Living with the UN: American Responsibilities and International Order (Hoover Institution Press Publication)

International legal scholar Kenneth Anderson analyzes US-UN relations in each major aspect of the United Nations' work-security, human rights and universal values, and development-and offers workable, practical principles for US policy toward the United Nations. He addresses the crucial question of whether, when, and how the United States should engage or not engage with the United Nations in each of its many different organs and activities, giving workable, pragmatic meaning to "multilateral engagement" across the full range of the United Nations' work. Since the first days of the new presidency, the Obama administration has continued to seek a definition of the US relationship to the United Nations. From the time of president's first appearances at the General Assembly and the Security Council, his watchwords have been "engagement" and "multilateralism." But Americans and non-Americans, allies and enemies, have wondered from the beginning just what those terms mean as actual policy of the United States of America. In Living with the UN, Kenneth Anderson attempts to set out the meanings of multilateralism and engagement with the United Nations in a fashion that can actually guide policy. Anderson explains that there are many United Nations, for it is a collection of different institutions, organs, actors, functions, motives, and motivations. Once the multiplicity of the United Nations is on the table, he shows, it becomes possible to see that there are multiple ways of engaging (or not) with it--or with them. He then provides approximate rules of thumb that can guide US policy as the presumptive starting point for how, or how not, to engage with the United Nations in its particular parts and functions. Anderson argues convincingly that the goal of the United States cannot be simply to make the United Nations more efficient and effective, however much one might wish it. He shows that a more responsive, better-run, and generally more effective United Nations would not always operate in America's interest. Rather, a genuinely effective United Nations would almost certainly be, in important matters, more effectively anti-American to both its policies and its ideals. Thus the author's ultimate answer to the question of when the United States should engage with the United Nations is a resounding sometimes. Despite the extensive and severe criticism of the United Nations that Anderson offers throughout this book, he acknowledges that the useful functions of the institution are many and varied and that the United States should support and promote them. With unrelenting candor throughout, Living with the UN outlines a pragmatic, overarching policy framework for the United States in its long-term relations with the United Nations during the Obama administration and beyond

A bold new policy framework for the United States in its long-term relations with the United Nations

Relations between the United States and the United Nations relations have traditionally been both friendly and wary. On many important issues, however, relations between the United States and the United Nations have been prickly, tense, and sometimes deeply hostile. In Living with the UN, international legal scholar Kenneth Anderson analyzes US-UN relations in each major aspect of the United Nations' work-security, human rights and universal values, and development-and addresses the crucial question of whether, when, and how the United States should engage or not engage with the United Nations in its many different organs and activities.

The author looks at key United Nations organs and functions and suggests the form of engagement that the United States should take toward it, giving workable, pragmatic meaning to 'multilateral engagement' across the full range of the United Nations' work. He offers principles for a permanent relationship based on ideals and interests between the United States and the United Nations-and provides guidance for long-term US policy that runs far beyond the Obama administration's tenure.

What exactly is the United Nations? For that matter, why is there still a United Nations at all? In Living with the UN , international legal scholar Kenneth Anderson analyzes US-UN relations in each major aspect of the United Nations worksecurity, human rights and universal values, and developmentand addresses the crucial question of whether, when, and how the United States should engage or not engage with the United Nations in its many different organs and activities. He looks at each UN organ and function and suggests the form of engagement that the United States should take toward it, giving workable, pragmatic meaning to multilateral engagement across the full range of the United Nations work. Cutting through the alphabet soup of UN agencies, as well as the utopian idealism that, however noble, often clouds analyses of the United Nations, the book offers principles for a permanent relationship based on ideals and interests between the United States and the United Nationsand provides guidance for long-term US policy that runs far beyond the Obama administrations tenure. Ultimately, Living with the UN offers a vision of a better, but also more modest, United Nationsa vision unlikely to be realized but well worth presenting. Sickly sapling, glorious tree? Multilateralism and engagement The US global security guarantee and UN collective security Always engage : the United States and the Security Council Sometimes engage : internal UN management and the General Secretariat, the buyout of the UN-that-works, and containment of the UN-that-doesn't Parallel engagement : international development and global human welfare Disengage and obstruct : the UN-of-values.