The UN is like the House of Lords (when it still had teeth) on a world level: privileged people representing areas of the world but not necessarily the people who live there, or their interests. The representatives represent their own interests. You have your conservatives (who protect the status quo), your reformers, and your corrupt. I'd put the US, through most of the history of the institution, in the reformers camp, but we still tend to prefer going off on a fox hunt with our friends than to sit through the boring committee meetings with that dreadful fellow from the rotten borough in the equatorial regions. Tally ho! [cue hounds]

The UN is a good second step, but we must not mistake it for democracy.