"Everything you always wanted to know about the United Nations in one book! This primer to the United Nations is designed for all global citizens. It covers the history of the UN, what it does and how it does it. As the world's only truly global organization, the United Nations is where countries meet to address universal issues that cannot be resolved by any one of them acting alone. From international peace and security to sustainable development, climate change, human rights, and humanitarian action, the United Nations acts on our behalf around the world." --
The Charter of the United Nations was signed in 1945 by 51 countries representing all continents, paving the way for the creation of the United Nations on 24 October 1945. The Statute of the International Court of Justice forms part of the Charter. The aim of the Charter is to save humanity from war; to reaffirm human rights and the dignity and worth of the human person; to proclaim the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small; and to promote the prosperity of all humankind. The Charter is the foundation of international peace and security.
Global problems require global solutions. The United Nations as presently constituted, however, is incapable of addressing many global problems effectively. One nation– one vote decisionmaking in most UN agencies fails to reflect the distribution of power in the world at large, while the allocation of power in the Security Council is both unfair and anachronistic. Hence, nations are reluctant to endow the United Nations with the authority and the resources it needs. Extensive reform is essential. This analysis is rooted in the proposition that the design of decisionmaking systems greatly affects their legitimacy and effectiveness. Joseph Schwartzberg proposes numerous systemic improvements to the UN system, largely through weighted voting formulas that balance the needs of shareholders and stakeholders in diverse agencies. It indicates ways in which the interests of regions can supplement those of nations while voices of nongovernmental organizations and ordinary citizens can also be heard. In numerous contexts, it promotes meritocracy and gender equity. The book's aim is not to create an unrealistic utopia, but rather to establish a workable world in which the force of law supplants the law of force; a world committed to justice and continuous yet sustainable development. The author argues that, given the many existential threats now confronting our planet, the time frame for decisive action is short. The task is daunting and success is not guaranteed, but in view of the urgency of our situation, we can find ways of mustering the will, imagination, and resources to do the job.
This short introduction to the United Nations analyzes the organization as itis today, and how it can be transformed to respond to its critics. Combiningessential information about its history and workings with practical proposalsof how it can be strengthened, Trent and Schnurr examine what needs to bedone, and also how we can actually move toward the required reforms. Thisbook is written for a new generation of change-makers — a generation seekingbetter institutions that reflect the realities of the 21st century and that can actcollectively in the interest of all.
This text is a revised edition and contains new material documenting the extensive and rapid innovations in the UN Security Council's procedures of the past two decades. It provides insight into the inside workings of the world's pre-eminent body for the maintenance of international peace and security. Grounded in the history and politics of the Council, it describes the ways the Council has responded through its working methods to a changing world. It explains the Council's role in its wider UN Charter context and examines its relations with other UN organs and its own subsidiary bodies.
Preventing humanitarian atrocities is becoming as important for the United Nations as dealing with inter-state war. In this book, Ramesh Thakur examines the transformation in UN operations, analysing its changing role and structure. He asks why, when and how force may be used and argues that the growing gulf between legality and legitimacy is evidence of an eroded sense of international community. He considers the tension between the US, with its capacity to use force and project power, and the UN, as the centre of the international law enforcement system. He asserts the central importance of the rule of law and of a rules-based order focused on the UN as the foundation of a civilised system of international relations. This book will be of interest to students of the UN and international organisations in politics, law and international relations departments, as well as policymakers in the UN and other NGOs.
Seven decades after its establishment, the United Nations and its system of related organizations and programs are perpetually in crisis. While the twentieth-century’s world wars gave rise to ground-breaking efforts at international organization in 1919 and 1945, today’s UN is ill-equipped to deal with contemporary challenges to world order. Neither the end of the Cold War nor the aftermath of 9/11 has led to the “next generation” of multilateral institutions. But what exactly is wrong with the UN that makes it incapable of confronting contemporary global challenges and, more importantly, can we fix it? In this revised and updated third edition of his popular text, leading scholar of global governance Thomas G. Weiss takes a diagnose-and-cure approach to the world organization’s inherent difficulties. In the first half of the book, he considers: the problems of international leadership and decision making in a world of self-interested states; the diplomatic complications caused by the artificial divisions between the industrialized North and the global South; the structural problems of managing the UN’s many overlapping jurisdictions, agencies, and bodies; and the challenges of bureaucracy and leadership. The second half shows how to mitigate these maladies and points the way to a world in which the UN’s institutional ills might be “cured.” Weiss’s remedies are not based on pious hopes of a miracle cure for the UN, but rather on specific and encouraging examples that could be replicated. With considered optimism and in contrast to received wisdom, he contends that substantial change is both plausible and possible.
The Third UN is the ecology of supportive non-state actors-intellectuals, scholars, consultants, think tanks, NGOs, the for-profit private sector, and the media-that interacts with the intergovernmental machinery of the First UN (member states) and the Second UN (staff members of international secretariats) to formulate and refine ideas and decision-making at key junctures in policy processes. Some advocate for particular ideas, others help analyze or operationalize their testing and implementation; many thus help the UN 'think'. While think tanks, knowledge brokers, and epistemic communities are phenomena that have entered both the academic and policy lexicons, their intellectual role remains marginal to analyses of such intergovernmental organizations as the United Nations.
