Everyone agrees that the United Nations is slow, weak, unwieldy and beset by bureaucracy - after all, these were the words used by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights herself, Mrs Mary Robinson, at this weekend's conference.
But as numerous speakers asserted, it's still the best system of international regulation we have. As Mrs Robinson pointed out: "Some governments call for UN reform but then fail to provide the necessary resources and even block efforts to make it more effective. Others are happy to see the UN and its mechanisms in a weakened state because this lessens scrutiny of them. Many countries simply do not wish the UN to interfere with their geopolitical interests."
It was "deeply misguided" for people to think the world could get along without the UN, she said. But there were nonetheless many improvements to be made.
The former minister for foreign affairs, Mr David Andrews, called for the elimination of the veto exercised by the five big powers with seats on the UN's security council.
According to Mr Tom Hyland, of the East Timor Solidarity Campaign, the UN is "the only show in town and we have to improve it". But he recounted another reality of international intervention, based on his own experiences when the UN moved into East Timor. "The sight of UN personnel driving around the territory in their land-cruisers, the unwillingness of many of the staff to acknowledge that they were not dealing with hapless victims, the creation of a two-tier economy with the parading of wealth in front of those who had lost everything, must be taken on board when future UN operations are being planned."
Mr Denis Halliday, the UN humanitarian co-ordinator in Iraq until he resigned in 1998 in protest at the sanctions imposed on that country, said the Security Council, dominated by the five victors of the second World War, was "out of control", with nobody responsible for its overall strategy.
Responding to questions on Iraq, Mrs Robinson said she was concerned about the effects of sanctions on ordinary people and had commissioned a study of the human rights impact of these measures. But, she insisted, the "major political problem" remained Saddam Hussein.
