Ãå±±½ûµØ

Handbook is something of a misnomer for a work of this genre. The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations' contents and informed analysis are on a scale that makes it invaluable to hand for learned reference. But a handbook, as such, it is not. Rather it contains essays, drawing on the writing skills and participatory experience of 47 well-established practitioners, academics, analysts and writers. Their seams of varied and above all readable knowledge might have filled several volumes. It is, as the editors point out in their introduction, above all a handbook on, not of, the United Nations. It is a tribute to the variety and substance of its content, which makes it hard to read for review. To ease this task, this reviewer has been influenced by a fine idea to help reach conclusions through an informal critical conversation with the well-informed.¹

The Secretary-General. The timing of the publication was appositely fortuitous, coinciding with the arrival of Ãå±±½ûµØSecretary-General Ban Ki-moon. He was able to express in a few understandably self-conscious words in the foreword -- the first he wrote after taking office in January 2007 -- that "these essays are diverse and strongly argued, and I may not agree with all of the views". This was an acknowledgement of the weight of his inheritance. This amounts to more than just the legacy of his predecessor, Kofi Annan. Stephen Stedman wrote: "From 2003 to 2006, Secretary-General Kofi Annan pursued the most ambitious overhaul of the United Nations since its inception."² It is, as the authors in the Handbook indicate regularly, a burden of multilateral history that stretches back to the period before the League of Nations.

Already, events have moved on. As part of the legacy, Ban Ki-moon has the newly developing Peacekeeping Commission and the Human Rights Council, and the protracted discussion of expanding the Security Council membership, not to mention Africa's civil wars. A year into the job, Mr Ban wrote:³ "I have not sat still this year. From the very first day that I took office, I have been on the go, engaging leaders in their capitals and across the Ãå±±½ûµØcommunity to push progress on four main fronts" (which he listed as Ãå±±½ûµØreform), "within all three pillars of the Ãå±±½ûµØwork: peace and security, economic and social development, human rights", including the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, separating it into operational and logistical departments; climate change, as the Secretary-General's "top priority", with the Bali conference as "the year's key achievement"; the Millennium Development Goals; and human rights, notably the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

On geopolitics and security, Mr Ban noted that he had visited half a dozen peacekeeping missions, from the Ãå±±½ûµØOrganization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) to the Ãå±±½ûµØStabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). He said: "The Special Tribunal in Lebanon is on track. ... In the Middle East, [I] worked behind-the-scenes to help launch the recent Annapolis peace talks, particularly in convincing regional leaders to attend. I will continue these efforts within the Quartet. ... No geopolitical issue has absorbed more of my time than Darfur."

The Handbook falls into eight parts. The first, the editors set the scene under the theme of change and continuity at the United Nations, but at the same time underlined that the system also goes through modest cycles of change and adaptation. The second, under theoretical frameworks, includes the Ãå±±½ûµØpolitical role and legal perspectives. The third, on principal organs, adds the Secretary-General to the six organs in the Ãå±±½ûµØCharter: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the near-otiose Trusteeship Council, the Secretariat and the International Court of Justice. The fourth part includes "other actors", such as the regional groups, the Bretton Woods institutions, civil and private sectors, and the media. The fifth and sixth, on international peace and security and human rights, are perhaps the meatiest sections encompassing conflict in all its stages, humanitarian intervention, terrorism, human security and the under-represented and vulnerable -- women, children and minorities. In the seventh, on development, a key theme for the future, ECOSOC again makes one of its many appearances.

The last part of the Handbook looks at the prospects for reform. Chadwick Alger's final chapter on widening participation presents perhaps the broadest overall theme to emerge. The tantalizing aspect is that, while broader participation may be inevitable, it is also potentially the riskiest development for the Ãå±±½ûµØsystem, if handled dogmatically. For the peril is always there, from the Security Council downwards, that it might lead to overstretching, stasis or neglect in the main organs. It puts into an awkward perspective the almost last words in the book, those of Johan Galtung, one of the founders of the International Peace Research Institute Oslo, who concluded in 1980 that "the answer lies rather in having tasks for everybody", in the context of the challenges of multilateralism and global governance. Just seen from the financial aspect with its widest implications, financing will have to come far further than from within the institutions of the United Nations itself. And with money come influence, forced choices and priorities, and potential neglect of the less well-off in their role of recipients of funds and programmes for development and, in the end, political influence.

