Reforming Un Decision-making Procedures: Promoting A Deliberative System For Global Peace And Security (routledge Research On The United Nations (un))

The institutional procedures for the UN’s decision-making on issues of global peace and security, first and foremost the Security Council (SC), were conceived with the objective of enabling a swift but internationally coordinated response to irregular situations of crises. Today, however, the UN is constantly involved in situations of conflict and has expanded its range of activities. This book offers a concrete and practically applicable answer to the question of how to reform the UN and increase the legitimacy of the UN’s decision-making procedures on issues of global peace and security. In order to provide this answer, it connects the minutia of institutional design with the abstract principals of democratic theory in a systematic and reproducible method, thereby enabling a clear normative evaluation of even the smallest technical detail of reform. This evaluation demonstrates that there is a range of feasible proposals for reform that could improve the SC’s accountability both to the General Assembly and to the general public, that could increase the opportunities for effective input from the UN membership and NGOs. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of the United Nations, International Organizations and regional governance. Cover 1 Title 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Introduction 10 PART I Framework 18 1 Promoting a deliberative system: the Desirability Score 20 2 The politics of UN reform: the Feasibility Score 45 3 Overview of reform proposals 65 PART II Evaluation 70 4 Security Council membership and voting 72 5 Security Council working methods 97 6 Relations between the Security Council and the General Assembly 135 7 Relations between the Security Council and civil society 156 8 Overview of evaluation results 179 Conclusion 189 References 205 Index 217 This volume seeks to offer a concrete and practically applicable answer to the question of how to increase the legitimacy of the UN's decision-making procedures on issues of global peace and security and offers an authoritative account of the decision-making procedures in the United Nations