Fully indexed, the 1991 edition of the Yearbook is the single most current, comprehensive and authoritative reference publication about the work of the United Nations, other international organizations and related bodies. The book is designed not just for use by diplomats, officials and scholars but also by other researchers, writers, journalists, teachers and students. The year 1991 was a remarkably eventful one for the United Nations and in the conduct of international relations. This volume of the Yearbook details the activities of the United Nations, its many organs, agencies and programmes, working together to rekindle a new form of multilateral cooperation for a better world. It records the diverse and globe-encompassing activities of the United Nations and its enduring efforts to deal with the world's pressing concerns, particularly matters of international peace and security, disarmament, human rights, the settlement of regional conflicts, economic and social development, the preservation of the environment, control of drugs and narcotic substance abuse, crime prevention, adequate shelter, youth and the ageing and humanitarian assistance for refugees as well as disaster relief. The Yearbook of the United Nations is now up-to-date. The Yearbooks for the years 1988, 1989 and 1990 will be published simultaneously.

What does the future hold for the UN? In this book, twenty-two scholars from all continents contribute twelve chapters that cover prevention of violence, creating economic and social structures that sustain human fulfilment, sharing and protecting the commons, and peace education. The search for future potential, based on experience in these twelve "laboratories," leads to sixty-six recommendations for new institutions and programs on issues that include controlling weapons, humanitarian intervention, collaboration between UN peacekeepers and NGOs, human rights, economic policies, advancement of women, refugees, ecological security, communications, and peace education. These recommendations are brought together in a concluding chapter and summarized in the appendix. Most of the recommendations do not require amendments to the UN Charter or to the treaties establishing the UN Specialized Agencies. Instead, their implementation would require creative efforts of Member States, secretariats, NGOs, and dedicated individuals that are pointed toward attainment of multilateral capacity for coping with an array of global problems that increasingly threaten the quality of human life. This is stimultaing reading for anyone who wants to be challenged to think creatively about the potential for coping with a growing array of global problems.

This volume provides students and scholars with a text that examines, explains, and appraises contributions made by the United Nations to contemporary international law and the law-creating process. The authors consider how UN institutions have made the law, what law has been made, and the extent to which that law has been meaningfully accepted by and evidenced in contemporary state practice. The study first deals with processes and measures that cut across law-making, covering practical as well as conceptual aspects. Then the substantive law is addressed in terms of the different fields of activity that the United Nations has made subject to legal rules and processes. Some chapters cover prominent areas, such as human rights, use of force, and economic relations; others deal with topics which have not previously been examined with sufficient care, such as labor, the environment, refugees, and women. The book's final section deals with the internal law of the UN system itself - the international civil services and financial contributions.