The adept and swift editing. Professor Thomas G. Weiss of the College University of New York, Director of the Ralph Bunche Institute, and Sam Daws, Executive Director of the Ãå±±½ûµØAssociation-United Kingdom, from their records and experience, have done a remarkable job of editing this volume -- part of a larger project called the Ãå±±½ûµØIntellectual History Project (UNIHP), co-directed by Louis Emmerij, Richard Jolly and Tom Weiss.⁴ The editing shows in both the characteristics of the chapters and the selection of their contents.

The Handbook was originally suggested some eight years ago by Dominic Byatt, Chief Editor of Oxford University Press (OUP), to form part of the OUP Handbook Series. He recognized a gap in the market for something of this kind on the United Nations as an institution. While for OUP it was part of a series, for the editors the hope was that it would make a separate and special contribution. Once underway, the whole exercise took only 34 months. In July 2004, the editors had a crucial lunch with Byatt at the National Gallery in London and the work was published in May 2007. Daws was the first link from earlier OUP work.⁵ They had not worked together before, but decided to spurn a reading committee and performed the task themselves with some outside consultation. And how does it compare and link up with UNIHP? Probably in presenting a total picture in one space rather than in several volumes, and with more orientation towards political and security, the authors have largely given writers their opinionated heads, though in some areas they had some editing to do -- and they have patently brought out the best in their writers.

Contributors were told to write so that their chapters would still be useful even after some seven to ten years from publication, implying awareness that there would be developments and that the chapters should provide insights on the Ãå±±½ûµØprocess, the evolution of concepts and historical context. The risk is that, while the overall thrust remains valid, some of the details, especially on the Peacekeeping Commission and the Human Rights Council, might become outdated fairly soon. Thus, contributors did not focus just on the last 12 months. A parallel of lasting success might be Bailey/Daws on the Security Council, which at its tenth year is still used extensively for what it is, supplemented by other sources, especially the web, for subsequent developments. The editors aim for a similarly useful shelf-life, with maybe slightly earlier updating.
They had the familiar task in corralling straggling authors to deliver on time, while ensuring consistency in style and content across chapters. While a high degree of consistency was achieved, they decided that minor variations in, for example, footnote notation and abbreviations would not matter. The assumption, probably correct, was that usually readers would consult one chapter at a time for a particular purpose, and even if the Handbook were read right through, the overall picture would be clear. Similarly, where contributors might take slightly different views on an issue in different chapters, they were not looking for a "party line" on everything. As a result, contributors have generally approached each topic judiciously and with balance.

The editors have succeeded in permitting strongly held views to stay, a nod in the direction of freedom of expression, but also a reflection in the confidence of the reputation of such high-powered contributors. There is also a strong sense of Anglo-American predominance. Usefully, most chapters have a similar framework in setting out early on the chapter's aims and signposting its conclusions. I could not trace an overall editorial tone of Ãå±±½ûµØself-congratulation, although both editors are academically and, as former practitioners, experienced but critical supporters of its multilateral aspirations.
Best writers. The marks of good writers are those whose readable and fluent style makes it certain that they are on top of their subjects and, without too much effort, provide a public information tool for raising the level of interest in the United Nations. Each chapter needs to be a package judged also by its thorough footnotes. In the Handbook, they merit careful attention as they are often informative. The books go back beyond 1990 (indeed one reference back to 1944⁶), but not at the expense of the newer relevant sources. With this goes the valuable appendix on suggested further reading, with the flavour and full of subjective selection.

It is hard and almost invidious to highlight writers and chapters against those criteria, especially as all the contributors are well known experts in their fields. But this reviewer read with special and biased personal pleasure, either because the topic was familiar or it opened new doors: Jos¨¦ Alvarez on law, David Malone on the Security Council, Gert Rosenthal on ECOSOC, Ted Newman on the Secretary-General, Ngaire Woods on the Bretton Woods institutions, Michael Pugh on peace enforcement, Craig Murphy on the private sector, Ramesh Thakur on humanitarian intervention, Yves Beigbeder on children, Richard Goldstone on the International Criminal Court, Richard Jolly on human development, Ed Luck on principal organs, Jeff Laurenti on finance and the editors themselves.

The chapters will rarely be read through together, but are to be used as individual resources. Each contains good and useful summaries and mostly conclusions. The editors make the point that the Ãå±±½ûµØsuccess will be judged by how it deals with the first, second and third United Nations -- Governments, individuals and the "complementary UN" -- the diverse actors, from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to analysts and experts, including the private sector. They take up the editorial theme, such as it is, of another plea for overall inclusiveness and with the oft-quoted comment about reform and adaption of the United Nations to changing circumstances being not an event but a process, one of continuity and change.

