As the 2009 UN climate-change summit in Copenhagen demonstrated, meetings of 192 states are often unwieldy and subject to bloc politics and tactical moves by largely extraneous players that otherwise lack the resources to solve functional problems. As US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it recently, “the UN remains the single most important global institution…but we are constantly reminded of its limitations….The UN was never intended to tackle every challenge; nor should it.”
今时今日，作为全球机构的联合国在裁决政治争端、危机外交，维和以及人道主义行动中扮演着重要的角色，但联合国庞大的规模已成为其履行另外一些职能的重大障碍。正如2009年哥本哈根联合国气候变化峰会所显示的那样，这么一个涵盖192个国家的会议往往尾大不调，而且会被派系政治还有外部参与者的策略所左右，又或者缺乏足够的资源去解决某些根本问题。诚如美国国务卿希拉里所言：“联合国依然是世界上最为重要的国际机构……但我们也经常会遭遇其不足……联合国本来就不是被设计来应对所有挑战的；也不应尝试去这样做。”