Explains the United Nations' key roles in underwriting international security, humanitarian protection and the international rule of law.

Professor Ramesh Thakur is Director of the Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (CNND) at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University. His recent publications include Global Governance and the UN: An Unfinished Journey (2010), Blood and Borders: The Responsibility to Protect and the Problem of the Kin-State (2011) and The Responsibility to Protect: Norms, Laws and the Use of Force in International Politics (2011). He has also published in many journals.

1. Pacific settlement, collective security and international peacekeeping; 2. Peace operations and the UN-US relationship; 3. Human security and human rights; 4. International criminal justice; 5. International sanctions; 6. The nuclear threat; 7. International terrorism; 8. Kosovo 1999 and Iraq 2003 as unilateral interventions; 9. Afghanistan, Libya and Syria: UN-authorised interventions and non-intervention; 10. From humanitarian intervention to R2P: cosmetic or consequential?; 11. The development and evolution of R2P as international policy; 12. Reforming the United Nations; 13. The political role of the United Nations Secretary-General.