Mark Mazower writes:

If a deeply hostile US administration, enjoying a position of unparalleled dominance in the international system, finds it cannot live without the UN, then the organisation is likely to be with us for a good while yet. As Kennedy remarks, too many have invested too much in it to see it vanish with equanimity. Reform should not be designed to get the UN to do everything, but rather to help it do more effectively what it does best. This means, for example, tightening up the relations between the UN and existing regional organisations like the EU or the African Union, so that it conserves its strength for the tasks they are unable to perform. And, most contentious, it means some reform of the Security Council so that its composition reflects something more up-to-date than a line-up of the victors (real and imagined) of 1945. Kennedy has some good suggestions to make, along these lines, but he is not optimistic.

(LRB 22 March 2007)

Allen Lane | hardback 361 pp. |ISBN: 9780713993752