Swords and Plowshares: The United Nations in Transition

Graeme S. Mount is a professor of history at Laurentian University, the
author of Canada’s Enemies: Spies and Spying in the Peaceable Kingdom,
and the co-author of The Border at Sault Ste. Marie.

This book addresses 15 different topics ranging from peacekeeping
initiatives to the role of the United Nations in the abolition of the
death penalty. The contributors include a Swiss scientists, a mix of
Canadian and American authors, and Maurice Strong, a diplomat with an
imposing track record at the United Nations. Most of the book consists
of papers that were presented at a 1995 University of Saskatchewan
conference, The United Nations at Fifty: Issues and Opportunities.

Some contributors see a deficit of opportunities. In “Explaining the
UN’s Unhappy Fiftieth Anniversary,” Richard Falk of Princeton
University notes that the image of the UN has been badly damaged by
perceived failures in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Somalia. Moreover, in the
aftermath of the Cold War, Falk argues, many UN concerns have become
increasingly irrelevant to the interests of developed countries. The UN
charter is an anachronism frozen in the context of 1945 when Germany and
Japan were prostrate and Great Britain and France boasted overseas
empires. In a chapter entitled “When Canada Stopped Peacekeeping,”
former MP John English argues that Lester Pearson was unique among
Canadian prime ministers in his enthusiasm for peacekeeping, and that
Canadian cynicism increased after Egyptian President Nasser ordered the
expulsion of Canadian forces from Egypt in 1967.

Swords and Plowshares offers some interesting insights.