Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, called on the international community to cease funding the UN after Friday’s UN general assembly vote, which did not condemn Hamas.
“Every honest country should defund the UN. Until the bias stops and the antisemitism stops, we can no longer continue business as usual,” he told Fox News. Erdan said the recent resolution was “unfathomable”, saying it showed the UN had “completely lost its legitimacy and relevance”.
The UN and its bodies suffer from Schrödinger’s legitimacy.
In that its legitimacy depends on whether the country in question that talks about it got its way or not.
If the country in question managed to veto (or get the veto holders to veto) a resolution then the UN will be touted as legitimate.
If not, or a resolution they wanted to get adopted fails, then it’s illegitimate, biased and flawed.
Same for its bodies like the ICC, if it goes after a country’s enemy then the ICC is to be respected and it’s legitimate, if the ICC however goes after the country in question then it’s illegitimate.
“Country in question” in this is any given country that happens to be making statements about the UN.
Surprisingly it’s almost never brought up that the UN is made up of individual countries and is, aside from the veto process and fixed seats in some of its bodies, an institution that’s utilizes a democratic process in its decision making.
The UN is not a legislative body, nor the international law. It was designed to give countries a place to keep talking, and for other countries to voice their opinions on global affairs.
And sometimes large groups of countries coalesce around a subject and actually decide to do something about it (regardless of if the others agree).
And then in an even smaller set of circumstances the majority (or all) decide a situation warrants collective action.
But the bottom line seems to be you are correct in that countries pick and choose their stance on the UN resolutions. But at least they have an avenue to keep talking.