These proceedings, from the 1990 CAMDUN conference cover the structure of the UN, NGOs and the roles of UNAs, communication globally through the UN, and restructuring the UN.

Edward C. Luck, President Emeritus, Senior Policy Advisor, United Nations Association of the United States of America This book is important reading for anyone interested in the future of the UN. It contains hundreds of reform ideas, most of them sound, all of them stimulating. The diversity of views and subjects reflects the breadth of the UN's global agenda and the exemplary contributions Canadians have made to the world body. Many of Canada's UN experts are represented here; their work will remind us to look for inspiration and perspective when the going gets tough at Turtle Bay! Major-General (Ret'd) Lewis W. MacKenzie, First Commander; UN Forces, Sarajevo The 50th Anniversary of the United Nations -- a wake or a cause for celebration? The euphoria following the signing of the UN Charter in San Francisco in 1945 soon fell victim to a 45-year Cold War. Now, when the oppressed and destitute of the world need it more than ever, the UN finds itself handcuffed by potentially terminal systemic deficiencies. Tinkering won't do - major reforms are required and the plethora of relevant ideas and recommendations set forth in this book provide leaders, policy makers and interested observers with much food for thought. Joe Sills, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, United Nations This valuable collection of essays covers a broad range of UN activities. In addition to careful analysis, it offers many suggestions for strengthening the UN as it enters its second half-century. Brian Urquhart, Former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Scholar-in-Residence, International Affairs Program, Ford Foundation This "festschrift" for the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations is really something to rejoice about -- a stimulating, readable and comprehensive set of comments on where the world organization is, how it got there and where it ought to be going. A breath of fresh air -- oxygen even -- for the UN on its 50th birthday. Major-General Indarjit Rikhye, Founding President, international Peace Academy and former Military Advisor to UN Secretary-Generals Dag Hammarskjold and U Thant The opportunity provided by the end of the Cold War to achieve the great objectives of the UN Charter must not be missed through failures in Somalia, Bosnia and Rwanda. The contributors to this book, with their thoughtful papers and recommendations for reform, encourage belief in the possibility of reinvigoration of the UN, so that the hopes placed in the organization in 1945 might after all be fulfilled. Benjamin Rivlin, Director, Ralph Bunche Institute on the UN This book presents an honest and sober reply to the mindless critics of the United Nations who have made multilateralism the whipping boy of their own short-sightedness. Mindful of the UN's shortcomings, this excellent collection of essays, based on careful analysis, points out clearly nevertheless the direction the organized world must take and the indispensable role the United Nations must play in shaping a just and peaceful future for humanity.

Can humanity achieve collective self-government in a highly interdependent world? Catastrophic climate change, biodiversity loss, pandemics, war and displacement, the dangers of nuclear weapons and new technologies, and persistent poverty and inequality are among the global challenges that expose the weaknesses of existing international institutions as well as the profound disparities of power and vulnerability that exist among the world's people. The Universal Republic: A Realistic Utopia? examines whether a democratic world state is a feasible and desirable solution to the problem of establishing effective and just governance on the planet we share. While this question has haunted thinkers and doers for centuries, this book opens up novel perspectives by putting the powerful methods and rich data of contemporary social science into the service of a systematic analysis of several key dimensions of the broader theme. The first part of the book shows why a democratic world state -a universal republic- is possible: why it can be achieved, and how it can endure without generating a frightful global despotism. The second part of the book shows why the universal republic is desirable, by exploring how it can help bring under our collective control the persistent sources of coercion, harm, and other processes that affect us deeply across national borders. By combining insights from political philosophy and empirical political science, this work sheds new light on a crucial question of our time: how to bring about a more democratic world.

Only the best will do

Established after World War II, the United Nations strives to save successive generations from the scourge of war. This vital world body has undoubtedly succeeded in resolving many conflicts through its political and peacekeeping missions, and nurtured peace through its development support, though not always with the efficiency and effectiveness expected of it. The world is vastly different today from the days when the United Nations was set up. The challenges that the United Nations faces in the 21st century are much more complex and deadly than they were 60 years ago. Reforming and reinventing the United Nations should therefore be a matter of great interest to the international community. To tackle the challenges ahead, the United Nations needs to re-engineer its organizational arrangements, reorient its processes, revamp its decision-making systems, and reform its human resource and financial management to get the best results from them. This book suggests measures for restructuring the Security Council, rationalizing the constituent systems of the General Assembly, the ECOSOC and the Secretariat, and strengthening the peacekeeping, corruption control and accountability mechanisms. The book is a collaborative endeavour, involving contributions from international authority figures in areas such as peace and security, development assistance, resource management, leadership and ethics. The vision projected by them on the major issues inscribed on the United Nations agenda is meant to encourage fresh thinking on the part of opinion leaders, diplomats, academics, experts in foreign affairs and UN staff, so that this intergovernmental institution could be effectively geared to respond to the emerging challenges of the 21st century. Reinventing the United Nations would be of interest to the public and particularly the postgraduate students of political science, international law, and international relations, as well as diplomats, public affairs professionals and social science scholars at various levels.

Yearbook of International Organizations is the most comprehensive reference resource and provides current details of international non-governmental (NGO) and intergovernmental organizations (IGO). Collected and documented by the Union of International Associations (UIA), detailed information on international organizations worldwide can be found here. Besides historical and organizational information, details on activities, events or publications, contact details, biographies of the leading individuals as well as the presentation of networks of organizations are included.