United Nations Research

Official documentation regarding the 1945 San Fransisco Conference. Includes lists of delegates, advisors, and more, summaries of meetings, reports of subcommittees, proposed revisions, and more. Available in print at the library, or on HeinOnline. (Click here for help using HeinOnline.)

Thoroughly revised and updated, a new edition of the most popular guide to the United Nations for students and interested readers. Prominent NPR journalist Linda Fasulo's guide to the United Nations has established a reputation as the most lively, authoritative, and insightful book on its subject. Thoroughly revised and updated, with many new interviews of diplomats, experts, and officials, this fourth edition remains indispensable for understanding the UN's role and impact on the world today.

Ideas and concepts have been a driving force in human progress, and they may be the most important legacy of the United Nations. UN ideas have set past, present, and future international agendas in many global economic and social arenas and have also led to initiatives and actions that have improved the quality of human life. This capstone volume draws upon findings of the other 14 books in the acclaimed United Nations Intellectual History Project Series. The authors not only assess the development and implementation of UN ideas regarding sustainable economic development and human security, but also apply lessons learned to suggest ways in which the United Nations can play a fuller role in confronting the challenges of human survival with dignity in the 21st century.

There hardly seems to be a global issue in the world today in which the United Nations (UN) is not expected to play a key role. And indeed, despite a persistent gulf between high expectations and the UN's capacities, the organization continues to be a unique and indispensable actor in areas such as peace maintenance, human rights protection, and development. Thoroughly revised and updated, the second edition of this highly acclaimed text provides a concise analysis of the UN, its structure and work, achievements and shortcomings, and its likely role and prospects in the twenty-first century.

In this book, Otto Spijkers describes how moral values have determined the founding of the United Nations Organization in 1945 and the evolution of its purposes, principles and policies since then.

The third edition of this popular text focuses on major events since 2000, including 9/11 and the war against terrorism, the Iraq War's effect on the UN's relevance, and the Millennium Development Goals. Thoroughly revised throughout, the text also has a new chapter on human security issues that encompasses environmental concerns and global health.

The role of the United Nations in collective security has been evolving since its inception in 1945. This book explores collective security as practiced within the legal framework provided by the United Nations Charter, with a particular focus upon activity undertaken under the auspices of the UN Security Council, the body conferred by the Charter with the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. Although the book is primarily grounded in international law, where appropriate it also draws upon relevant political insights in order to present a clear picture of the UN collective security system in operation and the factors which impact upon the way in which it functions. Offering a comprehensive analysis it considers the full range of measures which can be utilised by the UN in the performance of its collective security remit including military enforcement action, peacekeeping, non-military sanctions and diplomacy.

This Handbook provides in one volume an authoritative and independent treatment of the UN's seventy-year history, written by an international cast of more than 50 distinguished scholars, analysts, and practitioners. It provides a clear and penetrating examination of the UN's development since 1945 and the challenges and opportunities now facing the organization. It assesses the implications for the UN of rapid changes in the world - from technologicalinnovation to shifting foreign policy priorities - and the UN's future place in a changing multilateral landscape. Citations and additional readings contain a wealth of primary and secondary references to thehistory, politics, and law of the world organization. This key reference also contains appendices of the UN Charter, the Statute of the International Court of Justice, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

New Zealand has demonstrated its long-standing commitment and practical support for the United Nations by producing the UN Handbook since 1961. The UN Handbook is a valuable reference guide that helps everyone working with or within the United Nations navigate the UN system effectively.

The constitutionalization of international law is one of the most intensely debated issues in contemporary international legal doctrine. The term is used to describe a number of features which distinguish the present international legal order from classical international law, in particular its shift from bilateralism to community interest, and from an inter-state system to a global legal order committed to the well-being of the individual person. The author of this book belongs to the leading participants of the constitutionalization debate.

