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Review: The Horseshoe Table

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
DOI10.1177/002070200806300116
Published date01 March 2008
AuthorRobert R. Fowler
Date01 March 2008
Subject MatterReview
| International Journal | Winter 2007-08 | 209 |
Reviews
THE HORSESHOE TABLE
An Inside View of the Security council
Chinmaya R. Gharekhan
New Delhi: Dorling Kindersley (India), 2006. 328pp, US$20.95 cloth
(ISBN 81-7758-453-7)
Ambassador Gharekhan provides a useful glimpse into how the security
council really works, and it’s not a pretty sight. Indeed, it was particularly
unlovely in the opening years of the post-Cold War era, the period during
which he represented India on the council (1991-92). On completion of his
two-year term, then-Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali asked
Gharekhan to join the executive office and act as the secretary general’s per-
sonal liaison to the security council, in which capacity the author served
until 1996.
While lucid, informative, and thoughtful, his account is overly protec-
tive of the UN secretariat and his own key role therein vis-à-vis the security
council, particularly when he recounts the two principal disasters that befell
the United Nations on his watch: Srebrenica and Rwanda. In both
instances, his efforts at explanation and detachment grate and are uncon-
vincing.
The book remains, however, required reading for countries seeking a
seat on the security council, particularly for those that might harbour delu-
sions that service on the council will allow their high ideals to flower and

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