Diplomacy, Politics and the United Nations

This Course provides students with a systematic introduction to the United Nations as a family of organisations facilitating complex patterns of diplomatic engagement in the 21st Century. It opens with a discussion of the emergence of the United Nations then moves on to explore the structure and function of key United Nations organisation and finally examines the involvement of the United Nations in a range of complex endeavours such as humanitarian assistance, intervention, conflict management, and peacebuilding in disrupted states. It concludes with a discussion of the prospects for reform of the United Nations system.