Edward Elgar Publishing UN Reform: 75 Years of Challenge and Change (The ACUNS Series on the UN System)

Over three-quarters of a century, the UN has been impacted by major changes in the balance of powers among its member states. This unique and insightful book offers detailed commentary on its historic effectiveness and reviews the capacity of the UN to reform and adapt to global challenges. This book constitutes a judgement on the overwhelming importance as well as the vulnerability of multilateralism at a time when the UN has never been more indispensable This book describes:How autocracy in the US, China and Russia constrains the UNWhy North-South politics has been a constant feature of intergovernmental debateHow the UN development system became an extended patronage systemWhat the UN learnt from its peacekeeping failures, and how it continues to adaptFour areas of needed and feasible reform to restore UN credibility. This impressive book will be vital to the staff of permanent missions of member governments to the UN, as well as UN secretariat staff. It will also benefit researchers exploring international organizations and the staff of development NGOs, as well as a broader audience of those interested in UN and global politics. Review 'Stephen Browne, himself a veteran who toiled in the UN trenches, has written an important account of the struggles within the UN to change and reinvent itself.' --Lord Mark Malloch Brown, Former UN Deputy Secretary-General'Stephen Browne has analyzed why the UN is so necessary yet such a relic. ''Reform'' has been under way since the ink dried on the Charter, yet the results are demonstrably inadequate for the problems of the second decade of the twenty-first century. Remarkable for its breadth and depth, this book could not be more timely, a compelling read for practitioners and scholars.' --Thomas G. Weiss, The CUNY Graduate Center, US About the Author Stephen Browne, Founder and co-director, Future United Nations Development System (FUNDS) project, Senior Fellow, Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, Graduate Center, City University of New York, US, Visiting lecturer on the UN and global governance, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Switzerland