Book Reviews Galen Carpenter, Ted (ed.). Delusions of Grandeur: The United Nations and Global Intervention. Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 1997. Pp. xi, 258. Index. A world in which the UN must serve US interests or be abolished, in which the work of the UN and its specialized agencies is useless, if not actively harmful, in which protection of the environment, population control, and work for economic development are all unnecessary interference with the market, is perhaps not the world inhabited by most European international lawyers. At a time when the end of the Cold War has meant a shift from concern at the Security Council's inaction to fears of over-ambitious action and of its domination by the US, this book provides a different perspective in which the US is sucked into dangerous foreign adventures and the American taxpayer funds activities detrimental to US interests. It is published by the Cato Institute which writes: 'Despite the achievement of the nation's founders, today virtually no aspect of life is free from government encroachment. A pervasive intolerance for individual rights is shown by government's arbitrary intrusion into private economic transactions and its disregard for civil liberties.' To counter that trend, the Cato Institute undertakes an extensive publication programme. The shared view of many of the contributors to this book is that the pursuit of global collective security is destructive to the American constitutional system. Any hope that this book could be a valuable attack on received wisdom, a welcome antidote to any complacent assumption that the activities of the UN are necessarily worthwhile, would unfortunately be disappointed. The book is as one-sided as the title indicates; all too often the chapters are merely anecdotal and rhetorical, with sweeping assertions based on limited evidence. The editor in his Introduction calls for critics and defenders of the UN to improve the quality of the debate by lowering the temperature of their rhetoric. And the tone of his own chapter on collective security is relatively moderate, even if his argument is not. It is a shame that some of the other contributors, mostly journalists and members of right-wing think-tanks, did not follow this advice. This could have been a much more interesting and worthwhile book if it had allowed those who work for the institutions attacked to make their case in reply. Part I deals with 'The UN in Perspective'; Part II with 'The UN as Peacemaker and Peacekeeper'; Part III with 'Funding, Bureaucracy and Corruption'; Part 1V with 'The UN's Social and Environmental Agenda' and Part V with 'The UN's Role in Economic Development'. Only four out of the 18 chapters are by those broadly sympathetic to the UN; those by Oakley and Luck, in particular, offer a persuasive alternative vision to that of the majority of the contributors. Oakley's critical but fair account of UN involvement in the former Yugoslavia and Somalia reminds us that the US must bear a large measure of responsibility for what went wrong in those operations. Much of Part II on the 'bloated corrupt bureaucracy' of the UN has been overtaken by reforms, many already underway in 1997. But this Part is still of interest in that it makes clear, as Oakley and Luck suggest, that some of those ostensibly interested in reform are not really seeking an effective UN, but rather are seeking its destruction. The main value of this book as far as international lawyers are concerned is that it serves to illuminate one long-standing and influential school of thought in one remaining superpower. The reader may be left to ponder whether the delusions of grandeur are really those of the UN. Christine Gray St. John's College Cambridge University
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