ABSTRACT
The debate on the reform of the United Nations should not be allowed to run out of steam. It is understandable that sometimes the frustrations of the inability of the United Nations to make concrete progress in this regard can be discouraging. There should be, however, no letting up in our bold efforts to ensure that the United Nations truly consolidates its promise in the interest of the people it represents.
The United Nations was born of the political commitment of some States. It was however intended as a universal institution – universal in terms of its membership, and also universal in terms of the principles and values it projected and protected.
The Charter of the United Nations, itself, instils a sense of belonging in the peoples of the world. We cannot shy away from the responsibility we have towards, “we the peoples”. We know of the gap between rhetoric and action in this regard. We have referred in the text to the struggle between national and global priorities. We have emphasised the importance of relevance over efficiency. We think that eventually we would 127succeed to have a better United Nations for the future because there is no other easier alternative.
We therefore wish to continue in our efforts to make the United Nations an Organisation better equipped to meet the aspirations of the peoples it represents. In particular the purpose of the book is to demonstrate how relevance needs to be built into both the workings of the Institution through changes in the methods employed by the United Nations, and also through a re-thinking in terms of the manner in which the principles of the Organisation are reflected through its mandate.
The Book on the Second Generation United Nations was first published in 1997 when the debate on United Nations reform was at its peak. In January 1997 a new Secretary General of the United Nations was appointed and found a rich harvest of reform proposals which resulted from an initiative during the forty-fifth General Assembly under a Maltese Presidency.
The proposals of the Second Generation United Nations formed part of this rich harvest, and in fact, some were reflected in the Secretary-General’s own Report 1 , Renewing The United Nations: A Programme of Reform which was issued on 14 July 1997. The Secretary General had at his disposal a wealth of analysis and recommendations, the most important of which came as a result of a number of ad hoc committees which were established soon after the 45th Session of the General Assembly and which dealt with a number of important sectors and subjects of the United Nations. Work on some of these sectors and subjects, like on the Security Council, is still continuing in some form or another.
