To commemorate its 20th anniversary, in 1995 the United Nations University launched a five-year project on The United Nations System in the 21st Century (UN21). The objective of this project is to examine key concepts and strategies pertaining to the role and functions of international organizations with a view to exploring possible appropriate models for international organizations, especially the United Nations, that would best meet the needs of the international community in the 21st century. More particularly, the project seeks to produce specific policy recommendations for policymakers and practitioners through theoretical and empirical policy studies. The project is structured around five Research Groups which look at five primary actors in world affairs: (1) states; (2) non-governmental organizations (NGOs); (3) market forces; (4) regional institutions; and (5) international organizations.

The 1996 research on "Peace and Security" has been concluded and its results were presented at a symposium held in Tokyo in November 1996. The symposium aimed at assessing difficulties the United Nations is now facing, and identifying issues essential for the future of the world body in the area of peace and security. The themes of the symposium included: UN preventive action, the problem of failed states, economic development and military expansion in Asia, the role of international organizations in nuclear nonproliferation, and Security Council decisionmaking, among others.

As a follow-up to the symposium, the UNU organized a Public Forum on 9 January 1997, at United Nations headquarters in New York. The Forum's primary objectives were to make widely known the outcome of the Tokyo symposium, including a review of the results of the project's first year of work, and to promote an exchange of views relevant to the research project among representatives of the diplomatic community, officials of the United Nations Secretariat, and academics.

Professor Heitor Gurgulino de Souza, Rector of the United Nations University, served as the moderator of the discussion. The following presentations were made: Dr. Jean Marc Coicaud, a Senior Academic Officer at the UNU, began with an overview of the project's work to date; Professor Atul Kohli of Princeton University reported on the progress of the "Research Group on States and Sovereignty;" and Professor Thomas Weiss of Brown University presented a paper prepared for the Tokyo symposium entitled "United Nations Military Operations in the 1990s: Lessons from the Recent Past and Directions for the Near Future."

Following the presentations, Ambassador James Jonah, Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone to the United Nations, and Mr. Alvaro de Soto, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations Department of Political Affairs, commented on aspects of the overall project and the individual presentations. A question-and-answer segment open to all audience members concluded the discussion.

The United Nations in the 21st Century: Project Overview

The UN21 project is an attempt to address the role of the United Nations in the coming years in relation to three main elements: (1) the evolution of international relations; (2) the actors of the international system; and (3) the issues that are likely to become important in the near future. Each year is dedicated to a specific theme. The theme for 1996 was peace and security. During 1997, the research groups will explore the theme of environment. Next year's theme will be development, followed by human dignity in 1999, and governance in 2000. The project's coordinators are in the process of establishing the directions of research and identifying the specific questions to be examined. After the completion of each year of research, the University will publish a volume containing the papers presented and discussed at annual symposia. A forthcoming book containing the papers presented at the Tokyo symposium held in November 1996 will be published in the coming months.

The Tokyo Symposium focused on three main elements. First, the participants attempted to identify the major issues in the field of international peace and security. In doing so, they examined traditional security threats and issues relating to conflict and military affairs within states as well as among states. The participants also dealt with non-traditional security issues such as market forces and economic globalization and their social and political effects. The second element focused on actors involved in international peace and security issues. In this connection, the participants evaluated the roles of states, regional arrangements, individual citizens, and international organizations. Taking into account the current international context, the third element assessed the role of the United Nations in the field of peace and security. To briefly summarize, the discussion on the present and future role of the United Nations in security focused on the following questions:

(1) What kind of comparative advantage does the United Nations hold in the field of security compared to other actors such as states and regional organizations? What assets does the United Nations have in terms of normative as well as operational capacities that states and regional arrangements lack? What capacities does the United Nations possess to effectively deal with security issues?

(2) Obviously, the United Nations cannot do much to ease conflicts without the support of member states. Therefore, it is imperative to know what states expect from the world body. What is the vision of the member states and specifically the major powers? What kind of vision do states have for the United Nations in the field of security?

