Members of Congress continue to demonstrate an ongoing interest in the efficiency and effectiveness of United Nations (U.N.) development activities, both in the context of U.N. reform and broader U.S. development and foreign assistance efforts. Thirty-two U.N. agencies, funds, programs, and offices play a role in development. These entities, collectively referred to as the U.N. development system (UNDS), are independent intergovernmental organisations with distinct mandates, rules, membership, and financial resources. They work to help countries achieve social and economic progress through a range of development activities, including program implementation, technical assistance, providing forums for intergovernmental co-operation, setting and facilitating international standards and norms, advocacy and awareness raising, and research and data collection. This book discusses the origins and evolving role of the UNDS and its perceived strengths and weaknesses, with a focus on the current UNDS structure, funding levels and trends.

In August 2009, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won a crushing victory over the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), thus bringing to an end over fifty years of one-party dominance. Around the world, the victory of the DPJ was seen as a radical break with Japan's past. However, this dramatic political shift was not as sudden as it appeared, but rather the culmination of a series of changes first set in motion in the early 1990s.The Evolution of Japan's Party System analyses the transition by examining both party politics and public policy. Arguing that these political changes were evolutionary rather than revolutionary, the essays in this volume discuss how older parties such as the LDP and the Japan Socialist Party failed to adapt to the new policy environment of the 1990s. Taken as a whole, The Evolution of Japan's Party System provides a unique look at party politics in Japan, bringing them into a comparative conversation that usually focuses on Europe and North America.

The idea that we should 'do something' to help those suffering in far-off places is the main impulse driving those who care about human rights. Yet from Kosovo to Iraq, military interventions have gone disastrously wrong. "The Thin Blue Line" describes how in the last twenty years humanitarianism has emerged as a multibillion-dollar industry that has played a leading role in defining humanitarian crises, and shaping the foreign policy of Western governments and the United Nations. Drawing on his own experience of working in over a dozen conflict and post-conflict zones, Foley shows how the growing influence of international law has been used to override the sovereignty of the poorest countries in the world.

Born in 1945, the United Nations came to life in the Arab world. It was there that the UN dealt with early diplomatic challenges that helped shape its institutions such as peacekeeping and political mediation. It was also there that the UN found itself trapped in, and sometimes part of, confounding geopolitical tensions in key international conflicts in the Cold War and post-Cold War periods, such as hostilities between Palestine and Iraq and between Libya and Syria. Much has changed over the past seven decades, but what has not changed is the central role played by the UN. This book's claim is that the UN is a constant site of struggle in the Arab world and equally that the Arab world serves as a location for the UN to define itself against the shifting politics of its age. Looking at the UN from the standpoint of the Arab world, this volume collects some of the finest scholars and practitioners writing about the potential and the problems of a UN that is framed by both the promises of its Charter and the contradictions of its member states. This is a landmark book-a close and informed study of the UN in the region that taught the organization how to do its many jobs.

When President George W. Bush launched an invasion of Iraq in March of 2003, he did so without the explicit approval of the Security Council. His father's administration, by contrast, carefully funneled statecraft through the United Nations and achieved Council authorization for the U.S.-led Gulf War in 1991. The history of American policy toward Iraq displays considerable variation in the extent to which policies were conducted through the UN and other international organizations.

In Channels of Power, Alexander Thompson surveys U.S. policy toward Iraq, starting with the Gulf War, continuing through the interwar years of sanctions and coercive disarmament, and concluding with the 2003 invasion and its long aftermath. He offers a framework for understanding why powerful states often work through international organizations when conducting coercive policies-and why they sometimes choose instead to work alone or with ad hoc coalitions. The conventional wisdom holds that because having legitimacy for their actions is important for normative reasons, states seek multilateral approval.

Channels of Power offers a rationalist alternative to these standard legitimation arguments, one based on the notion of strategic information transmission: When state actions are endorsed by an independent organization, this sends politically crucial information to the world community, both leaders and their publics, and results in greater international support.

As part of the ongoing and necessary effort to create a UN that is truly representative of all its members, this title attempts to present the African perspective far more clearly and persuasively than has previously been the case. The argument in the title can be summed up in this excerpt: "Africa and the West have engaged in a "dialogue of the deaf " at the UN and other international forums since the continent's "lost decade" of the 1980s. The dialogue runs as follows: Africans call for an annulment of what they see as an unpayable external debt of $290 billion and note that they have paid back $550 billion out of an initial debt of $540 billion between 1970 and 2002; the West continues to roll over the debt and offers periodic "debt relief" for an ailing African patient. Africans call for the West to meet aid targets of 0.7 per cent of Gross National Product (GNP) set as far back as 1970; the West responds by continuing to maintain average annual aid levels of about 0.3 per cent and to make persistent unmet promises to reach the target of 0.7 per cent. Finally, Africans call on the rich world to live up to its free trade principles by eliminating agricultural subsidies that prevent the continent from growing out of poverty; the West continues to maintain subsidies of over $311 billion that by 2001 had surpassed the entire economic strength of sub-Saharan Africa." This title is a contribution to African efforts to engage the UN to achieve these noble goals.