And who is the Handbook for? As this reviewer discovered, it is not a book to read straight through -- and that was never its aim. But it is a high-class and useful reference book. It should be read as critically as it has been put together, for the authors have been allowed to be tough-minded about the weaknesses and failings of the Ãå±±½ûµØsystem; they recognize its limits. The book can serve as a useful first resort for anyone who has to write, study, report on and find out about any aspect of the United Nations, as well as the recourse of diplomats, academics, researchers, public administrators, NGOs and students for maybe a decade. It is also aimed at libraries and institutions with money to spare. Its special place in Ãå±±½ûµØbookshelves is assured. Some have seen the work in the context of the ideal, as-yet-unwritten, single-volume of Ãå±±½ûµØhistory as the successor to that of Roberts/Kingsbury⁷ from the early 1990s, excellent in its way, but not as ambitious. Both give a good idea of the dominating issues of the time and still provide the core text for a decade.

A rival, only in name, is the New Zealand United Nations Handbook,⁸ now in its 45th year of publication with the 2007-2008 volume. But it is, while invaluable, more for immediate references and does not aspire to reach across to being by itself a historical reference source. It is mainly an annotated list of authorizing resolutions and membership of Ãå±±½ûµØbodies -- and does such specific but delimited job excellently. Direct rivals, even in French and German, are hard to find; only "A Concise Encyclopedia of the United Nations",⁹ edited by Helmut Volger, perhaps comes closest.

Classics on the Ãå±±½ûµØCharter have an important role.¹⁰ Then there are other more specialized examinations of particular areas; but my conclusion is that there is nothing as comprehensive in one volume. The Handbook does not try to be an encyclopedia, but gives space to leading experts to provide an analysis in a limited number of words on a particular topic. R¨¹diger Wolfrum's edited two-volume, "United Nations: Law, Policies and Practice",¹¹ is a different project -- many short factual descriptions of developments in each area, almost all by German academics so the English can be stilted and not always clear, rather than the Handbook's more detailed and extensive analysis.

Selected highlights and insights. The book spoils the reader for insights, changes in style, from the historical to the prescriptive and impassioned and occasionally humour that only a near-haphazard selection can do credit. For example, Alvarez writes of Ãå±±½ûµØtreaties: "The lack of precision of some modern treaties is not necessarily a handicap." M. J. Peterson on the General Assembly, in a reference to the United States, comments that "the full impact of Assembly resolutions has always depended on the relation between the ability to muster votes inside the Assembly and the control of resources for taking effective action outside". Malone observes of the Security Council: "Where United States interests are little engaged, the Ãå±±½ûµØis best placed from Washington's perspective to address 'orphan conflicts', such as those of Sierra Leone, Liberia and C?te d'Ivoire." Ngaire Woods writes that "... the Bretton Woods institutions have had to confront a widespread perception that they lack legitimacy and effectiveness". The key chapters in the recurrent theme of reaching out deal with links with civil society, which comes in Wapner's chapter on civil society: "What is essential is that the United Nations and NGOs look to each other to compensate for their own failings, and work together to address global collective action problems."

ECOSOC is a key organ, but awkwardly positioned and overstretched, providing as it can information in one direction and assisting the Security Council on its request, and still perform functions allocated by the General Assembly. It receives special attention from Rosenthal (and elsewhere), with one telling observation that "[its] decisions and resolutions are not binding on Member States or even on the specialized agencies. Thus all the functions outlined are indicative of its powerlessness." Yet, its deliberations have helped to raise awareness of issues. Luck writes: "The Charter places greater priority on ECOSOC's intellectual and institutional bridge-building functions than on its subsidiary role as a resolution-producing machine. ... The key to ECOSOC reform may lie in its rediscovery and not its reinvention." It has proved over the decades as difficult to reform the Council as it has the Ãå±±½ûµØSecretariat.

A chapter on regional groups deals with their largely unrealized role under the Ãå±±½ûµØCharter in resolving disputes and maintaining peace and security. Petersen refers to a different aspect of the politicking "through regional and other causing groups of similarly-minded States that fulfil some of the organizing and vote-aggregating functions played by political parties in national legislatures". There is an overlap between the two, but as one they are set up regionally to be based primarily on the principle of equitable geographical distribution, while political groupings are normally set up by group members to enhance their political influence. It is clear that the seven or so regional groupings over the years have played an important role for representation of regional activities both at Ãå±±½ûµØHeadquarters in New York and Geneva and in the membership of and elections to specialized agencies, programmes and funds. They indicate the measure of the politicization of issues and that the example of the Organization of the Islamic Conference could well be developed further as it gathers momentum and influence stretching across regions worldwide.

