Lamentable as it is, Robert Mugabe's participation in a UN Food and Agriculture Organisation summit on the global food crisis represents just one more episode in what is now a long series in the theatre of the grotesque which he has inflicted on his country and the world. It is, likewise, only the latest of the UN's efforts at self-parody. It does, however, prompt the thought of a contradiction at the very heart of the UN.
This is an organization we like to think of as important to encouraging the strengthening of international law. At the same time, it continues to conduct itself in ways that allow egregious criminals like Mugabe unrestricted access to public spaces and functions, so making a mockery of the ideal of lawfulness. I understand the source of the problem: the UN is an organization of all the world's states and not just of the rights-respecting ones. But unless a means can be found of softening the aforesaid contradiction, it can only undermine the notion of an international rule of law. If the body which is supposed to be one of the prime custodians of this actively connives at criminality on the scale of Mugabe's, it discredits both itself and its putative ideals.