On 24 October 2005, sixty years after its creation, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a voluminous resolution, A/RES/60/1, reflecting the outcome of a lengthy process that culminated in a World Summit meant to bring the United Nations into the twenty-first century. One of the main features of this resolution was the establishment of a Peacebuilding Commission “as an intergovernmental advisory body.”

While this, at first blush, would seem to be a major accomplishment, it is in fact the disappointing ending to an evolutionary process that at some points of its trajectory carried considerable promise. The decisions that brought it down and left only a shell of its potential behind were driven by that most ominous and politically charged concept of “UN reform”.