(3) How can the United Nations secure cooperation from states to ease conflicts? How can the United Nations minimize the volatility and conditionality of member state support in the field of security? How is it possible to organize and secure a real and effective partnership between the United Nations and member states regarding conflict prevention and conflict management?

Through the organization of the UN21 project, the United Nations University is attempting to fulfill the mandate it received over twenty year ago — to think about the present and the future in a global way. In doing so, the UNU seeks to be a bridge between academia, governments, non-governmental actors, and the United Nations system. This obviously is not an easy task; the problems are quite complex. By bringing together academics and practitioners, it is the UNU's intention to contribute to the ongoing and necessary dialogue on the future of the United Nations.

The Research Group on States and Sovereignty

The design of the current United Nations system is premised mainly on a world organized as a system of states. As we move into the next century, however, sovereign states are experiencing pressure form both "above" and "below." Global forces from above — economic, technological and cultural — are forcing states, even powerful states, to reorganize and to reconceptualize conventional notions of sovereignty. The room for weaker states to maneuver is additionally constrained by their internal limitations and by the preferences of powerful states. Moreover, many states are being challenged from below, as groups within them redefine themselves as a "people," or even a "nation," and demand greater rights of self-determination; a number of existing states are bound to become failed states of the future. None of these developments spell an end to a world of states; states remain and are likely to remain powerful global actors, well into the 21st century. Nevertheless, these emerging trends do focus attention on the changing nature of states and the state system.

The group's central concern in the first year of research was to analyze what implications do the changing nature of states and of the state system have for global peace and security. The following questions were examined: Is the post-Cold War world radically different as far as global peace and security issues are concerned? Has the usefulness of military power undergone any serious change? Are major future conflicts likely to resemble conventional conflicts of the past, i.e., interstate warfare, or will newer types of conflicts such as civil wars and failed states more likely dominate the peace and security agenda? Irrespective of the type of conflict, what king of peace and security role is the major global actor — the United States — likely to play in this changed world? What role can the United Nations play in facilitating global peace and security?

Four scholars were invited to address some of these questions. The following provides a brief summary of the papers discussed at the Tokyo symposium:

A paper by Professor George Sorensen of the University of Aarhus addressed the changing nature of the state system and sets forth a typology of states that seeks to characterize the state system at the end of century. His typology identified three kinds of states. In addition to the modern Westphalian state, which is often perceived as the standard type of state in the modern international system, he suggested that there is the politically weak, insubstantial state which can be found in parts of the South. A third type, which he referred to as a post-modern state, can be found in parts of the North, especially in Western Europe, and is a complex, transnationally interpenetrated entity immersed in globalization and multi-level governance. These different types of statehood are tied in with different patterns of conflict and cooperation. The modern Westphalian state is inclined towards balance-of-power politics with other states in the system. By contrast, weak states are plagued mainly by internal conflicts because weak statehood presents a perennial problem of domestic security. Violent conflicts in weak states are responsible for the largest number of casualties by far over the recent decade and the problem is at its worst in sub-Saharan Africa. The post-modern states in Western Europe cooperate intensely in new ways which rule out violent conflict. They constitute a security community, at least among themselves. In sum, Professor Sorensen's work suggests that we are facing an increasingly complex world with different types of states, each with specific consequences for patterns of conflict and cooperation.

Professor Sheryl Schwenninger of the World Policy Institute provided a somewhat disconcerting but illuminating view of the United States as the lone but reluctant superpower in the post-Cold War world. He underlined the persistent and growing tension between the desire of the United States to remain the world's premier power, and its refusal to bear the costs of this position. The short-term result of America's reluctance to help develop effective collective security arrangements around the world is the continuation of a host of problems which no one else can readily address. The United States is torn between the traditional role of a modern Westphalian global power-player and the new role of a post-modern state, intensely cooperating and bargaining primarily in the economic arena with other states and international institutions. Because of the dominant position of the United States in the post-Cold War world, the consequences of this predicament — wanting to be a hegemon but not wanting to pay for it — are felt in many parts of the world.