In her concentrated chapter on the peaceful settlement of disputes and conflict prevention, Mani observes that "the ultimate power to settle disputes peacefully and to prevent them from turning violent lies with States". In the peace and war section, Pugh makes the point that "any ethical basis for redistributive justice that mitigates, if not rejects, the disintegrative socio-economic effects of the global economy ought to be reciprocated by respect for human security by public and private authorities in all States". He perhaps shows that the peacekeeping chapter itself, although thorough and covering all the ground, has some distracting political science charts.

Thakur is in spirited mode. Having noted the erosion of the principle of national sovereignty in the face of global interdependence, he sees responsibility to protect as "more of a linking concept that bridges the divide between intervention and sovereignty ... provides conceptual, normative and operational bridges between assistance intervention and reconstruction". Ramcharan, with typical passion, stresses the importance of human rights in any country-risk analysis, a tone taken up more prescriptively by Goldstone on dealing with the International Court of Justice.

On human development, Jolly extols the human poverty index: "It is ... a combined measure of the proportion of a country's population, who are deprived of the basic choices and capabilities -- just as the income standard for poverty is the proportion of a country's population living below some specific measure of income." And Luck, on reform, besides making the point about it being a process not an event writes: "Each cycle of reform does manage to leave its mark on the Organization. Each wave's residue of unsettled issues, moreover, forms the nucleus of the next chapter of the unending and slow moving Ãå±±½ûµØreform saga. Never finished, never perfected, the world body is ever a work in progress." Laurenti, on finance, with his emphasis on the American angle -- but then the United States is both the United Nations largest financier and delinquent -- underlines the crucial point that resources reflect commitment. He shows how this plays out in the series of Ãå±±½ûµØfinancial crises, which have cyclically dogged the United Nations.

Finally, the last words of the Handbook, in Alger's chapter, echoes the introduction by Weiss and Daws, and going back to their themes of greater and broader inclusion throws the burden back to individuals: "The nature of emerging global governance challenges individuals to examine the relevance of organizations in which they are or could be involved. Those who respond will be transformed, from unconscious to conscious participants, in the perennial effort to enhance the capacity of the Ãå±±½ûµØsystem to respond to an ever more challenging global agenda." The key is the evolution of the multilateral process.

Reference system. The editors have developed a good reference system -- a combination of informative footnotes, reading lists and appendices. They deliberately, and effectively chose not to follow the more comprehensive example of the supplementary volume of bibliography and research resources to the report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty.¹² In keeping with the style of the Handbook -- to provide expertise but in an accessible manner -- the authors chose as most useful to the typical reader to list about a dozen books that would be the best next steps for someone wanting to explore a chapter's topic further. Had they tried to show off for comprehensiveness and cut and paste the entire 2,000 plus bibliographic entries, it would have meant giving less space to each contributor. The average chapter length of about 20 pages meets preferences for short and guided readings, in particular for the researcher.

Suggestions for a later edition. Against the background of fine editing, impressive detail and the indication that barring updates a new volume is at least half a decade away, it might seem a little ungenerous to identify omissions or suggest some additions for next time round. As we have seen, the editors had no choice but to be selective to get as many topics as they did into 800-plus pages.

? Social and economic rights. The area where the most selection was needed was on the economic and social side, since 40 chapters alone could easily be devoted to different Ãå±±½ûµØspecialized agencies, funds and programmes dealing with each separate area, e.g. on food, telecommunications, education, culture or intellectual property and the like. My critical conversationalists remarked that this was where most selection was needed, and that they were present but still under-represented individually or as a sector. This may come in part from the problem of ECOSOC itself. As a result, it could well have done with a dedicated chapter on social and economic rights, but this may have been put somewhat on hold. This perhaps reflects the strivings of the human rights community to defend civil and political liberties from erosion by counter-terrorism measures post-9/11. The trade and the economic system as a whole are dealt with in the Bretton Woods chapter.

