>>. A body pretending to represent free speech and human rights that's stuffed with illiberal violators of human rights.
UN literally never pretended to do such a thing - it's just a forum for countries to meet and discuss issues, with no power to really do anything other than agree or disagree with each other on whatever is being discussed. Kicking out say Russia or China or North Korea from the UN makes no sense in that context, because you can't have an international forum for discussion if you are not letting countries in to actually you know, discuss.
I think it stems from the idea of UN that people have in their head, maybe it's embedded by the popular media or otherwise, but I see people complaining that UN doesn't force countries to do X or Y. That's literally not how it works - it's just a forum to talk, nothing less nothing more.
Discussion is only useful when the parties are acting in good faith. It's better to limit discussion to good-faith actors than to allow their transparency to provide camouflage and give the appearance of normality to bad-faith actors who only seek to use the openness of the discussion to execute policies that directly undermine discussion writ large. This has always been the weakness of democracies, and it's always been apparent to and exploited by authoritarian states, and there's no reason whatsoever to allow them to continue to have the pretextual cover of international approval from a body that, in principle, has accepted a declaration of human rights.
TL;DR, the UN's discussions serve now only to grant the veneer of liberal discourse to illiberal states by implying that their collective authoritarian voices should be taken seriously by the democracies, when in fact they should be given no platform whatsoever. Let alone one upon which to expound on human rights!
>>when in fact they should be given no platform whatsoever.
See, this is where we disagree.
Let's say that Russia was kicked out of the UN for their recent actions - what's the point of UN then? Just everyone else discussing Russia but without Russia being present? That's a joke then, not a discussion forum.
>> by implying that their collective authoritarian voices should be taken seriously by the democracies
I don't see how you can even come to that conclusion. Look at what's happening recently - yes Russia is being given a voice, Lavrow comes out and says whatever drivel Kremlin told him to say, then literally every other country stood up and said how much they disagree with that statement. The last thing that would come to my mind upon seeing this is that they are "being taken seriously by democracies" - they are a country, so they have a place at the table. Doesn't mean that anyone else automatically agrees or respects what they say.
>> there's no reason whatsoever to allow them to continue to have the pretextual cover of international approval from a body that
I literally don't see where you think that having a seat in the UN gives anyone an "approval" for anything. It's literally just a seat at a discussion table, nothing else nothing more.
>> has accepted a declaration of human rights.
Which is great and all, but again, it's not UN's mission statement to enforce that - it's a forum where countries can agree or disagree on things, it has no executive power. If you would like it to have some, then that's a different discussion altogether.
And when a member state does break the declaration of human rights(or any of the other things that UN has agreed on) - it is discussed, it is brought up, and countries to voice their disapproval or agree on collective action. "UN" as an organisation does not, because that's not why it exists.
UN literally never pretended to do such a thing - it's just a forum for countries to meet and discuss issues, with no power to really do anything other than agree or disagree with each other on whatever is being discussed. Kicking out say Russia or China or North Korea from the UN makes no sense in that context, because you can't have an international forum for discussion if you are not letting countries in to actually you know, discuss.
I think it stems from the idea of UN that people have in their head, maybe it's embedded by the popular media or otherwise, but I see people complaining that UN doesn't force countries to do X or Y. That's literally not how it works - it's just a forum to talk, nothing less nothing more.