Global Governance and the Un: An Unfinished Journey

In the 21st century, the world is faced with threats of global scale thatcannot be confronted without collective action. Although global government as suchdoes not exist, formal and informal institutions, practices, and initiatives --together forming ""global governance"" -- bring a greater measure of predictability, stability, and order to trans-border issues than might be expected. Yet, there aresignificant gaps between many current global problems and available solutions.Thomas G. Weiss and Ramesh Thakur analyze the UN's role in addressing suchknowledge, normative, policy, institutional, and compliance lapses. The UN'srelationship to these five global governance gaps is explored through case studiesof some of the most burning problems of our age, including terrorism, nuclearproliferation, humanitarian crises, development aid, climate change, human rights, and HIV/AIDS.