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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > International relations > International institutions > United Nations & UN agencies
This book addresses the central theme of adjusting the United Nations system in light of the broadening definition of security, a perceived shift from modernity to post-modernity, and the contemporary debate about reform, adaptation, and institutional learning in multilateral institutions during transitional periods. The authors in this study focus on the lessons learned from the organization's recent performance in collective security, preventive diplomacy and deployment, and peacekeeping, among other things.
Does size matter in international negotiations? This book examines the interplay between an institutional design that expresses the principle of the equality of states and the real world size differences of states in an innovative, multi-method investigation of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Panke demonstrates that size-related capacities influence states' participation and effectiveness in international negotiations. Based on extensive interviews with diplomats of smaller and bigger states in a variety of geographical regions, this book develops a theoretical framework linking resources and incentives to states' inclination of formulating national positions and acting upon them. It distinguishes between the policy-initiation, negotiation and decision-taking stages in the policy cycle, illustrating the difference in activity between nations, which affect the dynamics and outcomes of negotiations between member states. This book reveals that there are real and politically significant limits to the effects of size and identifies specific conditions under which smaller states can punch above their weight. It will appeal to scholars of political science, international relations, diplomacy, comparative politics and public policy.
Yves Beigbeder discusses the creation of UNICEF, the evolution of its programs, its structure and finances, and its work in health, nutrition, education, sanitation, and in emergencies. It also examines the current challenges UNICEF faces, including its nature and identity, its relationships with other international organizations, reduced funding, and its need to refocus some of its programs.
In 1995 a conference will be convened to review and extend the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). This work brings together a group of individuals, including the elected President of the 1995 NPT Conference, to analyze four crucial agenda areas relevant to the Conference: the pre-conference activities to be undertaken by both States Parties and the Conference Secretariat; those security issues that relate to a review of the treaty, such as nuclear disarmament and security assurances; peaceful uses and verification questions; and regional issues.
This volume provides a short and accessible introduction to the organization that serves as the primary coordinator of the work of the UN system throughout the developing world -the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The book: traces the origins and evolution of UNDP, outlining how a central UN funding mechanism and field network developed into a more comprehensive development agency evaluates the UNDP's performance and results, both in its role as system coordinator and as a development organization in its own right considers the return of the UNDP to a more central role within the UN development system, in order to review the successive attempts at UN development system reform, the reasons for failure and the future possibilities for a more effective system with the UNDP at the centre. Offering a clear, comprehensive overview and analysis of the organization, this work will be of great interest to students and scholars of development studies, international organizations and international relations.
Peacekeeping is a security concept that is very representative of the current interventionism, multilateralism, human rights, and humanitarian ideas. UN peacekeeping plays an important role in international security and includes various activities that go beyond the original roles assigned to UN armed forces (e.g. humanitarian aid, election supervision, disarmament, mine clearance, civilian protection, and peacebuilding). The problem is to define the economic efficiency of these operations and to develop some recommendations in the context of an economic globalization process. Although UN peacekeeping has shortcomings, it must be considered essential for organizing and defending the world politico-economic order. UN peacekeeping is a political activity, but its production strongly depends on nations' economic considerations. Governments make political decisions that also take into account the economic gains they expect to obtain from their contribution to any specific mission. With low means and inadequate strategies to meet the challenges, UN peacekeeping must pay particular attention to resolving the problems of free riding and of prisoner's dilemma in contributions that delay deployments and create significant financial problems. Understanding how peacekeeping can be most cost-effectively carried out, while considering the importance of legitimacy in interventions, is essential. This book believes that regional organizations can ease the UN's financial responsibility by managing conflicts in their regions. But, to be most effective, they must involve the UN in their interventions. This book also emphasizes UN peacekeeping trust funds as the key to better financial effectiveness. It strongly recommends that NATO be empowered by the UN with the role of global peace police, and proposes the establishment of a UN high-ranking team of international specialists in peacekeeping issues. This research should be of interest to students and researchers looking at international and political economics, as well as international relations, defence, security and peace studies.
As the UN celebrates its 50th anniversary, it has become embroiled in controversy sparked by its recent extensive involvement in operations which go beyond traditional peacekeeping. This book brings together leading scholars and practitioners who explicate the issues at the heart of the controversy and recommends changes for the organization and its member states. In dedicated analyses as well as case studies, the authors focus on issues of sovereignty and intervention, national commitments to non-traditional missions, and operational efficiency and effectiveness when undertaking such missions.
This gives accounts of such matters as preparation of the agenda, procedure governing debates, voting, election and appointments, and problems relating to budget and financial administration.
