In one of Donald Trump’s numerous tweets, he wrote, “The United Nations has such great potential but right now it is just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time. So sad!” While perhaps an oversimplification—and insulting to the many people who work there—Trump’s reference to the ineffectiveness of the UN echoed a frequent accusation that the organization has become a talk-prone organization that accomplishes little. In addition, just this week, the Trump administration announced that it may pull out of the UN Human Rights Council, accusing the UN body of shielding regimes that it should be condemning.
There are three additional issues that international organizations confront if they want to enhance legitimacy and trust: governance issues, conflicts of interest and poor leadership.
There is considerable scholarship examining the effectiveness of international organizations across issue areas including human rights, trade, environmental protection, and labor rights—some positive, and some not. There are several reasons why such organizations are sometimes not perceived as functioning effectively and efficiently. Scholars note that these organizations get afflicted by specific pathologies that make them bureaucratic and unresponsive to the needs of their stakeholders. Others find that this bureaucratic model fosters democracy deficits. The European Union, in particular, has been subjected to this criticism because of the relatively weak role of the European Parliament, the only body with the EU system that is directly elected by the people, and the power vested in the European Commission, an unelected bureaucracy, to initiate legislations
