ABSTRACT
The debate over the idea of creating a UN ‘Legion’ as an alternative or supplement to existing arrangements is not new. As it depends on the advent of a favourable context for its attainment, the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ has historically grown, re-emerged and evolved, in direct connection with the development of international military force experiments. If it has not lost any of its vitality, it has not materialized, and the question of its practicality remains. Meanwhile, the events of 11 September 2001, bringing to light the underground and destructive activities and goals of an international terrorist network, Al Qaeda, and their dramatic consequences for world peace and stability as a whole, gives particular relevance to idea 413 of Robert Muller’s 2000 Ideas for a Better World: ‘International criminals are better organized than police cooperation. The whole concept of a proper world police should be considered on the eve of the 21st century and 3rd millennium.’ Apart from the question of their immediate feasibility, recent proposals for a UN ‘Legion’ raise a number of fundamental problems. Are they merely another version of earlier unrealistic proposals made in the euphoria of the end of the Second World War or generated by the frustration of the Cold War? Or is the revival of the idea of a UN ‘Legion’ revelatory of more profound changes in international relations and in the functioning of the United Nations?
