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.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) remains an important source of legitimacy for international action. Yet despite dramatic changes in the international system over the past forty-five years, the composition of the UNSC has remained unaltered since 1965, and there are many who question how long its legitimacy will last without additional members that reflect twenty-first century realities. There is little agreement, however, as to which countries should accede to the Security Council or even by what formula aspirants should be judged. Reform advocates frequently call for equal representation for various regions of the world, but local competitors like India and Pakistan or Mexico and Brazil are unlikely to reach a compromise solution. Moreover, the UN Charter prescribes that regional parity should be, at most, a secondary issue; the ability to advocate and defend international peace and security should, it says, be the primary concern.The United States has remained largely silent as this debate has intensified over the past decade, choosing to voice general support for expansion without committing to specifics. (President Obama's recent call for India to become a permanent member of the Security Council was a notable exception.) In this Council Special Report, 2009?2010 International Affairs Fellow Kara C. McDonald and Senior Fellow Stewart M. Patrick argue that American reticence is ultimately unwise. Rather than merely observing the discussions on this issue, they believe that the United States should take the lead. To do so, they advocate a criteria-based process that will gauge aspirant countries on a variety of measures, including political stability, the capacity and willingness to act in defense of international security, the ability to negotiate and implement sometimes unpopular agreements, and the institutional wherewithal to participate in a demanding UNSC agenda. They further recommend that this process be initiated and implemented with early and regular input from Congress; detailed advice from relevant Executive agencies as to which countries should be considered and on what basis; careful, private negotiations in aspirant capitals; and the interim use of alternate multilateral forums such as the Group of Twenty (G20) to satisfy countries' immediate demands for broader participation and to produce evidence about their willingness and ability to participate constructively in the international system.The issues facing the world in the twenty-first century--climate change, terrorism, economic development, nonproliferation, and more--will demand a great deal of the multilateral system. The United States will have little to gain from the dilution or rejection of UNSC authority. In UN Security Council Enlargement and U.S. Interests, McDonald and Patrick outline sensible reforms to protect the efficiency and utility of the existing Security Council while expanding it to incorporate new global actors. Given the growing importance of regional powers and the myriad challenges facing the international system, their report provides a strong foundation for future action.
"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." --
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.
Selected from the papers presented at the twenty-third International Social Philosophy Conference held in July of 2006 at University of Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia --Preface.
Divided Together studies US and Soviet policy toward the United Nations during the first two decades of the Cold War. It sheds new light on a series of key episodes, beginning with the prehistory of the UN, an institution that aimed to keep the Cold War cold. Gaiduk employs previously secret Soviet files on UN policy, greatly expanding the evidentiary basis for studying the world organization. His analysis of Soviet and US tactics and behavior, covering a series of international controversies over security and crisis resolution, reveals how the rivals tried to use the UN to gain leverage over each other during the institution's critical early years.