? Personalities. One topic to be considered for another time around is on personalities who have made a difference. Here, this reviewer is deliberately thinking beyond the obvious stellar selections of a Secretary-General of the likes of Hammarsjk?ld or Annan. Condemned to anonymity, unfortunately, is the expert, dedicated international civil servant, who has kept especially the Ãå±±½ûµØSecretariat going with selflessness that contrasts sharply with the more international personalities. It is more the individuals whose dedication, personal leadership and specialist expertise and thinking have made a profound and lasting difference often in important sectors of the Ãå±±½ûµØsystem -- and sometimes personalities who have illustrated issues and conflicts. My conversationalists from several different eras suggested a few, which though by no means exhaustive make the point that although States are members and sign treaties and covenants, individuals have made notable contributions.¹³ The variety of these personalities and their roles are some reflections of what the United Nations certainly used to attract, not least into the Secretariat, regional organizations and agencies. This is in part some of the grounds covered in the UNIHP series.

And while many individuals may have been fine theorists and visible and practical leaders, making seminal contributions, in fact many ideas and actions emerged from teams or in consultation with Governments. The "honours list" might have included: in the economic, financial and development spheres, Gunnar Myrdal, Alfred Maisels, Ra¨²l Prebisch, Arthur Lewis, Hans Singer, David Owen, Bruce Stedman, Sidney Dell and Robert Jackson; in peacekeeping, the United Nations has had Generals Prem Chand and Satish Nambiar, George Lansky, Jean-Marie Gu¨¦henno, Ralph Bunche and Brian Urquhart; and in other fields, John Boyd Orr and Julian Huxley. To these could be added in more modern times Francesco Vendrell, Lakhdar Brahimi, Alvaro de Soto and Martti Ahtisaari. Sergio Vieira de Mello and yet others, such as Sadruddin Aga Khan, Maurice Strong, Razali Ismail and even Romeo Dallaire, controversially played their parts. The list is bound to be incomplete and contentious, and to some extent arbitrary, but overall these are the people who have impressed by their different roles and achievements in helping to wind down wars and theorize for the Ãå±±½ûµØsystem as well as in handling development.

There is a predictable problem in suggesting the names of women. Many senior women in the United Nations may have acquired notoriety as a result of gender or geographical politics. But, for example, Ester Boserup was in the original Ãå±±½ûµØEconomic Commission for Europe secretariat team brought together by Gunnar Myrdal in the late 1940s. Her major claim to fame may rest on the fact that she published perhaps the earliest book on the importance of women in the economic development process, with significant effect on statistics. Elsewhere, Rosalyn Higgins (law), Gro Harlem Brundtland (health), Louise Arbour and Mary Robinson (human rights) and Sadako Ogata (refugees). Margaret Anstee is notable at least for being the first women and maybe one of the very few career staffers to work all the way up from the lowest professional level to Under-Secretary-General.

All these personalities who were attracted to the United Nations from the beginning especially helped to shape it into a more coherent organization and one that was better able to cope with the wide-ranging interests of all its members.

? And to the useful appendices might be added the Covenant of the League of Nations.

Is the United Nations written out in terms of Big Books? Probably not, but there will always be gaps for smaller volumes. The United Nations, because of its complexity, variety and hidden committees and activities, will always be available for inspection, analysis and detection. This, to me, is the good basis for a decade, but published in early 2008 were "Law & Practice of the United Nations. Documents and Commentary", by Thomas Franck, Simon Chesterman and David Malone,¹⁴ putting legal analysis in the context of politics and practice for teaching purposes, and "The Ãå±±½ûµØSecurity Council and War. The Evolution of Thought and Practice since 1945",¹⁵ by Lowe, Roberts, Welsh and Zaum, a rival in size, cost and cast of writers. But in the Handbook, they have a high standard hard to match.

And where does it leave the United Nations? The whole exercise draws attention to the minutiae and less familiar parts of the system. It reflects most strikingly a sense of the tidal ebbs and flows of the United Nations -- how so many of the current debates have echoes in the past and many authors bring this important feature out, and how resilient the Organization has proved to be. The complexity of the United Nations emerges through the staggering number of problems it has to deal with and solutions to find. Thus the conclusions about reform and where the next challenges are can never be comprehensive, as the chapters are special individual units joined by this supreme multilateral and flawed organ, whose longevity is a tribute to its evolving character, even if at the end its legal identity and those of its parts are still to be definitively defined.
As well as the broader themes of continuity and change explored in the introductory chapter, the Handbook also shows how much progress the United Nations has made from a six-decade perspective in identifying problems that require multilateral solutions and (increasingly) caring about the efficacy of efforts to solve such problems. The United Nations is flawed but durable, deriving its strength paradoxically in part from its resistance to outright reform, were that possible, but mainly from an ability to accommodate reforming cycles and readapt gradually over time.