This work aims to fill a gap in the existing legal literature by presenting a compact, concise but nevertheless panoramic view of the law of the United Nations. Today the organization is at the centre of all multilateral international relations and impossible to avoid. And of course the UN Charter is a foundational document without which modern international law cannot be properly understood. In spite of its importance, this pre-eminent world political organization is poorly understood by the general public, and the extent and variety of its activities is not widely appreciated. Even lawyers generally possess insufficient knowledge of the way its legal institutions operate. Assessments of the organization and judgements about its achievements are consequently frequently distorted. This work is aimed especially at remedying these deficiencies in public and legal understanding, but also at presenting the organization as a coherent system of values and integrated action.

Revised and updated,The Law and Practice of the United Nations provides an analysis of the main legal issues surrounding the United Nations' practice, including a thorough discussion of Chapter VII of the Charter and its interpretation.

The new edition of this title has been completely revised and features a completely new chapter on UN reform, analyzing the effect of reforms which have already been implemented and examining why other proposals for reform have failed. It will assess how these proposals could be improved, with a particular focus on the Security Council. This new edition also includes coverage of the creation of the Human Rights Council and the impact of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. This is the authoritative, article-by-article account of the legislative history, interpretation, and practical application of each and every Charter provision. Written by a team of distinguished scholars and practitioners, this book combines academic research with the insights of practice, and is an indispensable work of reference for all those interested in the UN. The Commentary will be crucial in providing new directions for the development of international law and the United Nations in the twenty-first century.

Law and Practice of the United Nations: Documents and Commentary combines primary materials with expert commentary demonstrating the interaction between law and practice in the UN organization, as well as the possibilities and limitations of multilateral institutions in general. Each chapter begins with a short introductory essay describing how the documents that ensue illustrate a set of legal, institutional, and political issues relevant to the practice of diplomacy and the development of public international law through the United Nations. Each chapter also includes questions to guide discussion of the primary materials, and a brief bibliography to facilitate further research on the subject. This second edition addresses the most challenging issues confronting the United Nations and the global community today, from terrorism to climate change, from poverty to nuclear proliferation.

The constitutionalization of international law is one of the most intensely debated issues in contemporary international legal doctrine. The term is used to describe a number of features which distinguish the present international legal order from classical international law, in particular its shift from bilateralism to community interest, and from an inter-state system to a global legal order committed to the well-being of the individual person. The author of this book belongs to the leading participants of the constitutionalization debate.

What role should the United Nations play in a globalizing world? How can it support and embody international democracy? The decline of state sovereignty, an effect of globalization, is bringing about a crisis both in politics, as a tool to pursue the common good, and in democracy, as the key instrument by which we can control our destinies. The UN, the only organization with broad political goals and worldwide jurisdiction, has the potential to manage globalization democratically and promote the common good of humanity. However, it is still controlled by nation states and operates according to power relations typical of the pre-globalization era. UN reform is therefore crucial, today more than ever. This book examines two areas of reform: first, the creation of a democratic assembly in which world citizens are represented, in order to adapt democracy to meet the challenges of globalization; and second, the strengthening of the Security Council through democratization and regionalization, in order to ensure world security, whose characteristics have evolved significantly in the global age.

This book highlights how temporary international civil servants play a crucial role in initiating processes of legal and institutional change in the United Nations system. These individuals are the "missing" creative elements needed to fully understand the emergence and initial spread of UN ideas such as human development, sovereignty as responsibility, and multifunctional peacekeeping. The book shows that that temporary UN officials are an actor category which is empirically crucial, yet usually neglected in analytical studies of the UN system. Focusing on these particular individual actors therefore allows for a better understanding of complex UN decision-making. Demonstrates how these civil servants matter, looking at what their agency is based on. Offering a new and distinctive model Bode seeks to move towards a comprehensive conceptualization of individual agency, which is currently conspicuous for its absence in many theoretical approaches that address policy change.