Professor Amin Saikal of the Australian National University drew attention to the number of emerging Asian powers that continue to behave very much like conventional Westphalian security-conscious states. The states analyzed are those aspiring to be, and in many respects already are, modern Westphalian states. He identified Israel, China, and India as some of the countries which have moved farthest in this direction. It is in this part of the world — the broad Asian arc — that we have on current display typical modern, Westphalian balance-of-power politics, with high levels of armaments in a context of rapid modernization. This balance-of-power game is character-ized by a further complication which increases the dangers of conflict. Many of these states are not "satisfied" states. In other words, the issue of their permanent borders and the territory under their control is not fully settled. Professor Saikal characterized this as dangerous additional fuel to potential interstate conflict in an already somewhat unstable environment.

Charles Aiodun Alao of King's College analyzed the forces that continue to undermine the stateness of a number of weak states in sub-Saharan Africa. His analysis reminded us that states with formal juridical sovereignty are not necessarily substantially effective states, and that the types of conflicts that characterize regions composed of such states are likely to be rather unconventional.

The group identified five main conclusions relating to the implications of the changing nature of states for issues of peace and security into the next century. First, in spite of pressures from above and below, and the unleashing of markets globally, states are not going away. Instead of shrinking, states are basically refocusing. In other words, what we are witnessing is that states are changing. They are growing stronger in some respects and weaker in others. Second, aside from the issue of the world becoming more or less state-oriented, the international system of states is increasingly beginning to consist of different types of states. While post-modern states in parts of the North develop new forms of intense cooperation, severe domestic conflict plagues the weak states in parts of the South. At the same time, modernizing states, in parts of Asian at least, are involved in fairly intense arms races and balance-of-power rivalries. There are some indications of a more regionalized segregated world with different parts moving in qualitatively different directions. Third, the major global power — the United States — is not likely to provide, at least over the short- to medium-term, a constructive leadership that will facilitate the emergence of a multilateral cooperative international order. That poses severe problems for international cooperation in general and for the United Nations in particular. Without support from the predominant power in the system, the United Nations faces severe limitations in its capacity for constructive conflict resolution and management. A fourth conclusion is that a number of emerging powers — including China, India, Iran, Iraq, and Israel — will continue to assert themselves. As such, they represent some of the countries which are of paramount importance in their respective regional contexts. Furthermore, their actions can have repercussions even for the entire system. These states will remain highly sovereignty- and security-conscious, occasionally cooperative, but also belligerent at times. Finally, the fifth conclusion asserts that problems of failed states have deep structural roots and are neither likely to vanish or be readily dealt with. There had been state failure during the Cold War years, but the problem has become more acute since 1990. The withdrawal of the United States and the former Soviet Union from the Third World has had the side effect of intensifying domestic conflict, which has also been fueled by demands of drastic economic and political reforms.

The general picture that emerges from the group's collective work is not overly optimistic. What we are witnessing is certainly not the "end of history," but it is not an impending "clash of civilizations" either. The more nuanced view suggests that conventional interstate conflicts will coexist with a variety of newer conflicts in the 21st century, such as intra-state implosions, ethnic conflicts (even in well-established states), and economic conflicts. The weakest states, with their high levels of domestic conflict, will present a growing dilemma for the United Nations. While it will be fruitful for the United Nations to open up a more intensive dialogue with representatives from organizations such as NGOs, the core basis for the United Nations will continue to be a compact with leading states. Without such a basis, the United Nations will not be able to perform its tasks.

