If accession to the UN was for many states thesine qua nonof sovereignty, thenthe spread of economic globalization on the one hand and non-state violence on
the other are perhaps the major challenges to that sovereignty in the early twenty-
Wrst century. The challenges faced by the UN in the early twenty-Wrst century are in
many ways a product of its historical privileging of an insistence on sovereign
equality; or more precisely, the challenges posed by the practical denial of this
theoretical state as international politics, lead by the USA and it principle allies,
drifts into an era of non-UN sanctioned humanitarian intervention in places like
Bosnia and pre-emptive security in Iraq.
The attitude of the vast majority of members of the UN to these proactive
policies in the security domain is deeply conditioned by what they see as the failure
on the other hand of the global community, and the UN as the principle IO, to deal
with the exacerbating issue of poverty and global inequality. These twin trials for
the UN, and especially the attitude of the USA towards it and its goals, seem to be
undoing the earlier progress that the organization had made by the identiWcation of
the importance of providing collective action problem solving in socioeconomic,
developmental, and ecological policy areas. The UN’s historical progress as a
vehicle for peace building and generating socioeconomic well-being has not
been trivial, but the fundamental contemporary problem is that UN’s potential
remains inhibited by ‘‘the pretence of state governments that they have ‘sover-
eignty’ over a multitude of problems in public policy that nowXow across borders’’
(Alger 2001 , 493 ).
This chapter cannot review the ‘‘UN reform industry’’ that has been in full swing
since the turn of the century (but see Heinbecker and GoV 2005). But even under
optimistic scenarios it will be a problematic endeavor. It in part explains the
concerns of states in international relations to preserve their sovereignty yet at
the same time enhance collective action decision-making in ‘‘trans-sovereign’’
policy areas (see Cusimano 2000 ). It also sees states make greater recourse to
regional organization. TheWnal problem facing the UN is one that faces many
IOs, namely a legitimacy deWcit in the relationship between the dominant actors
and the weaker players in the organization on the one hand and in the relationship
between the institution and the people it purports to serve on the other. Both
issues, as real world policy issues and as key factors for scholarly analysis, receive
consideration in the Conclusion.
- 2 Regional Organization as International Organization
It is at the regional level that the growth in international organization has been most
dramatic. This does not occur in isolation from wider traditions and concerns.
Indeed, the UN spells out the possible mandates that ‘‘regional arrangements,’’ and
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