Irrelevant Or Indispensable?: The United Nations in the Twenty-first Century

Paul Heinbecker · Patricia Goff

Jun 2005 · Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press

About this ebook

Suffering from a divided membership, the United Nations is at a crossroads, unable to assure human or national security. The UN has been criticized as irrelevant by its most—and least—powerful members alike because it can’t reach consensus on how to respond to twenty-first-century challenges of global terrorism, endemic poverty, and crimes against humanity.

Secretary General Kofi Annan has proposed a package of sweeping reforms that would safeguard the rule of law, outlaw terrorism, protect the innocent from abusive governments, reduce poverty by half, safeguard human rights, and enlarge the Security Council. Intended to reinvigorate the institution and galvanize its members into action, his proposals are extensive and innovative, courageous and controversial.

This volume assembles the perspectives of current practitioners, leading academics, civil society representatives, and UN officials on transforming the secretary general’s proposed reforms into action. Their assessments are frank and their views varied, but they do agree on one thing—the United Nations must be made more effective precisely because it is indispensable to the promotion of economic development and collective security in the twenty-first century.

Co-published with the Centre for International Governance Innovation

About the author

Paul Heinbecker is Distinguished Research Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and director of the Laurier Centre for Global Relations, Governance, and Policy, both located in Waterloo, Ontario. He was Canada’s ambassador to the UN from 2000 to 2003, where he supported creation of the International Criminal Court and advocated compromise on Iraq. He has also worked as chief foreign policy advisor to former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney and as ambassador to Germany. Patricia Goff is an assistant professor of political science at Wilfrid Laurier University and Special Research Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Waterloo, Ontario. She specializes in international political economy and international relations theory. With Kevin C. Dunn, she is co-editor of Identity and Global Politics: Empirical and Theoretical Elaborations.