Niels Blokker is Professor of International Institutional Law at Leiden University (Schermers Chair) and was previously Deputy Legal Adviser at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. Together with the late Henry Schermers, he has published International Institutional Law (Brill/Nijhoff, 6th ed. 2018). Together with Nico Schrijver, he has edited The Security Council and the Use of Force (Brill/Nijhoff, 2005), Immunities of International Organizations (Brill/Nijhoff, 2015) and Elected Members of the Security Council (Brill/Nijhoff, 2020). He is co-founder and co-editor in chief of the journal International Organizations Law Review (Brill/Nijhoff).

The aim of this book is to evaluate the functioning of the Security Council during its first 75 years, from an institutional legal perspective. It analyzes three issues that were not only hotly debated when the United Nations was founded, but have also been highly relevant for the Council's functioning in practice and are likely to remain so in the future: the right of veto for the permanent members, the rule of law, and the size of the Council (the need for enlargement).