This book comprehensively examines the different proposals put forward for reforming the UN Security Council by analysing their objectives and exploring whether the implementation of these proposals would actually create a representative and more effective Security Council. The book places the discussion on reform of Security Council membership in the context of the council's primary responsibility, which is at the helm of the UN collective security system. The author contends that only a Council that is adequately representative of the UN membership can claim to legitimately act on the members' behalf. This book offers an inquiry into the Council's constitutional framework and how far that framework still reflects the expectations and intentions of the founding nations, whilst remaining flexible enough to satisfy today's, and possibly tomorrow's, membership. Through the use of policy-oriented jurisprudence and elements of the International Law/International Relations theory this book explores how reform can best be realised. Reforming the UN Security Council Membership will be of particular interest to scholars and students of International Law and International Relations.

In 2004, the Report of the Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change emphasised the linkages between economic development, security and human rights, and the imperative in the twenty-first century of collective action and cooperation between States. In a world deeply divided by differences of power, wealth, culture and ideology, central questions today in international law and organisation are whether reaffirmation of the concept of collective security and a workable consensus on the means of its realisation are possible. In addressing these questions, this book considers the three key documents in the recent UN reform process: the High-Level Panel report, the Secretary-General's In Larger Freedom report and the 2005 World Summit Outcome document.

This volume comprehensively evaluates the current state and future reform prospects of the UN Security Council, providing the most accessible and rigorous treatment of the subject of reform to date. Apart from a couple of critical eyes in the academic community, few have asked the pertinent questions that this volume seeks to address: Will the enlargement of the Council constitute a reform? Could the inclusion of countries such as India, Germany, Japan, and Brazil markedly improve the Council's agency?

Seven decades after its establishment, the United Nations and its system of related organizations and programs are perpetually in crisis. While the twentieth-century's world wars gave rise to ground-breaking efforts at international organization in 1919 and 1945, today's UN is ill-equipped to deal with contemporary challenges to world order. Neither the end of the Cold War nor the aftermath of 9/11 has led to the "next generation" of multilateral institutions. But what exactly is wrong with the UN that makes it incapable of confronting contemporary global challenges and, more importantly, can we fix it? In this revised and updated third edition of his popular text, leading scholar of global governance Thomas G. Weiss takes a diagnose-and-cure approach to the world organization's inherent difficulties.

Reforming the United Nations - Fit for Purpose at 75? - examines the efforts of Secretary-General, António Guterres, to improve the aging organisation during 2017-2019. On development, the global network was repositioned better to assist countries. On peace and security, the Secretariat was reorganised with a focus on conflict prevention. On management, the paradigm centred on decentralisation and accountability. Other priorities addressed sexual exploitation in peacekeeping and gender parity. The detail analysis of the reform process highlights the positions of the United States, Russia, China, the Group of 77 and the European Union. Official records are used. The Guterres reform was respectable by improving efficiency and effectiveness. Reform proposals did not, however, address fundamental problems including Security Council reform.

This biography tells the story of Theo van Boven's dynamic and courageous leadership to develop UN protection. Van Boven has been a life-long scholar and practitioner of human rights. He served in the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, represented The Netherlands in the UN Commission on Human Rights, served as an expert in its Sub-Commission on Human Rights, and also on the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. He was the Director of the UN Human Rights secretariat from 1977 to 1982, and later served as Registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, and as UN Special Rapporteur against Torture. As Director of the UN Human Rights secretariat, Professor van Boven built up the protection capacity of the United Nations piece by piece and thereby transformed the UN's role. He initiated every protection mechanism in use at the United Nations today. He was thus the father of the contemporary system of United Nations protection.

Every year tens of millions of individuals suffer grave abuses of their human rights. These violations occur worldwide, in war-torn countries and in the wealthiest states. Despite many of the abuses being well-documented, little seems to be done to stop them from happening. The UN was established to safeguard world peace and security, development, and human rights yet it is undeniable that currently is it failing to protect the rights of a great many people from the victims of ethnic cleansing, to migrants, those displaced by war and women who suffer horrendous abuse. This book looks at the reasons for that failure. Using concrete examples intertwined with explanations of the law and politics of the UN, Rosa Freedman offers clear explanations of how and why the organization is unable, at best, or unwilling, at worst, to protect human rights.