Given the fact that the international system remains in basic respects a system of sovereign states, the United Nations will not become a global manager in the sense of a quasi-world government to which member states have ceded substantial elements of sovereignty. Yet, it will not go to the other extreme either. The United Nations will not be reduced to a global counsel that is powerless in the conventional sense and exercises influence only through prestige and the quality of its ideas. The group's overall analysis suggests a role for the United Nations that falls somewhere in between these two extremes, that of a global coordinator. The United Nations will remain crucially dependent on member states, but given the complexity of international conflict after the Cold War, many member states are now willing to let the United Nations play a more predominant role in some areas. One of these areas concerns humanitarian intervention in failed states. Furthermore, any sustainable solution to the problem of failed states — whether it entails changing borders and creating new sovereign entities, or establishing new forms of democratization with minority guarantees — will have to involve the United Nations. The core challenge for the United Nations in the next century will be to maintain and build upon support from the international system of sovereign states, while also utilizing that basis to build a stronger and more efficient and, in some respects, a more independent position as a global coordinator.

United Nations Military Operations in the 1990s: Lessons from the Recent Past and Directions for the Near Future

Professor Weiss' presentation identified seven lessons of the last six years for the United Nations in the field of international peace and security. The first four lessons relate to the United Nations as an arena or tool where states make decisions and try to pursue their own foreign policy interests (a dependent variable). The last three lessons concern the United Nations as a combination of manager-counsel (an independent variable).

The first lesson derived from recent experiences is to establish without compromise a secure physical environment during a coercive military operation. The literature and experience of the last six years suggest that we need to revise our thinking regarding the lack of consent for Chapter VII operations. Intervention does not require "consent" from the warring parties. However, it does necessitate the consent of the domestic constituencies of troop-contributing countries and affected local populations. Thus, there is a progression of three steps underlying the first lesson. First, intervention must be preceded by establishing and maintaining the consent of the publics that send their sons and daughters into hostile environments. For example, Americans were prepared for possible casualties prior to Washington's involvement on the ground in Kuwait and Iraq, but their preparation and consent were not sought in the case of Somalia. Second, although consent by definition is not forthcoming from local belligerents for Chapter VII operations, the consent of local populations must be sought and nurtured. Again, Somalia illustrates the neglect by third-party interveners of local populations manipulated easily by belligerents into believing that those who come to assist them are contributing to their pain. Third, with legitimacy established for possible deaths in action of soldiers and for the presence of "outsiders," there should be no compromises made in robustly carrying out all requisite military efforts to quickly establish a secure environment. If there is no commitment to satisfying all three steps, then there should be no intervention.

A second lesson is to emphasize prevention. There are various kinds of prevention, some of which the United Nations has been doing since its inception, including the expanded use of fact-finding missions, human rights monitors, and early warning systems. In addition, economic and social development are generally viewed as essential to help prevent armed conflicts. In order for a preventive military response to be an effective deterrent, however, preventive soldiers must be backed by contingency plans and reserve fire-power for immediate retaliation against aggressors. This amounts to advance authorization for Chapter VII in the event that a preventive force is challenged. However, this is totally unfeasible at this juncture. Prevention is cost-effective in the long-run, but cost-intensive in the short-term. While the logic is compelling, the politics of prevention virtually exclude the possibility of preventive military deployment.

A third lesson calls for the use of regional organizations without naïveté and with accountability. The logic for using regional organizations is rather overwhelming. As member states of these institutions suffer most from the destabilizing consequences of war in their locales, they have the greatest stake in the management and resolution of regional conflicts. These institutions are likely to better understand the dynamics of strife and cultures more intimately than outsiders, and thus they are in a better position to mediate. The advantages of these institutions, however, exist more in theory than in practice. Most such organizations in the Third World have virtually no military experience or resources. Even in the "best case" of industrialized Europe, the density of well-endowed and seemingly powerful institutions were at most of limited utility — and at worst counterproductive — during the first four years of Yugoslavia's war. If intervention occurs at all, a compensation for the military inadequacies must be sought. As such, experience suggests that UN decisions should trigger interventions to be subcontracted to coalitions of major states. Regional powers could take the lead combined with larger regional or global coalitions. The multilateral capacity for coercion in the near future will undoubtedly depend upon ad hoc coalitions, regional powers, and even hegemons.

