Headhunting For World Peace: An Inside View of UN Employment Law and Practices

This semi-exposé of the internal workings of the UN gives an insight into the real, everyday concerns of the 40,000 staff – keeping their jobs and getting promotions. Clearly, for most of those from poor countries, the agency is one of a few paths to a better life. So they go to any lengths to keep their jobs, which guarantee decent schooling, a pension, and foreign travel – unattainable dreams in their own country.

Reform is badly overdue, but Balogun admits it is a huge task. Every country is to blame, with the richest demanding that their orders are followed but getting angry when events don’t turn out their way. A good start, as Balogun notes, is to slash the number of subsidiary agencies that have popped up like unwanted children.

Balogun makes a far-reaching suggestion to set up regional courts of the International Court of Justice, which would speed up prosecutions and bring in jurists with knowledge of local conditions. This is a useful guide to the bureaucratic workings of a body that the world needs, but which has become badly infected by corruption and waste.