The issue of corporate responsibilities has had a tumultuous history at the United Nations. When the Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed John Ruggie's Guiding Principles in June 2011, it was the first time that the UN stated authoritatively its expectations in the area of business and human rights. This volume captures this special moment in time: a moment of taking stock of a successfully concluded UN Special Representative mandate (2005-2011) and of preparing for the massive task of following up with more operational guidance, effective governance mechanisms and sound theoretical treatments.

The United Nations Human Rights Council was created in 2006 to replace the UN Commission on Human Rights. The Council's mandate and founding principles demonstrate that one of the main aims, at its creation, was for the Council to overcome the Commission's flaws. Despite the need to avoid repeating its predecessor's failings, the Council's form, nature and many of its roles and functions are strikingly similar to those of the Commission. This book examines the creation and formative years of the United Nations Human Rights Council and assesses the extent to which the Council has fulfilled its mandate. International law and theories of international relations are used to examine the Council and its functions. Council sessions, procedures and mechanisms are analysed in-depth, with particular consideration given to whether the Council has become politicised to the same extent as the Commission. Whilst remaining aware of the key differences in their functions, Rosa Freedman compares the work of the Council to that of treaty-based human rights bodies.

The effective implementation of human rights treaty obligations in national law is subject to increasing attention. The main responsibility for the international monitoring of national implementation at the global level is entrusted to the UN human rights treaty bodies. These bodies are established by the respective human rights conventions and are composed of independent experts. This book examines three aspects of these bodies: the legal aspects of their structure, functions and decisions; their effectiveness in ensuring respect for human rights obligations; and the legitimacy of these bodies and their decisions. Containing contributions from a variety of eminent legal experts, including present and former members of the treaty bodies, the analysis should be read in light of the ongoing effort to strengthen treaty bodies under the auspices of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and with the involvement of relevant stakeholders.

In this first systematic examination of the role of the top United Nations human rights official, editors Felice Gaer and Christen Broecker analyze the achievements, leadership styles of, and obstacles encountered by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and propose recommendations for the future. The editors are joined by 18 expert contributors including present and former UN policymakers, human rights practitioners, legal scholars, and current High Commissioner Navi Pillay. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: Conscience for the World examines how the six individuals who have served in this post have worked to end atrocities, hold perpetrators of abuses to account, promote equality and justice, and provide protection and redress to victims.

This book offers the first book-length explanation of the UN's politics of selective humanitarian intervention. Over the past 20 years the United Nations has imposed economic sanctions, deployed peacekeeping operations, and even conducted or authorized military intervention in Somalia, Bosnia, or Libya. Yet no such measures were taken in other similar cases such as Colombia, Myanmar, Darfur--or more recently--Syria. What factors account for the UN's selective response to humanitarian crises and what are the mechanism that drive--or block--UN intervention decisions? By combining fuzzy-set analysis of the UN's response to more than 30 humanitarian crises with in depth-case study analysis of UN (in)action in Bosnia and Darfur, as well as in the most recent crises in Côte d'Ivoire, Libya and Syria, this volume seeks to answer these questions.

Since its establishment the work of the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has been subject to many interpretations, with differing theories proffered and conclusions drawn. This comprehensive guide, from an author with an intimate knowledge of the organisation, dissects every aspect of the UNHRCs work examines the efficiency of, and interactions between, its mechanisms. The book also offers a meticulous overview of the structure and functions of the Council and its processes, providing readers not only with a clear and practical guide, but a platform from which to formulate their own opinions and conclusions. Key Features: Authored by the first Secretary of the UNHRC Unique practical insights from a UN insider Explanation of the complex decision-making processes of the Council UNHRC procedures described within the overall context in which they operate Highlights vital, but hard to access, UN and UNHRC documents and references Clear and accessible, this informative book will be a key resource for NGO's, diplomats, UN officials and other participants in UNHRC proceedings, whilst also being valuable to human rights students and academics seeking to broaden their understanding of UNHRC operations.