A fourth lesson is to control the humanitarian impulse. Humanitarian reactions cannot replace hard-headed calculations of national interest if humanitarian intervention is to be sustained. There have been many instances where humanitarian impulses by themselves were inadequate and on occasion counter-productive. The fourth lesson is that good will is not a substitute for political will.

A fifth lesson is to avoid enforcement. Recent experiences with enforcement operations have indicated that the United Nations is incapable of exercising the kind of command and control that is necessary to carry out an effective combat operation. There are two reasons for arguing that the United Nations should distance itself from forcible coercion. First, states are unwilling to provide the Secretariat with the necessary tools to undertake Chapter VII operations, such as standby troops, adequate funding, independent intelligence, appropriate systems for command and control, and professional personnel. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the strength of the office of the Secretary-General lies in its impartiality, which is derived from the lack of vested interest. The failure to distinguish between the military operations that the United Nations Secretariat can manage (traditional and even slightly muscular peacekeeping) and those that it cannot and should not (enforcement) has led to obfuscation. States have given the Secretariat a few means, including satellite telephones, a round-the-clock situation room, and certain consolidated administrative procedures. However, the Secretariat is not that much better off than it was during the Cold War, and it is certainly not in a position to exercise command and control over combat operations.

A sixth lesson calls for the provision of multifunctional services, particularly human rights. The advent of multifunctional operations in civil wars, means that several types of input — from election and human rights monitoring to disarmament and civil administration — are now not only possible, but in the future also will be the most desirable tasks for United Nations military operations. Given the proper sets of circumstances and support, the United Nations has acquitted itself well in many such assignments in the post-Cold War world. Mistakes have been made and considerable additional research is required to improve such sensitive efforts as disarmament; but carrying them out in a cost-effective manner has highlighted a comparative advantage for the United Nations in situations as diverse as Cambodia and El Salvador. In spite of the general consensus surrounding the expansion of such tasks in future United Nations military operations, human rights protection is a far more controversial multifunctional task that has divided analysts who examine its feasibility. The evidence suggests, however, that the United Nations has been too timid in confronting the perpetrators of human rights abuses and war crimes UN officials are well placed to use the bully pulpit for purposes of human rights protection and the organization's stature as an actor in multifunctional operation would benefit from taking fuller advantage of this potential.

The seventh and final lesson is to make better use of NGOs. Rather than lamenting the inability of the United Nations system to meet human needs across an ever-widening front, it is more pragmatic and sensible to ask who does what best, or at least better, to foster multilateralism through an effective division of labor. As a semi-autonomous actor, the United Nations should take maximum advantage of subcontracting possibilities not only for regional organizations, but also for NGOs, both at international and local levels. In recent civil wars, NGOs have made significant contributions. However, they can also bring weaknesses to the scene of disasters. As a quid pro quo for channeling more resources through NGOs and providing them with better access to decisionmaking, donors should in-sist upon more formal cooperation between NGOs and the United Nations, on the one hand, and more self-regulation among NGOs themselves, on the other. Making better use of NGOs in tandem with UN military operations could help build a wider basis of support for the United Nations as an independent actor and for multilateralism more generally.

Commentaries

Ambassador Jonah observed that some elements of the discussion implied a sense of structure and permanence to issues of international peace and security that does not exist in reality. During the 1980s, the literature on the role of the United Nations in this area was scant. In contrast, today we are witnessing a dramatic increase in the scholarly writings on this subject. We should recognize, however, that some of the these writings are not entirely accurate or enduring. For example, noted failed state candidates of just a few years ago, including Mozambique and Sierra Leone, are no longer failed states. Throughout the history of the United Nations, things have changed. What was possible in 1970s, may not be possible today, and what is not possible today, perhaps could be possible in the next decade. We should therefore exercise some caution when attempting to devise typologies of a permanent nature regarding the international system and the United Nations.

