Restoring the NPT:
Essential Steps for
2010
Deepti Choubey
Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace,
November 2009

With growing fears about Iran and North Korea’s nuclear programmes, the upcoming 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference offers a timely opportunity to strengthen the NPT regime. This report identifies achievable goals for the Review Conference and outlines steps that nuclear-weapon states (in particular the US) and non-nuclear-weapon states should take to avert failure.

Building Peace After
War (Adelphi 407)
Mats Berdal
The International Institute
for Strategic Studies,
October 2009

At a time when more peacekeepers are deployed around the world than at any other point in history, is the international will to intervene beginning to wane? And how capable are the systems that exist for planning and deploying ‘peacebuilding’ missions of fulfilling the increasingly complex tasks set for them? This book analyses the nature of the modern peacebuilding environment by examining the record of interventions from Cambodia in the early 1990s to contemporary efforts in Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Economics and
Politics of Climate
Change
Dieter Helm and
Cameron Hepburn (eds)
OUP, October 2009

As the end of the initial Kyoto Protocol period gets nearer, leading climate change experts look at the critical roadblocks to agreement on this crucial issue, examining the economics of climate change, the incentives of the main players (the US, EU and China) and the policies governments can institute to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ultimately shift our economies onto a low-carbon path.

Unacceptable Harm: A History of How the Treaty to Ban Cluster Munitions was Won
John Borrie

UNIDIR, December 2009This publication looks at the conception of the Convention on Cluster Munitions and how it came about through a partnership of civil society actors, parliamentarians, international organisations and committed states. It investigates why it took so long for the world to act, why it eventually did, and what lessons banning cluster munitions might hold for future disarmament efforts.

A Concise Encyclopedia of the United Nations, Second Revised Edition
Edited by Helmut Volger
Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2010
ISBN 978-90-04-18004-8, hardbound, xviii, 962 pp.

A Concise Encyclopedia of the United Nations is the revised and updated second English edition of the German encyclopedia “Lexikon der Vereinten Nationen” edited by Helmut Volger. The first edition was published in 2002.

The contributing authors are academic scholars of international law, economics and political sciences, active and former diplomats and UN officials, journalists and members of non-governmental organisations.

The book provides information not only about the structure of the UN system, its goals and functions, but also about recent developments and reform efforts in the face of global opportunities and challenges.

Click here to find out more

Democracy Goes to Wa r
British Military Deployments under International Law
Nigel D. White
(OUP, Hardcover June 2009)

With the end of WW2 a new world order arose based on the prohibition of military force in international relations. Yet since 1945 British troops have been regularly deployed around the globe in many different capacities: as military observers, peacekeepers, peace-enforcers, state-builders and war-fighters. This book examines the decision to deploy troops from the perspective of international law.

 www.oup.co.uk

From Global Apartheid to Global Village: Africa and the United Nations
Adekeye Adebajo (Ed and contributor)
(University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, Hardcover August 2009)

This book represents the first comprehensive attempt to examine the role of the UN in Africa over the last six decades. It examines 'global apartheid' - the inequitable power relations between the rich North and poor South - in three important areas: the politics within the UN's principal organs; peacekeeping and human rights; and, socio-economic development, centred on the efforts of sixteen UN specialised agencies, programmes and funds. This is a unique volume on the role of the world's most important multilateral body on its most impoverished continent.

www.ukznpress.co.za

UN Ideas That Changed the World (United Nations Intellectual History Project Series)
Richard Jolly, Louis Emmerij, and Thomas G. Weiss
(Indiana University Press, Hardcover November 2009)

Ideas and concepts have been a driving force in human progress, and they may be the most important legacy of the United Nations. UN ideas have set past, present, and future international agendas in many global economic and social arenas and have also led to initiatives and actions that have improved the quality of human life. This capstone volume draws upon findings of the other 14 books in the acclaimed "United Nations Intellectual History Project Series". The authors not only assess the development and implementation of UN ideas regarding sustainable economic development and human security, but also apply lessons learned to suggest ways in which the United Nations can play a fuller role in confronting the challenges of human survival with dignity in the 21st century.