What prompts the United Nations Security Council to engage forcefully in some crises at high risk for genocide and ethnic cleansing but not others? In All Necessary Measures, Carrie Booth Walling identifies several systematic patterns in the stories that council members tell about conflicts and the policy solutions that result from them. Drawing on qualitative comparative case studies spanning two decades, including situations where the council has intervened to stop mass killing (Somalia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Sierra Leone) as well as situations where it has not (Rwanda, Kosovo, and Sudan), Walling posits that the arguments council members make about the cause and character of conflict as well as the source of sovereign authority in target states have the potential to enable or constrain the use of military force in defense of human rights. At a moment when constructivist scholars in international relations are pushing beyond empirical claims for the value of norms and toward critical analysis of such norms, All Necessary Measures establishes discourse's real-world explanatory power.

This book examines the effectiveness of multilateralism in ensuring collective security and, in particular, the EU's role in this process. In 1992, shortly after the end of the Cold War, a Security Council Summit in New York reaffirmed the salience of the system of collective security and stated the determination of the Heads of State to maintain it as the prime international instrument for preserving peace. Twenty years later, however, the record of collective security as well as of multilateralism has not been very encouraging. The system of collective security, as enshrined in the United Nations (UN) Charter, failed repeatedly to accomplish its mandate in the 1990s and has led to controversial debates in the United States and Europe that reached a climax during the Iraq crisis in 2002/03.

Only 25 years after the end of the Cold War, the Western-dominated global order is fading and our hopes that liberal democracy would spread and bring world peace are evaporating. While the West is increasingly preoccupied with its internal problems, threats to global peace have fundamentally changed: wars among nation-states and their alliances, once the dominant scourge of humankind, have almost disappeared and are replaced by a triple threat from intra-state armed conflicts, the failing of nation-states and the rise of belligerent non-state actors. The global peace we felt within our reach in 1991, is escaping us. On Building Peace seeks the answers that the UN Charter can no longer provide. Once meant as a guarantor for peace, the Charter was never designed to deal with intra-state conflicts and today its core principles are eroded. The book makes two rather simple, but possibly unpopular suggestions for preserving future peace: first, we must rescue the nation-state, not despite but because of globalization, and second, we must not further undermine the United Nations, but expand its Charter for dealing collectively with this triple threat.

This book critically examines the response of the United Nations (UN) to the problem of sexual exploitation in UN Peace Support Operations. It assesses the Secretary-General's Bulletin on Special Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (2003) (SGB) and its definition of sexual exploitation, which includes sexual relationships and prostitution. With reference to people affected by the policy (using the example of Bosnian women and UN peacekeepers), and taking account of both radical and 'sex positive' feminist perspectives, the book finds that the inclusion of consensual sexual relationships and prostitution in the definition of sexual exploitation is not tenable. The book argues that the SGB is overprotective, relies on negative gender and imperial stereotypes, and is out of step with international human rights norms and gender equality. It concludes that the SGB must be revised in consultation with those affected by it, namely local women and peacekeepers, and must fully respect their human rights and freedoms, particularly the right to privacy and sexuality rights.

This book is a critical political and institutional reflection on UN peace operations. It provides constructive suggestions as to how the UN and the international system can evolve to remain relevant and tackle the peace and security challenges of the 21st century, without abandoning the principles that the UN was founded upon and on which the legitimacy of UN peace operations rests. The author analyses the evolving politics UN peace operations of the five veto powers of the UN Security Council, as well as major troop-contributing countries and western powers. He investigates the move towards peace enforcement and counter-terrorism, and what consequences this development may have for the UN. Karlsrud issues a challenge to practitioners and politicians to make sure that the calls for reform are anchored in a desire to improve the lives of people suffering in conflicts on the ground--and not spurred by intra-organizational turf battles or solely the narrow self-interests of member states. Finally, he asks how the UN can adapt its practices to become more field- and people-centered, in line with its core, primary commitments of protecting and serving people in need.

