ABSTRACT
The United Nations is often described as “a window on the world,” because one can observe there all the countries in the world, discussing nearly all the subjects in the world. No one who knows the institution well would assert that what happens there is a perfect reflection of what happens in the world outside; but there is a relationship between the two. The UN is a microcosm, in which subjects and relationships are reflected a bit like they are in funhouses, where those mirrors systematically distort whatever passes in front of them, making everyone a little too fat or a little too thin or a little too tall or a little too short. Once you understand that the mirror systematically distorts everything then you can discount a bit what the mirror is doing to the object.
