The United Nations (UN) are in a crisis, not least because of their lack of democratic legitimacy: too many of the member countries are non-democratic, and internal procedures in the UN are unnecessarily closed to public debate and scrutiny. A panel of eminent experts led by Fernando Enrique Cardoso made proposals for reform. In a contribution to a book on the rule of international law in a globalised world, R. Andreas Kraemer assesses the panel's proposals.

The book chapter reviews the role of civil society involvement in the United Nations' affairs since their founding, and the current debate about UN reform in the larger sense. Against this background, the findings of the "Cardoso Panel" are summarised and evaluated. In summary, with its proposals the panel went in the right direction and probably as far as they thought was realistic, given the current structure of the UN and the will of most member countries. Courageous action will be required to bring about meaningful changes that help overcome the current crisis of the UN.

The evaluation is based among others on the results of the Cardoso Panel Berlin Hearing with Juan Mayr Maldonado, organised by Ecologic and the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation.

Ecologic provided seminal input into the Cardoso Panel's deliberations with the Project: NGOs in International Environmental Policy. This analysed the importance of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the relationship between the legal basis and the practical influence of NGOs in different areas of international environmental governance. The project results were published in the Book: Participation of Non-Governmental Organisations in International Environmental Co-operation and summarised in the Ecologic Brief: Participation of NGOs in International Environmental Governance.

The chapter is published in a book on "The Future of International Law in a Globalised World" edited by the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation and published (in German only) by Nomos in Baden-Baden, Germany.