Rev Int Org (2007) 2:9799 DOI 10.

1007/s11558-006-9008-4 BOOK REVIEW

Paul Kennedy, The parliament of man: the past, present, and future of the United Nations
Random House, 2006
Richard Jolly

Published online: 11 January 2007 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2007

Paul Kennedy, historian and author of the best selling The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, has produced an impressive, readable, and insightful overview of the UNs evolving roles during its first sixty years. Taking his title, The Parliament of Man, from Locksley Hall, the visionary poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson of 1837, Kennedy sets his account within the perspectives of those who had also looked forward to such a global institution. He writes, For centuries ... the future coming together of humankind into a parliament of man had been proclaimed by European and American prophets and declarations by Smith and Kant, by Gladstone and Wilson, in the Fourteen Points, the Atlantic Charter, and the United Nations Charter itself. Now, at last, as the newly established governments of more and more peoples of the world arrived in New York City to claim their seats in the General Assembly and other bodies, those visions seemed realizednot completely, perhaps, but approximately (p. 121). The foundations of the world institution had been laid down in the 1940s by the US, Britain, and the Soviet Union but, to Kennedy, it was the joining of the UN by so many newly independent ex-colonial countries in the next two decades that represented a seismic shift in global governance. Part 1 of the book briefly reminds readers of the UNs origins with a single chapter entitled, The Troubled Advance to a New World Order, 18151945, that includes discussion of the life-cycle of the League of Nations. Part 2 then elaborates the evolution of the many UNs since 1945, in five key chapters that address the main areas of UN action: The Conundrum of the Security Council; Peacekeeping and Warmaking; Economic Agendas, North and South; The Softer Face of the UNs Mission; and Advancing International Human Rights. A sixth chapter, We
R. Jolly (*) Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK e-mail: r.jolly@ids.ac.uk R. Jolly Ralph Bunche Institute, Graduate Centre, City University New York, New York, USA

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the Peoples: Democracy, Governments and Nongovernmental Actors, examines the growing strength and influence of international civil society in and around the UN. Part 3, in a single chapter, The Promise and the Peril of the Twenty-first Century, looks to the future, identifies the challenges ahead, and discusses options for UN reform. At the very end there is an afterword, a summary of the vital role of the UN in our interdependent world, that is perhaps the most compelling part of the whole book. Kennedys range and readable style makes this a good book for those wanting a broad overview or wishing to see the UNs contributions in historical perspective. Even those familiar with much of the story will be reminded of many points often neglected or forgotten: how in 1947, for instance, the World Bank negotiated an agreement with the UN that permitted it to keep confidential all information that might interfere with its orderly conduct of business; that for the first 25 years, the official IMF histories made virtually no mention of the developing countries; that the (then) UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghalis famous 1994 report on the UNs role, Agenda for Development, went through 40 draftings and revisionsand still failed to find an acceptable balance between encouraging private enterprise and aiding government direction of the economy; or the truly revolutionary nature of the [UNs] soft agendas, which include the UNs work in the areas of women and children, international public health, population issues and the environment, cultural diversity, and social freedoms. In each chapter, Kennedy provides a measured assessment of where the UN has succeeded and where it has failed. This clumsy but worthy organization, as he calls it, has for all its weaknesses chalked up many successes: for instance in 17 good offices initiatives of the Secretary General in the 1980s and 1990s, which include negotiating the Central American Peace Accord, the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan, the winding down of IranIraq hostilities, the end to apartheid in South Africa, and the supervising of democratic elections in many postconflict countries. Kennedy recognizes the failures and tragedies in Somalia, Cambodia, and Rwanda but he rightly underlines how peacekeeping and the supervision of elections represent new additions to the UNs armoury, unforeseen at its creation in 1945. These additions also receive widespread support from many UN member states: 47, 000 military personnel and civilian police were serving in 15 UN peace-keeping operations in September 2001, drawn from 88 contributing countries. In the economic and social arena, the UN has also made pathbreaking innovations and achieved important successes. It has put issues like the environment, human rights, and women and children onto the global agenda, while supporting many forms of action to assist their implementation. With his historians perspective, Kennedy brings out the significance of major advancesfor instance, how the UNs international human rights regime is qualitatively different from anything that had gone before, even the advances made during the Enlightenment, because the current regime has a place in international law. Curiously, however, Kennedy makes virtually no mention of the Millennium Summit, the Millennium Development Goals, and multinational corporations. These are serious omissions, since they are areas of central importance where the UN has taken major initiatives for the better operation of the world economy and for improving the situation of the worlds poorest people.

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When dealing with the UNs failures, Kennedy often contrasts the perspectives of the realists with the idealists, noting how realism and Big Power interests have often trumped UN ideals. Yet, as he points out, it is the idealists whowhile overly optimisticcreated the UN we have. It is international civil society that often protects the ideals of the UN and presses for implementation by criticizing the UN system on some grounds and walking hand in hand with it on others. Kennedy is correct to emphasize this important synergy of positive and negative interaction, which some of us believe deserves more formal analysis, making use of the concept of the three UNsthe UN of governments, the UN of the UN secretariat members, and the third UN, that of the NGOs closely associated with the UN. When looking to the future, Kennedy has little time for those who imagine the world would be better off without the UN. To dismiss the UNs record, as do some contemporary critics, is unfair. Actually, it is absurd, he concludes (p. 289). But reform is needed, though the record shows that incremental improvements, rather than a major restructuring, is the only way that is politically realistic. Repairing weaknesses, coaxing reluctant governments to accept change, understanding what works best and where an international organization has problemsor should not be involved at allshould be the approach. A hard-nosed realist approach to the world order will not work here, nor will an over-imaginative idealist belief. As Kennedy notes, The world needs both skeptical intelligence and vision. Mixed properly, as they were between 1942 and 1945, they can work wonders (p. 290). The strength of The Parliament of Man is its skillful presentation of the 60 years of the UN story in readable length. It has all the marks of a distinguished historian, neither a polemic, nor a boring monograph. It is thus ideal for the general reader, aware and interested in the UN but wanting to see the whole and to get behind headlines endlessly preoccupied with corruption or catastrophe. Kennedys Rise and Fall of the Great Powers was translated into 20 languages. If Kennedy achieves even a fraction of such outreach with The Parliament of Man, he will have made an important contribution.