With charges of corruption in Iraq’s oil for food program hanging over its secretary general, sexual crimes committed by its peacekeepers in the Congo and Bosnia, its inability to stop the genocide in Rwanda, and President Bush’s visceral disdain for it, the United Nation’s reputation and clout has undergone steady and serious erosion. Powerful countries such as the United States may have less reason to worry about this as they could use their political and economic muscle to protect their interests within the UN, or, if necessary, without the UN. But for most countries, especially the poorer ones that make up the majority of the UN’s membership, the weakening of the UN would have much more serious consequences because it would rob them of a legal framework with which to protect themselves. The poorer, less developed countries will have to blame themselves for this, since instead of fixing the myriad of problems facing them, they allowed their societies to deteriorate and have been using the UN system to prop up their failed sovereignties.

Most African countries and many Arab countries belong to these failing states that are hiding behind the UN’s principle of respect for state sovereignty. In other words, the UN system that was originally designed to help independent states by validating and to some extent, protecting their sovereignty, has become the protector of failed states. Due to the large number of failed states, especially in Africa, the UN system is stretched to the limit and it is getting more and more difficult to maintain the fiction of state sovereignty for failed or non-existent states.

Somalia , which has not had a government for the last fourteen years is an example of such a non-existent state. There has been fourteen internationally or regionally sponsored conferences to revive Somalia. None of them bore fruit. In addition, the United Nation’s major campaign to save Somalia, Operation Restore Hope, was an unmitigated disaster.

Professor Jeffrey Herbst of Princeton has drawn attention to the severity of the problem of failed states in Africa and the need for a new approach to tackle it. His solution is that the world community should drop its misguided effort to resuscitate African failed states, and instead help those states, like Somaliland, that have actually proved that they are states.

Professor Jeffrey Herbst has given excellent advice to the international community, but will they listen?