LAST Friday, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) finally did what it should have done a decade ago when the first drones flew over North Waziristan. In a statement following the passage of a resolution introduced by Pakistan, Yemen, and Switzerland, it instructed all states to ensure that the use of armed drones complied with international law.

Specifically, the language of the resolution instructed “all states to ensure that any measures employed to counter terrorism, including the use of remotely piloted aircraft or armed drones, comply with their obligations under international law ... in particular the principles of precaution, distinction and proportionality”.

The text of the resolution reflected the compromises that must have been necessary in paving the way for a small state like Pakistan to finally get it passed. First among these was that it named no names.

The US, the world’s chief drone aggressor waging drone wars in Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Somalia, was not named. Also absent was any enumeration of consequences. Instead, the resolution laid out the next steps, which were predictably in the realm of what the UN does best: it asked for Navi Pillay, the head of the UNHRC, to hold “expert discussions” on drone warfare.

It is a tragedy that can only be wept for in the dark, lonely corners of a Pakistani (or Rwandan or Syrian or Iraqi) newspaper.

Doing so is not to detract from the strategic acumen of Zamir Akram, Pakistan’s ambassador to the UN, who finally managed to get Pakistan’s position recognised and supported by member nations in an environment where the qualms and queries of small nations do not normally draw ears, let alone votes.

Accomplishing the passage of a resolution that even indirectly chastises the only boss of a unipolar world is a victory and must be recognised as such.

It is the quality of the victory, and the difficulties in achieving it, that make up material for lament. In a world that is full of conflict and overreach, the one transnational organisation that was supposed to provide the basis for achieving international consensus, enabling a consideration of principles, and curbing overreach by brute force, seems grossly incapable of doing so.

In the 10 years it has taken the UN to issue this exhortation, Pakistan has been ripped apart by the consequences of imperial overreach. Displacement and demographic upheaval, political unrest, and deepening rifts are now part of Pakistan’s post-drone landscape. A religious right stands ennobled, and overtly anti-state forces are dictating terms at peace negotiations.

Pakistan’s particularities are hardly the basis for calling out the UN as an institution no longer able to accomplish its purpose. This week brought the announcement of an investigation into the Sri Lankan civil war, during which the country’s government has been accused of slaughtering nearly 40,000 people.

Like the resolution on drones, the announcement was lauded by human rights groups and is indeed a step forward in holding parties responsible. However, while it may yield solace and closure and accountability, the investigation comes after the war and after people are dead. Weighed on the scales of “preventing” such cataclysms, the effort is completely ineffectual, as has been the case so often.

Indeed, even in the past month, the UN did make an effort to thwart ongoing conflicts; to provide, as was hoped at its inception, the force that would stand up for the little guys.

On the same day that marked the passage of the drone resolution, Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN special envoy for Syria, was unable to break the deadlock between the Assad regime and the Syrian opposition.

In a statement he apologised to the Syrian people, saying: “I am very, very sorry and I apologise to the Syrian people that their hopes which were very, very high here, that something will happen here.” It was the sixth consecutive day of talks; while they went on, the violence in Syria continued to escalate. The UK-based Syrian Human Rights Observatory estimates the death toll to have topped 140,000.

High hopes, it seems, are all that the UN offers populations caught in contemporary conflicts. The question remains whether this in itself is enough to support and sustain an institution that cannot force superpowers to stop meddling, at least not until after they have accomplished their interventionist goals.

Whether it is Russia in Crimea, the US in Yemen and Pakistan, or anywhere else, the actions come late or not at all. In cases such as Syria, where various conglomerations have aligned on various sides, no action is possible at all.

Given this track record, and the continuation of an organisationally flawed system of vetoes granted to a few, the UN seems ill-equipped to deal with the challenges of contemporary conflict.

If all the world requires resolutions that decorously request superpowers to behave (knowing they will be ignored) and expert discussions in well-appointed conference rooms, then a different organisation — one that costs a lot less and works a lot more — can easily be envisioned to take the place of the UN.

As it exists, the UN is an organisation that generates hopes and promises but delivers only discussions and digressions, and belated chastisements, none of which the world’s war-weary need or should be forced to tolerate.

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.

rafia.zakaria@gmail.com