Un Security Council Practice and Promise

The Life and Times of the UN Security Council tells the story of this historically unique experiment in international cooperation and provides a concise, but comprehensive, biography of the Council, tracing its evolution and development since its inception. Drawing largely from primary sources, it opens with a look at the conditions, expectations, and politics that shaped its creation in the early 1940s. The soaring public rhetoric of the day is contrasted to the hard-headed realism that conditioned the drafting in Dumbarton Oaks and San Francisco of the Charter's provisions concerning the composition and practices of the Council. It notes that the pointed debates over these matters at the founding conference are echoed in the current struggle over Council reform and expansion. The heart of the book traces how the four key tools at the Council's disposal '¬" peace operations, military enforcement, sanctions, and empowering partners '¬" have evolved through practice and experience. It finds that the Council has proven to be remarkably adaptable to changing circumstances, no doubt a key to its longevity. The final section addresses how the Council is seeking to confront three current challenges '¬" humanitarian atrocities, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and demands for reform '¬" that will largely define its future. Remarkably little has been written about the Council, though it has become one of the most dynamic, ambitious, and controversial institutions in contemporary world politics. Filling this gap, The Life and Times of the UN Security Council is essential reading for those with interests in international peace and security and international politics and relations. Edward C. Luck is Director of the Center on International Organization and Professor of Practice in International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He was President of the United Nations Association of the USA (1984-1994) and one of the architects of the U.N. reform efforts from 1995 to 1997. Among his books are Mixed Messages: American Politics and International Organization, 1919-1999 and International Law and Organization: Closing the Compliance Gap. Politics/International Relations>Luck, Edward C. is the author of 'Un Security Council Practice and Promise', published 2006 under ISBN 9780415355315 and ISBN 0415355311.