3) A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, by the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change (website)
I read this at the weekend and have been wondering whether to include it on my list of books read. Seeing as it’s over 100 pages long, I think I will. Also my boss had (possibly quite a substantial) part in writing it.
I found it more interesting than I had expected, especially the first bit, reflecting at some length on both a) what states’ mutual and internal obligations now are in the 21st century, and the way in which we have moved on from the Westphalian (or Montevideo) conventions. Also the reflections on what the new security threats actually are, and what can in fact be done about them, made the whole mess feel rather less like the ineluctable foreces of nature that it sometimes does feel like, and more like something that one can actually do things about.
The core of the report is of course the specific set of proposals for UN reform, and as someone who’s not close enough to that policy nexus I can’t really judge how utopian or likely the proposals are; they all seem to make sense anyway.
That’s pretty much how I feel about it too. Coming from a minority religion based group myself (in this country, anyway), my hackles always rise when I see such statements by people who I would have expected to be somewhat less ignorant 🙁 I’ve long since learned to wait before commenting though, as raised hackles rarely allow me to make eloquent, impartial and sensible comments 🙂