Paul Johnson: "The UN is for Talk, Not Action"
at Forbes

What has emerged so far confirms my view that the UN is constitutionally incapable of conducting any operation efficiently or honestly. Ideally the UN, foreshadowing a future world government, ought to be run by a global meritocracy-rule by the best. In practice, it is the opposite. Any state that can be legally defined as one can join the UN-it is a club having no rules of probity or morals. To be a member, a state does not have to be a democracy, nor must it accept the rule of law. It can be a hopelessly corrupt tyranny.
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But will any punishment be meted out? Will any serious reforms be pushed through? Of course not. As for blame, some of it attaches to the major powers, such as the U.S., Britain and France, who have put pressure on UN officials to award contracts to big firms from their respective countries. The diplomats involved argue that such pressure is routine and inevitable. Any system of punishment would have to involve people from the big powers, and there's no chance of that happening. As for reforms, the UN is beyond reform until membership is restricted to civilized powers that practice democracy and the rule of law and hold their rulers responsible for their actions.

Johnson compares the UN to the EU:

Other big international organizations show similar endemic weaknesses. The EU has a corrupt, inefficient and hugely expensive bureaucracy that gobbles up billions of euros that are never properly accounted for. It has successfully resisted any kind of real investigation into its misdeeds. It survives and flourishes in its wickedness because major component states, such as France, Italy and Germany, are themselves corrupt and have no desire to see Brussels become pure and honest. The only way to reduce corruption in Brussels is to give it less to do. The same principle applies to the UN.

EU Referendum compares what the UN and the EU have done for the victims of the most recent earthquake in Indonesia:

The UN, that wonderfully efficient and transparent organization, has set up a hub in the Sumatra port city of Sibolga and is wondering what to do next as the weather is very bad on the affected islands. It might send in Chinook helicopters (probably Australian ones). Then again, it might not.
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And the EU? Well, the EU has reacted in its own inimitable fashion:

“The EU’s executive commission has sent an assessment team to the affected area and said it would offer financial aid if needed.”

As Johnson said, "The UN is for Talk, Not Action", and the same goes for the EU.