Do we need the United Nations? Where would the contemporary world be without its largest intergovernmental organization? And where could it be had the UN s member states and staff performed better? These fundamental questions are explored by the leading analyst of UN history and politics, Thomas G. Weiss, in this hard-hitting, authoritative book. While counterfactuals are often dismissed as academic contrivances, they can serve to focus the mind; and here, Weiss uses them to ably demonstrate the pluses and minuses of multilateral cooperation. He is not shy about UN achievements and failures drawn from its ideas and operations in its three substantive pillars of activities: international peace and security; human rights and humanitarian action; and sustainable development. But, he argues, the inward-looking and populist movements in electoral politics worldwide make robust multilateralism more not less compelling. The selection of Antonio Guterres as the ninth UN secretary-general should rekindle critical thinking about the potential for international cooperation. There is a desperate need to reinvigorate and update rather than jettison the United Nations in responding to threats from climate change to pandemics, from proliferation to terrorism. Weiss tells you why and how.

UN Contributions to Development Thinking and Practice is at once a history of the ideas and realities of international development, from the classical economists to the recent emphasis on human rights, and a history of the UN s role in shaping and implementing development paradigms over the last half century. The authors, all prominent in the field of development studies, argue that the UN s founding document, the UN Charter, is infused with the human values and human concerns that are at the center of the UN s thinking on economic and human development today. In the intervening period, the authors show how the UN s approach to development evolved from mainstream areas of economic development to include issues of employment, poverty reduction, fairer distribution of the benefits of growth, equality of men and women, child development, social justice, and environmental sustainability."

The relationship between populism and democracy is contested among scholars. While some propose that populism is inherently harmful for democracy because it is anti-pluralist and confrontational, others argue that populism can reinvigorate worn-out democracies in need of greater popular participation. In A Dynamic Theory of Populism in Power, Julio F. Carrion advances this debate by examining the empirical relationship between populism in power and democracy. Does populism in power always lead to regime change, that is, the demise of democracy? The answer is no. The impact of populism on democracy depends on the variety of populism in power: the worst outcomes in democratic governance are found under unconstrained populism. Carrion presents the permissive and productive conditions for why and how populism becomes unconstrained, as well as a dynamic theory of change that shows how the late victories of populists build on early ones, resulting in greater power asymmetries. A Dynamic Theory of Populism in Power provides an analysis of five Latin American populist presidencies, all located in the Andes. In four of them (Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela), populism became unconstrained and regime change followed. In one case, Colombia, populism in power was successfully contained and democracy survived. The concluding chapter places the Andean cases in comparative perspective and discusses how unconstrained populism in other cases (Nicaragua and Hungary) also led to the end of electoral democracy. Where populism in power was constrained (Honduras and the United States), regime change did not materialize. Carrion advances a theory of populism in power that helps us understand how democracies transition into non-democracies. To that extent, the book illuminates the processes of democratic erosion in our time.

How can international organizations (IOs) like the United Nations (UN) and their implementing partners be held accountable if their actions and policies violate fundamental human rights? This book provides a new conceptual framework to study pluralist accountability, whereby third parties hold IOs and their implementing partners accountable for human rights violations. Based on a rich study of UN-mandated operations in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Kosovo, the EU Troika's austerity policy, and Global Public-Private Health Partnerships in India, this book analyzes how competition and human rights vulnerability shape the evolution of pluralist accountability in response to diverse human rights violations, such as human trafficking, the violation of the rights of detainees, economic rights, and the right to consent in clinical trials. While highlighting the importance of alternative accountability mechanisms for legitimacy of IOs, this book also argues that pluralist accountability should not be regarded as a panacea for IOs' legitimacy problems, as it is often less legalized and might cause multiple accountability disorder.

