Otago University Press 1995

The UN opened up new horizons in 1945. But its actions have been small, hesitant and limited. The founding dream of a world community equal in rights and united in vision has never come close to being realised. The end of the Cold War and the forceful response to Iraq's aggression created expectations that the UN would change from a marginal to a central player in world affairs. These hopes were seemingly dashed in Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia. Has the UN adbicated its moral duty as the custodian of our aspirations for a better world? Is the UN the best forum for managing the growing interdependence ove the next fifty years? Or, afflicted by waste, corruption, inefficiency and the pursuit ofpower politics, is the UN in real danger of being marginalised once again? Here foreign ministers and generals, as well as ambassadors and scholars, provide sober assessments of how the UN can meet the challenge of a balance between the desirable and the possible...