1st Edition

The UN Military Staff Committee Recreating a Missing Capacity

By Alexandra Novosseloff Copyright 2018
    172 Pages 10 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    172 Pages 10 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    The UN Military Staff Committee is a misunderstood organ, and never really worked as it was initially envisaged. This book charts its historic development as a means to explain the continuous debate about the reactivation of the Military Staff Committee and, more generally, the unsatisfied need for the Security Council to have a military advisory body so that it does not only depend on the Secretariat to make its decisions on military and security affairs.



    The author takes a clear stand for the establishment of a military committee with real weight in the decision-making process of the Security Council related to peace operations. The Security Council remains the only international body making decisions in peace and security, authorizing military deployment without advice from a collective body of military experts and advisers. Recreating such a body is the missing part of all UN reform structures undertaken in past years.



    As the number of UN troops deployed increases, this book will be an important read for all students and scholars of international organisations, security studies and international relations.

    Introduction

    1. History of the improbable creation of the UN Military Staff Committee
    2. The consequences of the paralysis of the Military Staff Committee
    3. Recurrent attempts at reform and reactivation since the Cold War
    4. Current developments and looking into the future

    Conclusion

    Biography

    Alexandra Novosseloff is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the International Peace Institute in New York. She is also a research associate at the Centre Thucydide of the University Paris 2-Panthéon-Assas where she held her PhD in Political Science and International Relations. She has written a number of books, policy reports and articles on the UN Security Council and on UN peacekeeping.