The Security Council has sometimes failed to perform its main duty, which is the maintenance of international peace and security. The Council’s responsibilities in this regard have grown as new international challenges have emerged. These challenges include global environmental issues, refugee flows and mass migration across borders, the rapid spread of infectious diseases, civil war that threatens international peace and security, global terrorism, transnational crime and illegal stocks of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. The Security Council has thus become the subject of both severe criticism and calls for its structural reform. A variety of reform proposals have been offered by scholars and politicians, almost all of which have focused solely on state-based solutions. The current study considers that reforming the Council through such means would not alter its current state to any significant extent. International law no longer reflects the state-based system of the Westphalian World Order. The international legal order does not involve only nationstates, and state-based systems are not able autonomously to deal with problems such as these in the post-Westphalian era. It is widely acknowledged that there are many non-state actors that could contribute to enhancing the Council’s representativeness, effectiveness and accountability. It is thus concluded that a reform proposal for the Security Council must consider these factors and produce a non-state based solution. It is proposed that the Council must consider granting formal access to Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that have, as non-state actors, been active in the international legal order, and that have already made significant contributions to the above-mentioned issues.

Der Forschungskreis Vereinte Nationen wurde 1999 als informelles Netzwerk für UN-Forschung gegründet mit dem Ziel, den Informationsaustausch unter den Wissenschaftlern der verschiedenen Fachdisziplinen und den Dialog mit den Praktikern zu fördern. Die regelmäßig stattfindenden Potsdamer UNO-Konferenzen des Forschungskreises Vereinte Nationen widmen sich der kritischen Analyse der UN-Forschung. Darüber hinaus bieten sie ein Forum für die Diskussion mit Politikern, UN-Mitarbeitern, Diplomaten und Journalisten über die Aufgaben der Vereinten Nationen und ihre Strukturen sowie über Konzepte zu ihrer Reform. Im vorliegenden Buch werden wichtige Referate der Potsdamer UNO-Konferenzen 2000 – 2008 veröffentlicht, die sich unter anderem den Themenbereichen Friedenssicherung, Menschenrechtsschutz und Umweltschutz durch die Vereinten Nationen, der Reform der UN-Hauptorgane sowie der deutschen UN-Politik und der UN-Politik im Rahmen der Europäischen Union widmen, und die ergänzt werden durch Beiträge der beiden Herausgeber zu den Problemen und Perspektiven der UN-Forschung in Deutschland. / The Forschungskreis Vereinte Nationen (Research Group on the United Nations) was founded in 1999 with the aim of promoting the exchange of information among scientists of different disciplines and the dialogue between the UN researchers and the practitioners. The Potsdam Conferences of the Forschungskreis convened at regular intervals address the critical analysis of UN research. Moreover the conferences provide a forum for the discussion with politicians, UN officials, diplomats and journalists about the tasks of the UN and its structures as well as about concepts for its reform. The present book publishes important lectures of the Potsdam Conferences 2000 – 2008, dealing among other things with peacekeeping, human rights protection and environmental protection of the United Nations, the reform of its principal organs as well as with the German UN policy and the UN policy of the European Union. The lectures are supplemented by contributions of the two editors on the problems and perspectives of UN research in Germany.

In recent years there has been an increasing demand for a reform of the UN system at the national level. Objecting to a failure in aid effectiveness and a paternalistic implementation of a rigid western model of human rights, the call for reform has been concretised in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005), the Hanoi Core Statements on Aid Effectiveness (2005) and the General Assembly Resolution A/60/1(2006), which recognize the need for a more effective and coherent UN country presence. The One UN reform – Delivering as One – is currently being piloted in eight different countries, one of them Viet Nam. One of the main principles governing the reform is the shift of power as to who directs the UN’s resources. The principle of increased national ownership is juxtaposed with the fact of a government repressing its people, as is the case in Viet Nam. This thesis builds upon a field study in Viet Nam, addressing issues of human rights violations, the Communist Party’s rhetoric of protecting the people, and the UN’s rhetoric of expertise conditioned by western thought. The question of whether the subaltern can speak is again raised here, as is further inquiries on whether the Government of Viet Nam and/or the UN hears and/or listens to it. Utilizing Jürgen Habermas’ theory of communicative action to theorise the agencies of The Government of Viet Nam and the One UN, and by placing them in a Habermasian polity of communicative action, it becomes possible to view this occurring encounter of ideologically governed actors in a new light, and inquire as to whether it is possible to reach an understanding and coordinate plans of action by way of agreement. This thesis sheds light on and problematizes issues of western presence, communicative action, the colonial civilizing project, subalternity, as it is activated in the context of Viet Nam and in the principles of the UN reform.