The standard work in its field, this updated and expanded edition presents an eminently practical "nuts-and-bolts" guide to international human rights law and practice. The contributors, all specialists in their areas of expertise, offer a panoramic yet meticulously detailed survey of the many techniques now available to protect human rights at global, regional, and national levels. Appendices include a bibliographic essay that serves as a mini-guide to contemporary human rights literature, in both print and on-line sources. Published under the auspices of the Procedural Aspects of International Law Institute (PAIL). Paperback version of this title is available for classroom adoption only at cost of $25.00/copy, 10 copy minimum. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.

This second volume from the United Nations Intellectual History Project surveys the history of the UN s regional commissions and the ideas they have developed over the last 40 years. Each essay is devoted to one of the five regional commissions Europe, Asia and the Far East, Latin America, Africa, and Western Asia and how it has approached its mission of assessing the condition of regional economies and making prognoses about future conditions. The essays describe how each commission has added local perspectives to global debates over economic development and brought an authentic regional voice to the UN.

Contributors are Adebayo Adedeji, Yves Berthelot, Leelananda de Silva, Blandine Destremau, Paul Rayment, and Gert Rosenthal."

How has the United Nations dealt with the question of terrorism before and after September 11? What does it mean that the UN itself has become a target of terrorism? Terrorism and the UN analyzes how the UN s role in dealing with terrorism has been shaped over the years by the international system, and how events such as September 11 and the American intervention in Iraq have reoriented its approach to terrorism. The first half of the book addresses the international context. Chapters in this part consider the impact of September 11 on the UN s concern for the rights and security of states relative to those of individuals, as well as the changing attitudes of various Western powers toward multilateral vs. unilateral approaches to international problems.

The second half of the book focuses more closely on the UN, its values, mechanisms, and history and its future role in preventing and reacting to terrorism. The Security Council s position on and reactions to terrorist activities are contrasted with the General Assembly s approach to these issues. What role the UN might play in suppressing the political economy of terrorism is considered. A concluding chapter looks at broader, more proactive strategies for addressing the root causes of terrorism, with an emphasis on social justice as a key to conflict prevention, a primary concern of the UN, particularly the General Assembly, before September 11.

Contributors are Jane Boulden, Chantal de Jonge Oudraat (Georgetown University), Edward C. Luck (Columbia University), S. Neil MacFarlane (University of Oxford), Rama Mani (Geneva Centre for Security Policy), M. J. Peterson (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Nico Schrijver (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam), Monica Serrano (Colegio de Mexico and University of Oxford), Thierry Tardy (Geneva Centre for Security Policy), Karin von Hippel (King s College, London), and Thomas G. Weiss."

International security must be understood in much broader terms in the aftermath of the Cold War. This extensively revised edition retains the valuable descriptions and analyses of the United Nations' achievements and failures, while placing them in the context of the ever-broadening definition of international security and of changing attitudes toward national sovereignty and humanitarian intervention. In order to deal with the internal struggles that are now the prevalent form of conflict, it is necessary to allay the root causes of tensions within societies. Means of enforcement must be applied to prevent gross violations of human rights, including genocide. Sutterlin describes the background of innovations that recent crises have imposed on the UN. He analyzes how recent reforms have affected the UN's capacity to deal with the security problems of the new century. Peacekeeping, peace-enforcement, peace-building, and the application of sanctions all bring new challenges. In one chapter, Sutterlin focuses on the UN's experience in enforcing disarmament in Iraq. A new chapter details the impact of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction on UN policies and actions. This systematic presentation, using scholarly analysis and a practitioner's inside knowledge, provides a readable and challenging text for courses on the United Nations.

Printed on Demand. Limited stock is held for this title. If you would like to order 30 copies or more please contact [email protected] purpose of this guide is to facilitate the ratification or acceptance of the 1993 FAO Compliance Agreement and the 1995 UN Fish Stocks Agreement. It presents an outline of some of the most important provisions contained in the two agreements. The book also includes a 'tool kit' of the various approaches used by some countries that have already enacted national legislation to meet the obligations and objectives set forth in these agreements.

As the ever increasing number of Security Council resolutions and statements is nowadays easily available through the UN home page, this booklet will guide you thematically through these documents without the texts of the resolutions and statements being reproduced. This work contains the essential tools, presented in a chronological order, and classified on a topic basis to help you find and compare the English and French texts electronically. Part I contains matters concerning the maintenance of international peace and security; Part II contains other matters considered by the Security Council. The next division is a geographical one, each geographical region being subdivided into numbered topics. The corpus of this Thematic Guide consists of an analytical table of resolutions, statements and letters. Additional tools are made available in the annexes: a chronological list and the composition of the Security Council (1946-2000). This booklet is a sequence to the previous two editions by Karel Wellens of Resolutions and Statements of the United Nations Security Council: A Thematic Guide.