This book examines the role of the UN in conflict resolution in Africa in the 1960s and its relation to the Cold War. Focussing on the Congo, this book shows how the preservation of the existing economic and social order in the Congo was a key element in the decolonisation process and the fighting of the Cold War. It links the international aspects of British, Belgian, Angolan and Central African Federation involvement with the roles of the US and UN in order to understand how supplies to and profits from the Congo were producing growing African problems. This large Central African country played a vital, if not fully understood role, in the Cold War and proved to be a fascinating example of complex African problems of decolonisation interacting with international forces, in ways that revealed a great deal about the problems inherent in colonialism and its end. This book will be of much interest to students of US foreign policy, the UN, Cold War history and international history in general.
In response to the increased interest in peacekeeping and the 40th anniversary of the first UN peacekeeping operation, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) and the International Peace Academy (IPA) agreed to co-sponsor a workshop entitled, "The UN and Peacekeeping: Results, Limitations and Prospects: the Lessons of 40 Years of Experience" in Oslo, Norway on 12-14 Dec 1988.;The idea behind the workshop was to bring together a select group of peacekeeping practitioners, diplomats, and academicians with particular interest in this area in order to evaluate the historical experiences of peacekeeping and to critically analyse its present potentials and problems.;The editors brought together a group of professionals, with first-hand experience in areas of peacekeeping. The Chairman was Sir Brian Urquhart, the former Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs, who has been associated with peacekeeping from its inception. The list of other participants is included in this publication.;This publication includes the papers presented at the Oslo workshop and the reflections of the Chairman. The workshop participants agreed on the agenda for further research, whic
Sharing Security is a unique and comprehensive study of a key yet often neglected feature of modern international society. It begins by assessing how political theory can contribute to an understanding of international burdensharing. It then analyses in turn why some Western states contribute more than others to common defences, the European Union budget and overseas development aid. It highlights the particular burdensharing problems involved in global regimes, focusing on the UN's continuing financial crisis and the costs of combating global warming. It argues that today's burdensharing disparities continue to be shaped by the particular character of the international settlement at the end of the Second World War.
The mission UNESCO, as defined just after the end of World War II, is to build 'the defenses of peace in the minds of men'. In this book, historians trace the routes of selected UNESCO mental engineering initiatives from its headquarters in Paris to the member states, to assess UNESCO's global impact.
The events of September 11th, 2001 altered the course of arms
control intended to eliminate weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and
made the role of international disarmament organizations
controversial. Whether they can effectively verify compliance with
the WMD treaty regime has been questioned by the United States. The
study examines this by looking at the management of the three
existing verification organizations--the International Atomic
Energy Agency, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization and
the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons--and draws
conclusions for a future institution on biological weapons. It
presents the IAEA verification system for nuclear weapons as a
model for evaluating the systems for chemical and biological
weapons. The importance of the IAEA's role has been recognized by
the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.
It was hoped that by paying forest dependent peoples and countries for their 'service' of conserving their forests, REDD+ would lead to a reduction in deforestation greenhouse gases. The complexities have, however, left some ambiguities. It was never agreed who would pay for the programme, and it has been criticised as ignoring the root causes of forest loss. Considering the motivations of those who promoted REDD+ this book proposes remedies to its shortfalls and recommends more efficient, equitable and effective conservation policies. Describing REDD+ from an agency perspective, this book provides a first-hand account of how individuals and institutions influenced international negotiations. It offers a comparative analysis of REDD+ as a forest conservation regime and of the way it was incorporated into the 2015 Paris agreements. In doing so, this book shows how contextual inequalities and power imbalances can result in international regimes which favour the economically powerful, and proposes providing greater roles for the assumed beneficiaries of environmental agreements in negotiations. This is an excellent introduction to REDD+, its background and execution, and will be a vital resource for students of international environmental governance, as well as for academics and researchers working on REDD+, forest policy and international governance in general.
This is the personal story of Dame Margaret Anstee's experiences as Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the UN for Angola and Head of the UN peacekeeping mission there from February 1992 to June 1993. Formerly a colony of Portugal, Angola was awarded independence following the democratization of Portugal in 1975. After independence, disagreement emerged between Angola's main ethno-political groups which resulted in one of the most bloody civil wars the world has known. The author, the first woman to head a peacekeeping mission, intersperses personal experiences with events as they unfold, describing the horrendous sufferings of the Angolan people and analyses the reasons for the collapse of the process and the lessons for UN peacekeeping generally.
