Reconfiguring the UN System of Collective Security

This chapter examines pacific settlement and collective security as the primary instruments of the United Nations for promoting and underwriting international security. It begins by focusing on the development of newer approaches to UN-centred collective security in the new millennium in response to increased security threats. The chapter discusses economic sanctions, consent-based peacekeeping, robust peace operations, the coercive responsibility to protect (R2P), and nuclear security. In particular, it considers the evolution of peacekeeping side by side with preventive diplomacy, as well as the increase in the number of UN operations after the end of the Cold War to resolve outstanding conflicts. It also evaluates the report prepared by Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, chair of a high-level international panel appointed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to make recommendations for changes in UN peacekeeping. The chapter concludes by considering the shift from collective security to global governance.