ABSTRACT
The critical question of how far UN members were able and willing to reform the Organisation was looked at in the last chapter. As the millennium approaches, will the UN be seen as sure of its mission, robustly able to face up to suggestions, even criticism? Poised at the dawn of the twenty-first century will the UN be regarded as a force able to bring about changes in the contemporary world? To draw up a balance sheet of UN performance is a complex and lengthy business. It is not easy to evaluate success and failure, since one person’s choice of criteria might not suit another’s. One way to deal with this problem is to summarise what previous chapters have described and questioned, to follow that with a brief selective list of some UN accomplishments in the fields this book has dealt with and then to return to the question of the UN as a force for change. This may help the reader attempt the task of appraisal individually or with others.
