Re: North Korea named Head of UN Conference of Disarmament
 

Is North Korea even part of the United Nations...?

I think the United Nations has served its purpose, the world is hardly united, I think it's time we tear it down.

Re: North Korea named Head of UN Conference of Disarmament
 

The point of the UN isn't to unite the world. If you look at its charta and what they have done in the past you can see that they can be useful.
People often ignore the actual work done by the UN as they are only fed stories about its inefficiency by the media. Not that the UN is perfect, but what would be the alternative? An UN not based on rules which assume to some extent equality of all members would be considered the tool of western nations and hence really ineffective. And no UN at all would mean that we'd lose a lot of useful sub-organizations such as the ICAO or WIPO, international treaties, peace keeping missions etc.

Re: North Korea named Head of UN Conference of Disarmament
 

From what I understand, these positions really aren't that "serious", its more of a way to put that country in that in the international spotlight, and hope they learn something constructive.

The closest equivalent I can think of is in the military, when you have an underperformer, you put him "in charge" of something.

Re: North Korea named Head of UN Conference of Disarmament
 

That sounds like a reasonable explanation. Besides, if you think about it, there aren't many states that can preside over a conference like that without any degree of hypocrisy. It isn't just rogue nations that produce and export arms or refuse to sign treaties banning land mines.

Re: North Korea named Head of UN Conference of Disarmament
 

This organization is not formally linked to the UN though, it acts as a separate body.

It's established with the intent of discussing these weapons. The body was also used to discuss what eventually became the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons convention.

The membership includes all nations capable of nuclear energy and weaponry, which includes North Korea. There are also other UN-member recognized states, as well as special "guest" nations that might be invited for one of the yearly summits.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...-CDMembers.png

The membership rotates among the members, as I read on the site.

The United Nations in the Heart of Europe | Disarmament | <id="Top"> An Introduction to the Conference

This really isn't a big deal.