Multilateral Pipe dreams

Anyone who has visited the UN lately can attest to the fact that the UN ban on smoking is a pipe dream, pun intended. On my last visit to the UN, earlier this week, UN delegates were smoking in the halls, smoking in the bathrooms, smoking in the basement cafe. The UN had to glue the "No Smoking" signs to the cafe tables, yet the UN delegates rip these off the table or routinely ignore them. 

That is why this report from the UN Secretary General about the implementation of the smoking ban at the UN is so comical.  The UN Library reported (9/16/09):

The Secretary-General has submitted a Report on a Smoke-free United Nations (A/64/335). This report is prepared by the World Health Organization in consultation with the Department of Management at Headquarters, offices away from Headquarters and regional commissions. It will be presented to the General Assembly pursuant to the general Assembly resolution (A/RES/63/8) of November 2008. More information on smoking is provided by the United Nations Ad Hoc Interagency Task Force on Tobacco Control.

I am not advocating one way or the other about the right to smoke indoors, but this episode conjures up an important question to ponder: if the UN can't even ban smoking among its members, how is it that the current U.S. Administration, like most before it, puts so much faith in the UN to do anything about much more dangerous and life-threatening behavior from its members such as genocide, nuclear proliferation, world hunger (99.9% the result of government corruption), and state sponsorship of terror?

- Trey Hicks