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Esta pesquisa busca analisar a política externa brasileira (PEB) dos últimos anos por meio do referencial teórico da teoria da complexidade. Parte-se do pressuposto de que uma linha-mestra histórica da PEB é a obtenção de um lugar de maior destaque para o Brasil na ordem internacional. No contexto do fim da Guerra Fria, a situação internacional e doméstica foi alterada, de modo a favorecer essa meta tradicional. Teoricamente, discute-se a limitação dos modelos conceituais lineares sobre política internacional, de modo a defender o referencial teórico da complexidade (não linear) como mais abrangente. Com base nisso, realizam-se dois estudos de caso. O primeiro é a histórica campanha brasileira pela reforma do Conselho de Segurança da ONU: argumenta-se que fracassou, entre outros motivos, por adotar uma abordagem linear, ineficaz para a abordagem de um \"wicked problem\". Outro estudo de caso é sobre o PAA-Africa, um programa descentralizado, adaptativo e flexível, que logrou sucesso. A conclusão é que a recente prática diplomática brasileira mistura iniciativas lineares e não lineares, com resultados diversos, o que dificulta a obtenção de sua meta histórica de maior protagonismo. / This research aims to analyze Brazilian foreign policy initiatives using complexity theory\'s (CT) conceptual framework. The basic assumption is that a key Brazilian historical international objective is to achieve a greater international role as a global player. With the end of the Cold War, international and domestic settings changed in a favorable way towards the fulfilment of this objective. Theoretically, it discusses the limitations of linear conceptual models on international politics, while it asserts that CT\'s nonlinear conceptual framework is more comprehensive. On this ground, two case studies are made. The first is about Brazil\'s historic campaign to reform the UN Security Council: the argument is that it failed, among other reasons, because it adopts a linear approach, one that is unsuitable to deal with a \"wicked problem\". The other case study is about PAA-Africa, a decentralized, adaptive and flexible program, which succeeded. The conclusion is that Brazil\'s recent diplomatic practice mixes linear and nonlinear initiatives, obtaining different results, and this is an obstacle for the country to achieve its goal of greater international protagonism.

Esta pesquisa busca analisar a política externa brasileira (PEB) dos últimos anos por meio do referencial teórico da teoria da complexidade. Parte-se do pressuposto de que uma linha-mestra histórica da PEB é a obtenção de um lugar de maior destaque para o Brasil na ordem internacional. No contexto do fim da Guerra Fria, a situação internacional e doméstica foi alterada, de modo a favorecer essa meta tradicional. Teoricamente, discute-se a limitação dos modelos conceituais lineares sobre política internacional, de modo a defender o referencial teórico da complexidade (não linear) como mais abrangente. Com base nisso, realizam-se dois estudos de caso. O primeiro é a histórica campanha brasileira pela reforma do Conselho de Segurança da ONU: argumenta-se que fracassou, entre outros motivos, por adotar uma abordagem linear, ineficaz para a abordagem de um \"wicked problem\". Outro estudo de caso é sobre o PAA-Africa, um programa descentralizado, adaptativo e flexível, que logrou sucesso. A conclusão é que a recente prática diplomática brasileira mistura iniciativas lineares e não lineares, com resultados diversos, o que dificulta a obtenção de sua meta histórica de maior protagonismo. / This research aims to analyze Brazilian foreign policy initiatives using complexity theory\'s (CT) conceptual framework. The basic assumption is that a key Brazilian historical international objective is to achieve a greater international role as a global player. With the end of the Cold War, international and domestic settings changed in a favorable way towards the fulfilment of this objective. Theoretically, it discusses the limitations of linear conceptual models on international politics, while it asserts that CT\'s nonlinear conceptual framework is more comprehensive. On this ground, two case studies are made. The first is about Brazil\'s historic campaign to reform the UN Security Council: the argument is that it failed, among other reasons, because it adopts a linear approach, one that is unsuitable to deal with a \"wicked problem\". The other case study is about PAA-Africa, a decentralized, adaptive and flexible program, which succeeded. The conclusion is that Brazil\'s recent diplomatic practice mixes linear and nonlinear initiatives, obtaining different results, and this is an obstacle for the country to achieve its goal of greater international protagonism.