The United Nations and The 21st Century

In this path-breaking study, Dr. Sood has explored the genesis of the United Nations Organization as a Phoenix resurrected from the ashes of the League of Nations. He has underlined the genetic fault in its formation wherein the five permanent members given veto power often abused it to thwart the most well-meaning efforts to “discipline” recalcitrant nations. In this context, and also in view of the changed scenario resulting from Gorbachev’s Glasnost and Perestroika, and consequent rupture of what Churchill described as “The Iron Curtain”, signified by demolition of the Wall of Berlin, the author has suggested not mere tinkering, but drastic restructuring of the United Nations Charter to meet the challenges of the 21st Century. While not glossing over its successes since its inception, Dr. Sood has starkly highlighted how the Organization has often been held hostage by the super powers for narrow partisan ends. Dr. Sood has very cogently and lucidly identified the chinks in the apparently castle-like structure of the United Nations and has offered suggestions on how these chinks could be done away with. It will raise many eyebrows and tread on many political corns, but that is its raison d’etre. Lucid and jargonless, provocative in its demolition of accepted shibboleths, the book ploughs new furrows in the field of political beliefs. This study of the United Nations, warts and all, delineates the future course of the Organization, if it has to translate into vivid reality the dreams and aspirations of its founding fathers.