Abstract
The United Nations is a living system; and as such it functions in highly complex characteristic ways.1 In particular, it is subject to internal and external pressures that cause it to evolve over time. At one level the pressures are reactionary, working to shape a United Nations that will operate to protect vested interest; at another, there are pressures for genuine reform, where efforts are made to change the character of the United Nations so that it is better equipped to carry out its tasks.
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Notes
The systems interpretation of life is classically described in James Grier Miller, Living Systems (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978).
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Report of the Work of the Organisation from the Forty-sixth to the Forty-seventh Session of the General Assembly (New York: United Nations, September 1992).
The Proceedings of CAMDUN–1, held 13–15 October 1990 in New York, published as Frank Barnaby (ed.), Building a More Democratic United Nations (London: Frank Cass, 1991)
Leonard Doyle, ‘Washington opposes spy role for UN’, The Independent (London), 20 April 1992.
Anthony Bevins, ‘Hurd urges UN to take “imperiar” role’, The Independent (London), 19 September 1992.
Alex de Waal and Rakiya Omaar, ‘Steps toward an accountable UN’ (letter), The Independent (London), 13 November 1992.
Simon Jones, ‘Gen. MacKenzie slams UN’s nine-to-fivers’, The Independent on Sunday (London), 31 January 1993.
Mark Huband, ‘Canteen politics tops UN agenda’, The Guardian (London), 26 July 1993.
Peter Hillmore, ‘British officer blows whistle on UN corruption’, The Observer (London), 29 August 1993.
Maggie O’Kane, Edward Luce, Ian Black and Edward Pilkington, ‘UN promises to stamp out corruption among troops in Bosnia’, The Guardian (London), 27 August 1993.
Norman Stone, ‘The soldiers of misfortune’, The Guardian (London), 27 August 1993
Conor Cruise O’Brien, The Independent (London), 27 August 1993
David Bryer, ‘Oxfam puts its case against the UN’ (letter), The Sunday Times (London), 12 September 1993.
Hella Pick and Mark Huband, ‘Members begrudge UN the cost of policing conflict’, The Guardian (London), 29 May 1993
Hella Pick, ‘Good intentions suffer under the burden of bad debts’, The Guardian (London), 4 August 1993
Peter Pringle, ‘Overload for peace-keepers’, The Guardian (London), 16 June 1993.
Annika Savill, ‘UK finds a way to hold on to the mother of all seats’, The Independent (London), 7 January 1992.
Annika Savill, ‘Britain starts to bow towards the inevitable’, The Independent (London), 9 July 1993.
Richard Gott, ‘Nations divided by a lost vision’, The Guardian (London), 28 August 1993.
Leonard Doyle, ‘UN starts process of electing a leader’, The Independent (London), 11 October 1991
Leonard Doyle, ‘How Cairo’s man finally won the day’, The Independent (London), 23 November 1991.
see also Jeffrey J. Segali and Harry H. Lerner (eds), CAMDUN-2: The United Nations and a New World Order for Peace and Justice, Report of the Second International Conference on A More Democratic United Nations (Vienna 1991) (London: CAMDUN Project, 1992).
Conor Cruise O’Brien, ‘Ritual humiliation at the UN’, The Independent (London), 4 June 1993.
Louis Mountbatten, 10 August 1947, Broadlands Archives, D1, quoted in Philip Ziegler, Mountbatten (London: Collins, 1985) p. 450.
Jon Holliday, ‘Secret war of the top guns’, The Observer (London), 5 July 1992.
Conor Cruise O’Brien, To Katanga and Back: A UN case history (New York: Universal Library, 1962) p. 63.
Leonard Doyle, ‘UN’s dream leader heads for disaster’, The Independent (London), 27 July 1992
Mark Tran, ‘Question mark over future of Boutros-Ghali’, The Guardian (London) 27 July 1992
‘The order of the boot for Boutros?’ (editorial), The Guardian (London), 28 July 1992
Patrick E. Tyler, ‘UN Chief’s dispute with Council boils over’, The New York Times, 3 August 1992
Leonard Doyle, ‘Boutros-Ghali’s “harsh” style under fire again’, The Independent (London), 30 October 1992.
Cameron Duodo, ‘The West is to blame, not Boutros-Ghali’, The Observer (London), 9 August 1992.
Ian Black, ‘West fails to block Japanese chief of world health body’, The Guardian (London), 6 May 1993.
Lynne Wallis, ‘Cuba’s hunger feeds an epidemic of pain’, The Observer (London), 23 May 1993.
H. J. Morgenthou, Politics among Nations (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960).
Richard Dowden, ‘Why the food just stopped’, The Independent on Sunday (London), 6 June 1993.
Richard Dowden, ‘Liberia lives at risk as UN blocks food aid’, The Independent (London), 2 September 1993.
Conor Cruise O’Brien, ‘Disorder between war and peace’, The Independent (London), 18 June 1993.
Edward Heath, ‘UNdone’, The Guardian (London), 10 July 1993.
Hugh Muir, ‘Britain lags in battle to beat racism, says the UN’, The Daily Telegraph (London), 21 August 1993.
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, ‘UN multilateralism: a cure for ugly new nationalisms’, International Herald Tribune, 21–2 August 1993.
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© 1994 Geoff Simons
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Simons, G. (1994). Time for Change. In: The United Nations. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23389-2_8
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