United Nations, Indo-Pacific and Korean Peninsula

Shin-wha Lee is Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations and Director of Peace and Democracy Institute, Korea University and President of the Korean Academic Council on the UN System. She has published numerous articles and books, covering issues of global security including non-traditional security, international organisations, East Asian foreign policy and security cooperation. Jagannath P. Panda is Head of the Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs (SCSA-IPA), Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP), Stockholm, Sweden. and Senior Fellow at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, The Netherlands. He is also Director for Europe-Asia Research Cooperation at the Yokosuka Council of Asia-Pacific Studies, Japan. Dr. Panda is the author of the book India-China Relations (2017) and editor of Quad Plus and Indo-Pacific (2021), The Korean Peninsula and Indo-Pacific Power Politics: Status Security at Stake (2020), The Future of Korean Peninsula: Korea 2032 and Beyond (2021) and India-Japan-ASEAN Triangularity (2022), all published by Routledge. He is also Editor of the series Routledge Studies on Think Asia.

• Introduction: Can the Declining Relevance of the UN be Reinvigorated? Factoring the Indo-Pacific and Korean Peninsula Part-I: The UN and Competing Worldviews 1. US-China Strategic Competition in UN Multilateral Frameworks: Building Order or Inviting Conflict?; 2. The United Nations in Korea: US Views of Once and Future Roles; 3. Legitimacy, Power and Order-Building in the Indo-Pacific: China, the UN, and Managing the North Korean Nuclear Challenge; 4. Role of the United Nations in Japanese Foreign Policy and Security Architecture; 5. The United Nations, Korean Foreign Policy and the Korean Peninsula Part-II: The UN and the Indo-Pacific Security Architecture 6. China, UNCLOS and the Future of International Maritime Law in the South China Sea; 7. Opportunities for Consensus, Collaboration and Recalibration: UN and the Quad; 8. Does Humanitarian Aid Save Civilian Lives in War? The Case of UN Aid in Myanmar’s Civil War; 9. The United Nations and the Curious Case of Sino-Indian Boundary Dispute Part-III: The UN, its Frameworks and Korean Peninsula 10. Northeast Asian Peace Architecture and the UN; 11. Change in the Security Environment and Transformation of the United Nations Command; 12. The Past, Present and Future of SDGs Discussion on the Korean Peninsula: SDGs as a Framework for New Cooperation; 13. A Case Study on the Success and Failure of Weapons of Mass Destruction Nonproliferation Regimes: Focus on Chemical Weapons and Biological Weapons Conventions; 14. Improving State Reputation through the UN: The Case of North Korea

"This book provides a comprehensive look at the past, present, and future of the United Nations, multilateralism and the Indo-Pacific. The essays, penned by top experts and scholars, address timely and critical topics such as US-China competition, regional security architecture, and Korean security. A welcome and much-needed addition to the field for scholars and practitioners alike." -Victor Cha, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service & Department of Government, Georgetown University"A brilliant, thought-provoking 14-piece volume that addresses a difficult but timely question – if and how we can reinvigorate the United Nations’ relevance in resolving conflict and preserving peace. This is an excellent read for those concerned about the future of the UN's role in shaping international order, especially in the Indo-Pacific region and the Korean Peninsula."-Gi-Wook Shin, Professor, Stanford University"The United Nations, Indo-Pacific and Korean Peninsula, edited by Shin-wha Lee & Jagannath P. Panda, is superb overview of the severe strains shaping the multilateral system and the precious opportunities for cooperation that remain. It focuses on the power politics that define the Indo-Pacific and Korean Peninsular security architecture, paying due attention to both the global rivalry between the democracies and the autocracies and the role of middle powers of the Indo-Pacific -- not just as vital stakes, but also as key players."-Michael Doyle, Professor, Columbia University"The UN was at the cradle of the security system of the Korean Peninsula and still commands respect even from North Korea. This timely edited volume highlights in the face of the Russian aggression against the Ukraine that the world would be worse off without the UN. Analysing and proposing a role for the United Nations in the Indo-Pacific is a novel and challenging task against the backdrop of criticism because of failure in preventing the Russian aggression against the Ukraine. The authors succeeded to demonstrate starting with the Korean Peninsula, touching on the Sino-US rivalry, militarisation of the South China Sea, the situation in Myanmar, emerging minilateral cooperation, that the UN as the beacon of multilateralism has an active role to play." -Michael Reiterer, Distinguished Professor, Brussels School of Governance"The editors have assembled a group internationally renowned experts to construct a consummate examination of multilateral organizations’ impact on geopolitical and geoeconomics developments on the Korean Peninsula and in the wider Indo-Pacific region. Special emphasis is placed on the United Nations’ role in these two geographic settings’ power politics. The growing importance of informal multilateral security instrumentalities is also covered widely. This book is required reading for regional and international security analysts and for those interested in how existing and emerging institutions are shaping contemporary Indo-Pacific politics."-William Tow, Professor, Department of International Relations, Australian National University"In this innovative new volume, editors Shin-wha Lee and Jagannath Panda bring back the United Nations as a central and unifying actor on the Korean Peninsula, the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. To my knowledge, this is the first book that seriously explores how the United Nations as a global actor interacts with emerging trends across traditional and non-traditional security issues in the Indo-Pacific. The contributions in this volume will be valuable to scholars and practitioners across multiple disciplines." -Andrew Yeo, Senior Fellow and SK-Korea Foundation Chair, Brookings Institution and Professor of Politics, The Catholic University of America