Those conservatives who think that "UN Reform" means the dissolution of the United Nations are now calling for the resignation of Kofi Annan. They cannot forgive the organization or its secretary general for being proven right about Iraq. Indeed, none of them were exactly friends of the UN even before that.

Sadly, the dust they are raising about the alleged UN oil-for- food scandal obscures the importance of a report that Annan has just delivered on how the world, and the UN, should cope with the threats of the new century. The report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, was prepared by a high-level panel Annan appointed a year ago. The report's recommendations need approval from two-thirds of the whole membership and, above all, of the five current permanent members of the Security Council, each of whom has the right to veto any changes in the UN Charter.

Many people will focus on what the report says about which countries should be on the Security Council. But the panel concerned itself more with the far more important question of what the Council, General Assembly and Secretariat should be doing. In brief, the report says that in the face of global threats, whether from poverty, plague, terrorism or aggression, the only solutions are global, collective responses. Indeed, much of the report is an appeal to member states to implement the commitments they've already made on such issues as disarmament, development aid, HIV/AIDS and developing-country access to Northern markets.

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