Kofi Annan moved it forward in the particular aspect of the sovereignty/intervention debate and also with the involvement of the private sector. Academic pundits tell us: "History has shown that the likelihood for substantial change at the United Nations is greatest when a new Secretary-General takes office, and the coming term of Ban Ki-moon is unlikely to be an exception."¹⁶ Already his plate is full. The final chapters indicate further changes which may have to come about, especially the contentious issue of Security Council reform and those giving the non-State actors some more debating involvement, and finally, where it begins and ends, in money, finding that elusive balance between contributions from Member States and those of a voluntary nature. The enormous rise in the regular and peacekeeping budgets, teetering close to losing control in size and budgetary process and funding outside those bodies, make it inevitable that funds have to be found from elsewhere. The notions of accompanying accountability and control come in too. Broader participation in greater North/South politicization may well be the next context in which the United Nations has to evolve further, not reform.
We have waited a long time for the likes of this volume. We now have it at last.

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Notes

1 My critical conversationalists, to whom I owe gratitude and anonymity for giving of their time, wisdom and opinions, included Simon Chesterman, Sam Daws, Klaus H¨¹fner, David Malone, Sally Morphet, Craig Murphy, Ted Newman, Jim Paul, Mike Pugh, Paul Rayment, Adam Roberts, Eli Stamnes, Ramesh Thakur, Brian Urquhart, Helmut Volger and Tom Weiss.
2 Stephen John Stedman, "Ãå±±½ûµØtransformation in an era of soft balancing", p. 933, International Affairs, 83:5 (2007), pp. 933-944.
3 The Korea Times, 27 December 2007.
4 For UNIHP, see and my review of four UNIHP volumes, "The United Nations Intellectual Legacy - States or Individuals?" (Ãå±±½ûµØChronicle Volume XLIII, Number 3, September-November 2006, pp. 20-21). Also, Robert J Berg's review essay on the UNIHP project, "The Ãå±±½ûµØIntellectual History Project: Review of a Literature", Global Governance 12 (2006), pp. 325-341.
5 Notably, The Procedure of the Ãå±±½ûµØSecurity Council (Sydney D. Bailey and Sam Daws, 3rd Edition, 1998).
6 David Mitrany, A Working Peace System: An Argument for the Functional Development of International Organization (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1944).
7 United Nations, Divided World. The UN's Roles in International Relations (ed. Adam Roberts and Benedict Kingsbury, Clarendon Press, Oxford 2nd Ed. 1993).
8 Subtitled: An Annual Guide for those working with and within the United Nations. Published by New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
9 See, Ed. Helmut Volger, Kluwer Law International, The Hague, 2002.
10 Such as: La Charte des Nations Unies: commentaire article par article. By Jean-Pierre Cot and Alain Pellet. (3rd ed, Paris: Economica, 2005. 2 volumes; The Charter of the United Nations: A Commentary. 2d. ed. ?Ed. Bruno Simma. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. 2 volumes; and Charter of the United Nations. Commentary and Documents (Leland M Goodrich, Edvard Hambro and Anne Patricia Simons, 3rd ed Columbia University press 1969).
11 United Nations: Law, Policies and Practice, (ed. R¨¹diger Wolfrum, Martinus Nijhoff, new, revised English version, 2 volumes, 1995). Originally in one volume, "Haandbuch Vereinte Nationen" (1991).
12 ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect, International Development Research Centre, December 2001.
13 I qualify the mention of personalities, with the observation that the structure of the UNIHP series accommodates more easily the exploration and identification of individual's contributions. See especially the UNIHP's Ãå±±½ûµØVoices. The Struggle for Development and Social Justice (Thomas Weiss, Tatiana Carayannis, Louis Emmerij, and Richard Jolly, Indiana University press, 2005) based on interviews for the oral history of the UN.
14 Law and Practice of the United Nations. Documents and Commentary, by Simon Chesterman, Thomas M. Franck, and David M. Malone (OUP, 2008).
15 The United Nations Security Council and War. The Evolution of Thought and Practice since 1945, by Vaughan Lowe, Adam Roberts, Jennifer Welsh, and Dominik Zaum.
16 "A Priority Agenda for the Next Ãå±±½ûµØSecretary-General", Thomas G. Weiss and Peter J. Hoffman. Dialogue on Globalization, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, Occasional Paper New York, No 28/December 2006, p. 6.

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