Under the present circumstances, it is clear that the dominant power of the United Nations — the United States — is not inclined to take on any military activities which it does not deem are in its own national interests. Within America's domestic political arena, we do not find support for any robust action by the United States in the Security Council, either in terms of military participation or financing. Why is this the case? Is it primarily due to the shift in sentiment in the US Congress? Whatever the reason, it represents one of the most serious crises facing the United Nations today. On a related note, we should recognize that we are at times falling into a trap of framing the objectives of the United Nations to satisfy only one power. This represents a dangerous development that we should be discussing. We should also seriously examine possible ways and means to democratize the United Nations system. Unless we address this issue, the United Nations will continue to be faced with real difficulties.

We should use some caution when discussing "lessons learned" exercises. As we have seen, we have not even been able to reach agreement about recent major operations, such as the case of Somalia. However, such exercises may help us to answer some of the pressing questions that currently confront us. What kind of United Nations do the member states want? What reform measures should be undertaken in order to endow the organization with capacity to fulfill its role in the 21st century?

Mr. de Soto began his comments by calling attention to the abiding centrality of the role of states within the United Nations system. Indeed, this is the premise upon which the world body is built. The United Nations is an organization of states and one in which governments representing states try to harmonize their actions. There does not appear to be any indication that this reality is changing or that it will change in the foreseeable future. The United Nations must deal with states as they present themselves, with the governments that appear before them. The United Nations Secretariat would be at its peril to try to act as if states were not a fact that is going to be around for quite a period of time. As presently configured under the United Nations Charter, the United Nations can never be a truly independent actor. There is a substantial fallacy in speaking about the United Nations as an entity entirely distinct from member states. The United Nations is an agent and a decisionmaking forum of the member states. This fact is not likely to change in the foreseeable future either.

There are many logical arguments for an expanded use of regional organizations in the maintenance of peace and security. The problem is that many regional organizations are both institutionally and financially weaker than the United Nations itself. They therefore are not yet instruments that we can confidently rely upon to take up the slack. Clearly we must work as closely as possible with regional organizations, and the United Nations Secre-tariat has made considerable ef-forts over the last five years to promote greater co-ordination with these institutions. Nevertheless, we should recognize that there are problems which will be brought to the United Nations as the agent of preference simply because regional organizations do not have the wherewithal at this point in time to carry out a given operation on its own from beginning to end.

The role of the United Nations in the area of human rights is a complex one. On the one hand, member states want the United Nations to be active in protecting human rights. But, at the same time, there are limitations concerning matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of states. Obviously, it would be difficult for the United Nations to step beyond these limits since it could potentially imperil the very basis upon which it rests.

Ultimately, finding viable solutions to the problems that we are facing is dependent upon what the member states want the United Nations to be. Indeed, there is a direct link between efforts aimed at reforming the United Nations system and articulating a vision for the United Nations in the 21st century. The Secretary-General has clearly stated that we should not accept a synonymy between reform and downsizing. What functions do the member states want the United Nations to perform? What should the United Nations not do? Once some sort of broad consensus is reached as to what the future priorities should be, only then will we have a clearer picture of how the United Nations in the 21st century will look. The institutions of the United Nations should be shaped according to this vision. It is perfectly legitimate for the Secretary-General to take a leading role in articulating this vision, along with member states and other actors. For this reason, fora organized by the United Nations University to discuss these matters are extremely useful.

Questions and Discussion

The following briefly summarizes some highlights of the discussion period which followed the presentations and commentaries

• Many of the problems facing the international community today seem to be directly related to the gap between the North and the South, i.e., the rich and the poor. What can be done to address this gap?