This book examines the attitudes of political, military and non-state actors towards the idea of a UN Emergency Peace Service, and the issues that might affect the establishment of this service in both theory and practice. The United Nations Emergency Peace Service (UNEPS) is a civil society-led idea to establish a permanent UN service to improve UN peace operations as well as to operationalise the emerging norm of the 'responsibility to protect' civilians from atrocity crimes. The UNEPS proposal has received limited support. The book argues that interest in, and support for, the UNEPS proposal is determined by perceptions that it would erode state sovereignty, the extent to which the principles of the proposal are consistent with actors' views on the world and perceptions on whether UNEPS will realistically be capable of contributing to the workings of the UN and regional peacekeeping systems in areas that are seen to be deficient. This book makes the case for localising the UNEPS proposal so that it is more consistent with attitudes of those consulted for this research. It concludes that the development of a series of less ambitious proposals could be the first steps to creating a rapidly deployable service with the mandate to prevent atrocity crimes. This book will be of much interest to students of peace operations, the Responsibility to Protect, international organisations, IR and security studies.

This book addresses the important question of how the United Nations (UN) should monitor and evaluate the impact of police in its peace operations. UN peace operations are a vital component of international conflict management. Since the end of the Cold War one of the foremost developments has been the rise of UN policing (UNPOL). Instances of UNPOL action have increased dramatically in number and have evolved from passive observation to participation in frontline law enforcement activities. Attempts to ascertain the impact of UNPOL activities have proven inadequate. This book seeks to redress this lacuna by investigating the ways in which the effects of peace operations - and UNPOL in particular - are monitored and evaluated. Furthermore, it aims to develop a framework, tested through field research in Liberia, for Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) that enables more effective impact assessment. By enhancing the relationship between field-level M&E and organizational learning this research aims to make an important contribution to the pursuit of more professional and effective UN peace operations. This book will be of much interest to students of peace operations, conflict management, policing, security studies and IR in general.

This book examines the emergent conviction that UN robust peacekeeping works better than UN traditional peacekeeping in reducing civilian killings within contemporary post-cold war violent civil wars. In an unprecedented study, Nsia-Pepra has systematically and empirically documented the relationship between robust peacekeeping and civilian killings in violent civil wars using both statistical and case study models. His research, engagingly expounded upon in UN Robust Peacekeeping, indicates that robust peacekeeping works better than traditional peacekeeping in lowering civilian killings by spoilers in violent civil wars. His book also presents the concept of a formidable barrier model of robust peacekeeping success using the game theoretical model. It makes policy recommendations to enhance the UN's capacity to protect civilians from human rights violations, including a unified, coherent doctrinal definition for robust peacekeeping, an operational doctrine on the use of force, and improved UN intelligence capacity. Nsia-Pepra also suggests employing the GA 1950 Uniting for Peace Resolution as well as robust mandates, common training doctrine, pre-deployment training, improved UN intelligence capacity, major power participation, implementation of R2P and US objective global leadership.

Using a unique analytical framework, the UN Secretariat's Influence on the Evolution of Peacekeeping reveals deep insights in the UN's peacekeeping decision-making and shows that even international bureaucracies with limited autonomy can shape international politics.

Using a number of relevant case studies UN-Tied Nations provides a concise and analytical introduction to the ongoing debates around the development of global governance, global security governance, and the continuous impact these are having on the ability of the United Nations to act as an international peacekeeper.

This edited volume provides a detailed and nuanced analysis of UN peacekeeping and the use of force, to inform a better understanding of the complex and interconnected issues at stake for the UN community. Peacekeeping is traditionally viewed as a largely passive military activity, governed by the principles of impartiality, consent, and the minimum use of force. Today, most large UN Peacekeeping Operations are only authorized to use force in defense of their mandates and to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence. Recently, with the deployment of the Force Intervention Brigade in the DRC, the UN has gone beyond peacekeeping and into the realm of peace-enforcement. These developments have brought to the fore questions regarding the use of force in the context of peacekeeping. The key questions addressed in this book examine not only the utility of force, but also the dilemmas and constraints inherent to the purposive use of force at a strategic, operational and tactical level.