Letter: Time to reform UN

Sir: The impotence of the United Nations in the face of Serbian so-called ethnic cleansing in Kosovo suggests that it is high time that its constitution was reformed. The veto is equivalent to the requirement for a unanimous vote in the diet that led to partition of Poland.

Naturally the rulers of China are anxious to avoid any precedent for international interference in their oppression of Tibet; yet it is manifestly absurd to regard an unwillingly occupied country as coming within the internal jurisdiction of its conqueror.

What we need is an extension of international law such that administrations not conforming to a code of civilised conduct in both their internal and external affairs could be outlawed by a two-thirds majority vote in the assembly with automatic loss of their seat on the Security Council.

Meanwhile - having begun it with the best of intentions and possessing the resources to do so - we should press on with our intervention in Serbia until our reasonable objectives are achieved. To give up now would be the worst of all options.

JOHN A DAVIS

Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire