'… [this] book is informative and well worth reading. The topics chosen reflect an interdisciplinary approach that highlights the current challenges to the international community from both a theoretical and a result-oriented perspective.' The International Spectator

In 2004, the Report of the Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change emphasised the linkages between economic development, security and human rights, and the imperative in the twenty-first century of collective action and cooperation between States. In a world deeply divided by differences of power, wealth, culture and ideology, central questions today in international law and organisation are whether reaffirmation of the concept of collective security and a workable consensus on the means of its realisation are possible. In addressing these questions, this book considers the three key documents in the recent UN reform process: the High-Level Panel report, the Secretary-General's In Larger Freedom report and the 2005 World Summit Outcome document. The chapters examine the responsibilities, commitments, strategies and institutions necessary for collective security to function both in practice and as a normative ideal in international law and relations between state and non-state actors alike.

Introduction: the new collective security Peter G. Danchin and Horst Fischer
Part I. Law and Politics in United Nations Reform: 1. Things fall apart: the concept of collective security in international law Peter G. Danchin
2. Reflections on the politics of institutional reform Jan Klabbers
3. Great powers then and now: security council reform and responses to threats to peace and security Lauri Mälksoo
Part II. Defining 'Threats' to Collective Security: 4. Assessing the high-level panel report: rethinking the causes and consequences of threats to collective security Maxwell O. Chibundu
5. Collective security and the responsibility to protect George Andreopoulos
6. Responses to non-military threats: environment, disease and technology Joachim Wolf
Part III. Prevention and Responses: 7. On the far side of conflict: the UN Peacebuilding Commission as optical illusion Dirk Salomons
8. The new peacebuilding architecture: an institutional innovation of the United Nations Ejeviome Oloho Otobo
9. The world summit process and UN sanctions reform: between rhetoric and force Jeremy Farrall
10. The UN response to the evolving threat of global terrorism: institutional reform, rivalry, or renewal? Eric Rosand
11. International justice and collective security: between pragmatism and principle Carmen Márquez Carrasco
Part IV. Perspectives on the Ground: 12. Developing security in the eastern DRC: MONUC as a practical example of (failing) collective security Dennis Dijkzeul
13. Indirect power: a critical look at civil society in the new human rights council Elizabeth Salmón
14. Collective security: a village eye-view J. Paul Martin and Benedicto Q. Sánchez.

Subject Areas: United Nations & UN agencies [JPSN1], International relations [JPS]