Cuba, Taiwan and The United Nations: A question of legitimacy

Earlier today the United Nations General Assembly elected the dictatorship of Cuba to the United Nations Human Rights Council at the same time that human rights situation on the island is deteriorating. This is not a surprise but should be an opportuniy for reflection because 55% of the members of the UN General Assembly are not fully fledged democracies and membership on the UN Human Rights Council is determined by back room deals and vote trading.

Consider the following:

The Castro brothers have a long record of blaming all of its problems on the United States and the ideological differences between the island nation and the continental superpower. The United Nations has aided and abetted this campaign for the past 23 years. There is another country that was brought into existence in 1949 in the midst of a civil war with greater economic challenges that Cuba faced in 1959 and over the past half century despite a hostile superpower neighbor thrived and succeeded in providing their people rising living standards and freedom at the same time that the Castro regime brought greater poverty and repression. Taiwan has consistently offered its people greater economic freedom and over the past 25 years democratized from authoritarian to democratic rule.

Despite this great contrast between the governments of Cuba and Taiwan the United Nations recognizes the totalitarian dictatorship of Cuba and does not recognize the representative democracy of Taiwan.

This should raise questions about the legitimacy of the United Nations.

The United Nations bureaucracy has also been caught up in corruption scandals. Despite reforms the corruption scandals continue to the present day. This led some international figures into proposing a league of democratic states and in June 2000 the Community of Democracies in Poland was founded. There are alternatives to an anti-democratic international body with corruption scandals.