is that member states who are so patently unwilling to make a positive contribution to international peace and security should not enjoy privileges which other, more judicious, member states are denied. Countries like Japan, Germany and Canada have proved themselves to be worthy defenders of the UN's idealistic manifesto. For that, they should be rewarded with a permanent seat in the UNSC, commensurate with their role in the international community.

This does not however, solve the problem of global representation within the Council. The UN may have an African secretary-general, but remember that he is more of a secretary than he is a general. Also, while one-vote has one-value in the General Assembly, this particular organ only has the power to make recommendations. In the engine-room we call the Security Council, power is skewed toward two, or at best, three geographical regions.

Reform of the UNSC therefore, should also be focussed toward granting permanent seats to under-represented and underdeveloped regions. In principle, this might include Africa, Latin-America, the sub-Continent (particularly since its atomic awakening) and Asia (including the Pacific-Rim). For the sake of brevity, I will not go into the reasons why China's membership does not presently qualify in the final category.

In all of this, greater attention also needs to be given to understanding and refining the scope and application of the veto. Given the problems that the veto power has generated since the end of the Cold War it might even be prudent to consider eliminating it altogether. Then again, the thought of a truly democratic Council is likely to send most diplomats and their political masters running for the hills.

In the coming years, the fifteen or so richer countries that contribute to the bulk of the UN's annual budget will make their calls for institutional change more vocal. These calls should be heeded, not ignored. The irony is that some of the most trenchant shouts for change will come from member states who, in some areas, will prove to be exceptionally resistant to it.

The United States Congress continually justifies its non-payment of dues as a protest over the lack of reform, but watch what happens if you attempt to tinker with their veto power. For the UN to be truly effective some member states will have to stomach changes which they may not approve of. Mr Annan and his successors will be instrumental in marshalling this change and in convincing member states and the world at large of the possibilities it heralds.

In the meantime, Council deadlock should not be seen as the 'natural' state of affairs. The P5, particularly, Russia, China and the USA, should accept compromise on certain issues and work toward a more open, equitable and less divisive Council. For the Americans this might mean giving way on issues relating to Israel and tempering its implicit claim to being the guardian of morality and righteousness with a spot of realistic self-assessment. China must appreciate that its (suspect) communist credentials ought not to automatically translate into anti-western sentiment. Russia should by now realise it is not the world power it once was. Grandstanding in the Council chamber will not change this fact. For all the criticisms of secretaries-general past and present, the UN will only be as successful as its member states allow it to be. This a lesson taught to us by the failure of the League of Nations half a century ago and it is one worth remembering.