The security concerns of the United Nations today extend far beyond what the writers of the 1945 Charter could have imagined. As a result, the UN has been compelled to reconsider the parameters of what constitutes a threat to international peace and security, and what it means to be safe and secure in the twenty-first century. This text critically assesses the capacity of the UN to evolve in response to changing notions of security, and examines the complex history of people, places and politics that have helped shape this important global actor.
Casualties of the New World Order contends that the high rate of failure among post-Cold War UN missions are attributable to common weaknesses which are vulnerable to civil war dynamics. These mission weaknesses derive from the high level of control over the missions' mandates and operations wielded by combinations of self-interested and distracted UN member-states. The effects of these weaknesses are examined in the failed missions in Bosnia, Somalia, and Angola, while their absence is observed in the successful missions to El Salvador, Mozambique, and Cambodia.
Human rights occupy a key place in international law and relations. Understanding their significance involves knowing what the current guarantees of human rights are, and how the arrangements for protecting them work. This text offers a broad survey outlining the main human rights instruments and describing how they are implemented in the United Nations, through regional institutions, in specialized agencies and elsewhere. It covers many recent developments and shows that, despite important limitations, human rights law has significant achievements and even greater potential. Substantially rewritten and updated to take into account the ending of the Cold War, this fourth edition includes such issues as the War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the convention on the Rights of the Child and the role of UN Commissioner for Human Rights. -- .
The United Nations in the 21st Century, Sixth Edition, provides a comprehensive yet accessible introduction to the UN. It explores the historical, institutional, and theoretical foundations of the UN as well as major global trends and challenges facing the organization today, including changing major power dynamics, new threats to peace and security, the migration and refugee crises, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the existential challenges of climate change and sustainability. Thoroughly revised and expanded, it contains two new chapters on the UN and the environment and on human security, including issues of health, food security, global migration, and human trafficking. There is enhanced analysis of theoretical perspectives on post-colonialism, feminist theory, constructivism, and non-Western views. New content has also been added on the UN's budget crisis, public-private partnerships, and the role of women in the organization. By examining the UN as an intergovernmental organization facing the broader need for global cooperation to address economic, social, and environmental interdependencies alongside the threats posed by rising nationalism and populism, this popular text is the perfect reference for all students and practitioners of international organizations, global governance, and international relations.
Japan has consistently been pursuing the goal of a permanent UN Security Council seat for 30 years. The book investigates the motives for this ambition, and how it has been pursued domestically and internationally. It is therefore a study of the inner workings of the Japanese Foreign Ministry as well as of the country's underdeveloped multinational diplomacy.
The history of United Nations peacekeeping is largely one of failure. This book puts a case for augmenting "ad hoc" peacekeepers with competent contract labour; and within the constraints of a new legal regime, supporting future operations with well-trained contractors who might subdue by force those who inflict gross human rights abuses on others.
Karem is eminently qualified to write on the role of Nuclear Weapons-Free Zones (NWFZs) in the processes of averting nuclear weapons proliferation, arresting the nuclear arms race, and eliminating the scourge of nuclear weapons. Karem's well-written, extensively documented, and cogent argument for a NWFZ in the Middle East reflects his scholarly and professional expertise on the technical and political issues surrounding such a proposal. . . . This is an important and much needed contribution to the literature on peace studies, arms limitation, disarmament, and world order studies. It should be part of every library collection. Choice It is clear that the proliferation of nuclear weapons among the nations of the Middle East would pose grave problems for that politically explosive region and throughout the world. In this thoughful study, Dr Karem examines the possiblility of avoiding such a situation and reducing tensions generally by implementing United Nations resolutions calling for the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East. Arguing that the NWFZ approach is a viable solution, he suggests how to implement it and how diplomatic obstacles facing such an agreement can be overcome.
Common Heritage or Common Burden? contains a comprehensive and authoritative assessment of the US role in the negotiations on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and particularly in the negotiations on one of the remaining commons, the ocean floor beyond national jurisdiction. The author first examines the US view of the lawfulness of deep seabed mining under international law. He reviews the bureaucratic struggles, within the US Administration and the Congress, concerning the options to be pursued at the Conference; analyses the US position in the seabed negotiations from 1974 to 1980; and casts a fresh look both on the Reagan Administration's `policy review' of 1981-1982 which threatened the Conference's outcome, and current US oceans policy which remains an impediment to the Convention's early entry into force. The study suggests that despite significant compromises negotiated between the US and developing countries at the Conference up to 1980, the emerging seabed regime was not as widely endorsed by US officials as is generally assumed. Drawing on material collected from interviews with many key negotiators, the study contributes to a better understanding of domestic and international decision-making procedures and the dynamics of international negotiations. |
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