Mr. de Soto observed that the discussions which have taken place over the last 25 years or so within the United Nations regarding a North-South dialogue indicate that the problems confronting humankind cannot be solved merely by eliminating the gap between rich and poor. Eliminating such a gap is much easier said than done. Some scholars have asserted that attempts to explain the world’s problems on the basis of a North-South divide are somewhat oversimplified. Indeed, a strong case has been made that such divides exist within most countries. Some persuasively have argued that there is a bit of "North" in every Southern country and an internal divide that is at least as deep, if not more so, than the divide between states of the North and states of the South. Also, a strong case has been made that there are pockets of "South" within the countries of the North concerning health, literacy, and education. We should therefore be cautious in making generalizations that state populations in countries of the North are necessarily prosperous, healthy, and well-educated, and that populations in the South are poor, ill, and illiterate. The problems are considerably more complex.

• To what extent does the United States want to be the hegemon? Is it reluctant? Are other states prepared to pick up the slack? To what extent was the research group on states able to identify attitudes of other states that were not enthusiastic about pushing a global view?

According to Professor Kohli, the group placed an emphasis on the United States because it represents the single most important power in the world and, as such, its attitudes can carry widespread repercussions. Professor Schwenninger's paper noted that the tension between wanting to undertake a leadership role, while not expressing a willingness to pay for it, is extremely problematic. If the United States does not want to play a leadership role, will others fill this vacuum? This question presents a slightly different problem than what the group set out to analyze. Most United States foreign policy actions, both outside and inside the United Nations, indicate that the United States is eager to play a global leadership role, but is not always willing to stand behind it.

• Did the research group on states identify any potential reform measures to be undertaken in order to counter-balance the dominance of a single power or a group of major powers at the United Nations?

In his reply, Professor Kohli explained that the analysis undertaken by the group was not directly aimed at identifying what reform measures should be carried out within the United Nations system. Instead, its objective was to analyze the context within which the United Nations functions. This type of analysis sensitizes us to how difficult any democratization process within the United Nations system is going to be given the present power configuration. A normative question to be raised is as follows: If the United Nations was democratized, what assurances do we have that it would be a better functioning United Nations? As we have seen, democracy can lead to stalemate. Of course, no one is advocating an authoritarian United Nations. However, it is far from assured that a more democratic United Nations would be a more effective, more just, and more efficient organization.

• The Secretary-General has stated that he wants the member states to articulate a common vision for the United Nations. However, as we have seen it is almost impossible for member states to articulate a position for tomorrow, let alone for the coming years. Would it not seem more reasonable for the Secretary-General to take a position as a leader and then have the states fall in line rather than attempting to canvas the entire membership of the organization for cues? States tend to work according to their own national interest and, as such, following a path of securing consensus could lead to all sorts of problems.

Having closely followed the working groups within the General Assembly concerned with the reform process, Mr. de Soto stated there is no question that the Secretary-General has the opportunity to exert a leadership role in addressing reform issues. Perhaps the Secretary-General's recent appointment will serve as a catalyst to prompt member states to work towards a common course.

• States have been the object of critical inquiry by scholars interested in gender studies. Some of these scholars have conceptualized the state as gender insensitive and more prone towards violence and insecurity. Therefore, to the extent that states may be conceptualized as gendered and/or if they are gendered, any realist analysis will do very little service to contributing to the understanding of gendered structures of inequality and other problems such as insecurity and conflict that may be associated with them. Did any of the group's papers look at theories of state and international relations from a gender studies point-of-view?

Professor Kohli explained that his research group set out to examine the concept of state in a conceptually broad manner. Different kinds of leaders, political parties and ideologies come and go. There is, however, something constant about certain types of states and their proclivities to pursue national interests. Nevertheless, studies on the impacts of factors such as gender and ethnicity to enhance this broad macrovision of civilization are indeed important and should be pursued.