ConUNdrum: The Limits of the United Nations and the Search for Alternatives

Although rooted in noble aims, the United Nations has a long history of failing to solve the world's most critical problems-such as war, terrorism, genocide, poverty and pandemics. Despite this poor track record, the U.N. has managed to increase its budgets and expand its mandate and activities into new areas in which it has little expertise. Billions of hard-earned American tax dollars are invested in the U.N each year, but U.S. efforts to improve the effectiveness of the organization seemingly have little effect. This book discusses the many weaknesses and failings of the current U.N. system and offers practical solutions for reform. The group of U.N. experts gathered here discuss a range of issues addressed by the U.N., including peace and security, international law, human rights, economic development, and transnational concerns like health and the environment. They suggest ways to improve efforts to work within the U.N. framework to address critical international problems and ways to work outside of it when the U.N. proves to be a poor vehicle. In some cases, they propose alternative multilateral efforts to address problems for which the U.N. is uniquely unsuited. Published in cooperations wtih the Heritage Foundation.

Table of Contents:
Foreword: The Key to Changing the United Nations System Introduction Chapter 1. Smart Multilateralism: When and When Not to Rely on the United Nations Chapter 2. Making Law: The United Nation's Role in Formulating and Enforcing International Law Chapter 3. Mission Improbable: International Interventions, the United Nations, and the Challenge of Conflict Resolution Chapter 4. Dysfunction in International Environmental Policy: How the U.N. Undermines Effective Solutions Chapter 5. Human Wrongs: Why the U.N. Is Ill-Equipped to Champion Human Rights Chapter 6. The Quest for Happiness: How the U.N.'s Advocacy of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Undermines Liberty and Opportunity Chapter 7. The United Nations and Development: Grand Aims, Modest Results Chapter 8. Promoting Free Trade through the United Nations Chapter 9. Restoring the Role of the Nation-State System in Arms Control and Disarmament Chapter 10. Curing the International Health System Conclusion: The United Nations—Neither Irrelevant nor Indispensable

About the Author :
Brett D. Schaefer is the Jay Kingham Research Fellow for International Regulatory Affairs at the Heritage Foundation.

Review :
The United States has a large foreign policy tool box. The U.N. is just one implement. But there are times the U.N. can be very useful. Therefore the serious discussion of the U.N.'s mischief and promise in ConUNdrum is worthwhile reading for foreign policy scholars and practitioners. It contains many hard earned insights and ideas for reform. 'Multilateralism' is the buzzword of the Obama Administration's foreign policy. In this wide-ranging collection of essays, America's leading experts on multilateralism-John Bolton, David Rivkin, and Kim Holmes among them-explain the uses and, more often, misuses of multilateralism as a tool of American statecraft. Invaluable. ConUNdrum offers not only a smart analysis of how to think about the U.N. but also fresh ideas for how to help reform it to better advance peace and security, human rights and prosperity-all core American interests. Conundrum advocates smarter global engagement, using the U.N. when possible and seeking alternatives when necessary. A worthy volume..... A timely analysis of the UN's past and present effectiveness, which postulates how that reform may take place. Despite its reformative emphasis, the authors of the ten essays in ConUNdrum have thankfully avoided merely pointing the finger at UN officials. . . . ConUNdrum is a provocative book. It needs to be. Conundrum advocates smarter global engagement, using the U.N. when possible and seeking alternatives when necessary. A worthy volume. Kim Holmes makes a striking contribution....One theme that unites the volume is the need for the United States to work more closely with other democracies inside and outside the UN to isolate despotic states while giving greater voice to the American values of markets and freedom. Here is the most practical and constructive array of proposals for U.N. betterment yet produced. Many of the best ideas don't stand a chance of getting through those Member States who thrive on bad international bureaucracy and can block reform. But every page of this volume can be cited to encourage U.N. improvement or shame the entrenched defenders of the status quo. This is no hatchet job but the most responsible collection of fresh ideas for the World Organization ever gathered between two covers.