This volume discusses the rationale for and against multilateral development cooperation, with particular attention to international industrial development during the post-cold war era. It also documents how UNIDO has successfully transformed itself to contribute effectively to the global supply of international public goods within the purview of its mandate. A foreword by U.K. Secretary Clare Short illustrates the good reception that such transformation has elicited amongst the donor community as well as its demonstration and potential spillover effects on the whole of the UN system. The book, which contains testimonies of ambassadors of UNIDO's stakeholder countries as well as contributions by Messrs. J. D.-Martinussen, former Head of the Danish Mission for UNIDO's assessment, and R. Ricupero, Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD), can be expected to become an indispensable reference material for students of UN affairs and the international relations and development policy communities at large.

For seven tumultuous years, the U.S.S. Voyager™ has explored the Delta Quadrant, encountering strange alien civilizations and bizarre space-time anomalies as it steadfastly made its way back toward the safety of Federation space. Captain Kathryn Janeway and her heroic crew have faced all manner of harrowing danger and hostile life-forms -- including the Kazons, the Borg, and the Q -- while never losing sight of their ultimate goal: home. Now, at last, Voyager's epic trek may be nearing its end...

After so many perilous and astounding adventures, will Captain Janeway finally bring her wayward starship back to the Alpha Quadrant? And what will become of her diverse yet tightly knit crew? Will Chakotay, B'Elanna Torres, and the other former Maquis freedom fighters face long-delayed justice for their crimes against the Federation? And is there any place in Starfleet for the uniquely independent Borg known as Seven of Nine?

As the ultimate destiny of Voyager is revealed, all that is certain is that nothing will ever be the same!

Closely Guarded is written by a man who was privy to some of the most closely guarded state secrets in Canada. From 1942 to 1973, John Starnes was engaged in such areas as communications intelligence and, during his tenure as the first civilian director-general of the RCMP Security Service, in counter-espionage and counter-subversion. His recollection of these confidential activities and the part he played in them is supported by a wealth of formerly classified official documentation recently released under the Access to Information Act.

This is a highly personal narrative, brought vividly to life with exerpts from the letters that Starnes wrote home from London during the Second World War, when he moved in intelligence circles and met many prominent diplomats and policy-makers. His story recalls several of the key political moments of this century, including the creation of the United Nations, the glory days of External Affairs, the Six Day War between Isreal and Egypt, and the October Crisis of 1970.

During the first decade of the twenty-first century, the rising demand for peacekeepers saw the United Nations (UN) operate at a historically unprecedented tempo, with increases in the number and size of missions as well as in the scope and complexity of their mandates. The need to deploy over 120,000 UN peacekeepers and the demands placed upon them in the field have threatened to outstrip the willingness and to some extent capacity of the UN's Member States. This situation raised the questions of why states contribute forces to UN missions and, conversely, what factors inhibit them from doing more? Providing Peacekeepers answers these questions. After summarizing the challenges confronting the UN in its force generation efforts, the book develops a new framework for analyzing UN peacekeeping contributions in light of the evidence presented in sixteen case study chapters which examine the experiences of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the People's Republic of China, the Russian Federation, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Nigeria, Ghana, Nepal, Uruguay, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, and Japan. The book concludes by offering recommendations for how the UN might develop new strategies for force generation so as to meet the foreseeable challenges of twenty-first century peacekeeping and improve the quantity and quality of its uniformed peacekeepers.

"Ester Boserup's writings have had major impact over the last quarter century on the evolution of thought in anthropology, demography, economics, and sociology about the interrelationships among economic, demographic, and technical change." In the present booklet, the author reviews seventy years of work and writing on development economics and its relation to her own experience, from government planner in Denmark during the Second World War, via the UN, to consultant concerning today's problems of the Third World.

This work seeks to provide insight into the role that discourse and rhetorical analysis plays in the crucial area of international conflict resolution and diplomatic process. Using analyses of situations that have come into play in the United Nations as the backdrop to their study, Donahue and Prosser first develop the concept of discourse analysis and the various approaches to it, including the role of genre and culture. They then turn their attention to rhetorical analysis, from its classical beginnings through to contemporary Western perspectives. The final part of the work applies the tools of discourse and rhetorical analysis to an understanding of various modern historical conflicts (including the Middle East conflict) and issues of current and future interest (such as human and women's rights).

As the 1990s place greater demands on the UN, this inspiring biography shows how Hammarskjold perfected the active but quiet diplomacy that proved successful in a series of seemingly hopeless situations, from the Suez Crisis to Indochina, and how he stood up for principle against the greatest powers. Photos.