The United Nations: Concepts, Capability and the Cosmopolitan Military

This book has so far explored the increasingly close, and sometimes problematic, connections between military practice and the language of cosmopolitanism in the post-Cold War world. The question the book has sought to address is how cosmopolitanism might translate into the ways militaries perform civilian protection and human security-related roles. The final section of this book moves on to explore the possible locations of a future cosmopolitan military. This chapter examines the UN as one such possible location. Since its creation, the UN has been instrumental in collective efforts to prevent political violence and protect human rights. More recently, the vision of the organisation has moved beyond the prevention of inter-state aggression, to focus on the protection of civilians (see United Nations, 2004). The first section of this chapter examines the presence of cosmopolitan ethics within the ethos of the UN. Although an organisation of states, the UN is also linked to an explicitly cosmopolitan vision, reflected initially in the reference to ‘we the peoples of the United Nations’ in its Charter and perhaps best manifested in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Major contributions to international development, the creation of the human security concept and the endorsement of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), continue to place the UN at the forefront of a nascent cosmopolitan imagination.