This section examines corruption and dysfunction within the UN system—from UNESCO scandals and the Bosnian massacre to Japan’s full sponsorship of the UN University—arguing that Japan must reassess its fundamental stance toward the United Nations.

This section highlights structural failures and corruption within the UN system, including UNESCO scandals, peacekeeping failures, and Japan’s disproportionate financial and symbolic commitment to the UN University.
It argues that Japan should reassess its approach to the UN in light of these realities.

2017-06-27
What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Emphasis in the text is mine.
The corruption of UNESCO in the 1980s under its Senegalese Director-General Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow was also extraordinary.
The United States withdrew from UNESCO in protest.
As for the incompetence of the UN Secretariat, the example of former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, from South Korea, is often cited.
It is also clear that the United Nations has repeatedly failed in its original primary missions of preventing war and maintaining peace.
The 1995 Bosnian conflict, in which 8,000 Muslim civilians were massacred by Serbian forces in front of UN peacekeepers, is still invariably cited in American criticism of the UN.
It is ironic that the local UN peacekeeping chief at the time was the Japanese diplomat Yasushi Akashi.
A visible symbol of Japan’s faith in the UN is the UN University towering over prime land in Aoyama, Tokyo.
This “university” has no students, no professors, and no classrooms.
What exists is only a very small number of UN-affiliated researchers.
The UN University was an institution that Japan, in the 1970s, begged other UN member states to accept, while shouldering the entire burden itself.
At the time, there was considerable opposition within the UN General Assembly to establishing the university at all.
Nevertheless, Japan decided to provide, free of charge, prime land in central Tokyo worth more than 20 billion dollars, and to donate 100 million dollars as the UN University endowment fund to finance its operations.
Everything was entirely underwritten by Japan.
That is precisely why the UN University was able to open in 1975.
Even after that, however, the UN itself raised doubts about the very existence of the UN University and pointed out accounting problems.
As Japan now finds its national interests infringed upon by activist “special rapporteurs” operating under the UN’s name, it may be necessary to fundamentally reassess its stance toward the UN.
At the very least, the time has come to begin reconsidering Japan’s UN policy, starting with the acceptance of opaque UN institutions such as the UN University.