The League of Nations (LN) was established in 1920 to maintain world peace. The World Bank was created in 1944 along with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help economic development around the world. The United Nations (UN) was established in 1945 to replace LN with the aim of preventing future wars. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is set up in 1961 to protect endangered animals around the globe. The World Trade Organization (WTO) was formed in 1995 to replace the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which commenced in 1948 with the aim of regulating international trade. There are many more international organizations of this ilk, but these are the leading ones at this juncture. Notably, most of them were formed after the two world wars in the last century. And? So far, the achievements of all international organizations together are well below original expectations. Actually, they are dismal. Now that the world is run by the likes of Trump, Xi, Putin, Modi, and Erdoğan, international organizations are lost in space. More, they are moribund. Which only goes to show that humans are incapable of coming up with any agreements that go beyond the narrow interests of nations, religions, and races. At this stage of their evolution, humans are incapable of any action that brings the species together for the common good and over a long run. And all it takes to demonstrate this ingrained incapability is to briefly review the historical achievements of the international organizations listed above. Amen.

Addendum I (December 16, 2019)

This year’s annual UN climate conference, which just finished in Madrid, is the case in point. After more than a fortnight of fraught negotiations, the talks failed to reach their stated objectives, which will be debated again in next year’s annual UN climate conference in Glasgow. In spite of the yawning gap between global goals set in Paris in 2015 and current progress with their implementation, the talks were another dud. The UN secretary general António Guterres said he was “disappointed” with the results, and that “the international community lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation, and finance to tackle the climate crisis.” Nothing better could have been expected, though. This is just another demonstration of the ingrained inability of the human species. As I like to point out, the only plausible albeit unreliable remedy is evolution, which takes eons.

Addendum II (April 5, 2020)

The novel coronavirus pandemic has brought new blows to international organizations. For all their efforts, the World Health Organization (WHO), UN, and IMF have failed to provide the foundations for a coordinated worldwide effort against the disease. Such an effort would have been crucial in this particular case, but every country on the planet has focused on the disease within its own borders. And all the borders have been closed as soon as possible. Even though there have been a few examples of international cooperation during the pandemic, they have been widely interpreted as geopolitical maneuvers rather than genuine acts of care and friendship between countries. The lack of coordination and cooperation has ultimately made the pandemic so much worse across the globe. Predictably enough, the country that has done everything in its power to belittle international organizations during the pandemic is the United States. Under the leadership of Donald Trump, who has been doing everything in his power to make America great again in the eyes of his electorate, organizations such as WHO, UN, and IMF were on no interest whatsoever. Whenever he gets a chance, the forty-fifth American president makes sure to repeat that America is the first and foremost in everything. The rest of the world is of no concern to him, except in geopolitical terms. Sadly, his views have matched those of other potentates of this world. Every country on its own! In short, the pandemic has turned out to be yet another nail in the coffin of international organizations.