http://www.iupress.indiana.edu

A to Z of the United Nations
Jacques Fomerand
(Scarecrow Press, Paperback September 2009)

A comprehensive dictionary of nearly 900 cross-referenced entries on the UN's various committees and organizations, its leaders, terms, policies, and major events in which the UN took part.

www.scarecrowpress.com/

The House on the Sacred Lake
Margaret Anstee
(Book Guild Publishing, Hardcover October 2009)

This book charts the personal journey of the author and the calamities she faced as she made a home for herself in Bolivia, while also examining and referring to Bolivia’s own political journey during this time.  Anstee’s political activism and commitment to the social and political well-being of her adopted home are truly inspirational.   

www.bookguild.co.uk

New World Disorder: the UN after the Cold War
David Hannay

I.B. Tauris, May 2008

As the UK’s ambassador to the UN from 1990 to 1995, David Hannay sat in the Security Council from the time of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait until the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia.

Drawing on this experience, Lord Hannay illustrates how the early cooperative spirit of the post-Cold War era collapsed when new challenges such as state failure proved beyond the UN to solve and eroded the initial unity of the permanent members of the Security Council.
www.ibtauris.com

Click on here or on the image for more information.

The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations
Thomas G. Weiss and Sam Daws (eds.)
Oxford University Press, July 2007

An authoritative, independent one-volume treatment of 60 years of history of the United Nations written by distinguished scholars, analysts, and practitioners. Citations and suggested readings contain a wealth of primary and secondary references to the history, politics, and law of the world organisation. This Handbook provides a clear and penetrating examination of the UN’s development since 1945 and the challenges that it faces in the 21 st century. This key reference work also contains appendices of the Charter of the United Nations, Statute of the International Court of Justice, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

This volume is intended to shape the discipline of UN studies, and to establish itself as the essential point of reference for all those working on, in, or around the world organisation. It is substantial in scope, containing contributions from over 40 leading scholars and practitioners—writing sometimes controversially, but always authoritatively—on the key topics and debates that define the institution.
www.oup.com
Click here to read the UN Chronicle review

A Billion Lives: an eyewitness report from the frontlines of humanity
Jan Egeland
Simon & Schuster, March 2008

As Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Jan Egeland oversaw the coordination of the UN’s humanitarian work for three and a half years. The book gives an account of Egeland’s experiences of the war in Iraq and the strife in Darfur, as well as of the Indian Ocean tsunami and the South Asian earthquake. A close adviser of former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Egeland served at the top levels of the UN at a particularly difficult period in its history, when the organisation suffered the divisive aftermath of the Iraq war, the Oil-for- Food scandal, and terrorist attacks against its personnel.
www.simonsays.com

Click here to read a review by Edward Mortimer, former speechwriter to Kofi Annan, and currently at the Salzburg Seminar.

Click here to read the Financial Times review.

The Age of the Warrior: selected writings
Robert Fisk
Fourth Estate, April 2008

A selection of Robert Fisk's finest 'Comment' pieces from the Saturday ‘Independent’.
Fourth Estate

Click here to read a review by Edward Mortimer, former speechwriter to Kofi Annan, and currently at the Salzburg Seminar.

Fixing Failed States: A framwork for rebuilding a fractured world
Ashraf Ghani, Claire Lockhart
Oxford University Press, May 2008

Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart have served as World Bank officials, advisers to the UN, and high-level participants in the new government of Afghanistan. In Fixing Failed States, they offer an on-the-ground picture of why past efforts have not worked and advance a new solution to this most pressing of global crises. Ghani and Lockhart argue that only an integrated state-building approach can heal these failing countries. They argue that many of these states already have the resources they need and merely need to put them to work in the right way. The authors provide a practical framework for achieving these ends, supporting their case with first-hand examples of struggling territories such as Afghanistan, Sudan, Kosovo and Nepal as well as the world's success stories - Singapore, Ireland, and even the American South.

Source: Oxford University Press

Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World
Samantha Power
Allen Lane, March 2008

Chasing the Flame tells the life story of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the Brazilian head of the UN Mission to Iraq who was killed in 2003 in a terrorist attack on the world body’s Baghdad headquarters. De Mello worked for the United Nations for nearly four decades. He served in Lebanon in the aftermath of Israel’s 1982 invasion; in Cambodia in the early 1990s, negotiating with the Khmer Rouge and repatriating refugees; in Bosnia, helping to end the slaughter; and in Kosovo and East Timor, contributing to efforts to build nations out of war-torn societies.
www.penguin.co.uk

Click here to read the New York Times review.

Raphael Lemkin and the Struggle for the Genocide Convention
John Cooper
Palgrave Macmillan, January 2008

This is the first comprehensive biography of Raphael Lemkin, the man who invented the word genocide and campaigned relentlessly for the 1948 UN convention. The book describes Lemkin’s campaign, showing how his ideas were formed in the midst of ethnic strife in Eastern Europe.
www.palgrave.com

Law and Practice of the United Nations: Documents and Commentary
Simon Chesterman, Thomas Franck and David Malone
Oxford University Press, December 2007

Combining primary materials and expert commentary, this book demonstrates the interaction between law and practice in the UN, and highlights the possibilities and limitations of multilateral institutions. Each chapter begins with a short introductory essay by the authors that describes how the documents that follow illustrate a set of legal, institutional, and political issues relevant to the practice of diplomacy and the development of public international law through the UN.
www.oup.com

NGO Involvement in International Organizations: A Legal Analysis
Sergey Ripinsky and Peter Van den Bossche
British Institute of International and Comparative Law, December 2007

This book investigates the arrangements for NGO involvement in the activities of a range of international institutions and examines and compares relevant rules and practices. The analysis focuses in particular on the legal basis for NGO involvement, forms of involvement, NGO participatory rights, applicable accreditation criteria and procedures, and rules on subsequent monitoring of accredited NGOs.
www.biicl.org

Surrender Is Not An Option
John Bolton
Simon & Schuster, November 2007

John Bolton, former American Ambassador to the United Nations and vocal critic of the world body, takes readers behind the scenes at the UN and the US State Department. In this memoir, he recounts his appointment in 2005, his headline-making Senate confirmation battle, which resulted in his recess appointment, and his combative 16-month tenure at the UN. Bolton offers his views of various international crises, such as North Korea's nuclear test, Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, the genocide in Darfur, and the month-long negotiation that led to the end of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
www.simonsays.com

To read reviews of this book, pelase click below.

Sir Brian Urquhart's New Your review of books

Gideon Rach, Financial Times

Chris Dickenson, UNA Gloucestershire Rural branch, New World

Gendered Peace: Women's Struggles for Post-War Justice and Reconciliation
Donna Pankhurst (ed.)
Routledge, October 2007

This volume contributes to the growing literature on women, conflict and peacebuilding, focusing on the moments after the end of a conflict, often characterised by violence and insecurity for women. Gendered Peace traces the development of international legal advances for women, and contrasts this success with the actual experience of women in places like Sierra Leone, Rwanda, South Africa, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, East Timor, Peru, Central America and the Balkans.
www.routledge.com

Circle of Empowerment: Twenty-Five Years of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against WomenHanna Beate Schöpp-Schilling and Cees Flinterman (eds.)
The Feminist Press December 2007

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is one of the most important human rights tools ever created and is often described as an international bill of rights for women. This book is a collection of essays and personal reflections from individuals who have served on the UN committee that monitors CEDAW.
www.feministpress.org

A No-Nonsense Guide to the United Nations
Maggie Black
New Internationalist, June 2007

This slim volume, part of the New Internationalist’s No-Nonsense series, explains in accessible and lively language how the UN system works. On UN reform, the author departs from conventional wisdom, arguing that the current push for ‘system-wide coherence’ at the UN is misguided. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, a former British ambassador to the UN, wrote the foreword.
www.nononsenseguides.org