This timely book investigates the role of the UN Secretariat in an era of significant global power shifts. It demonstrates that UN staff have some ability to shape political outcomes towards their own ideals and the UN’s institutional mission, and also that their powers are limited by member states seeking to influence and control the Secretariat. It puts new focus on the UN staff as variables here. Using a novel theoretical model of the role of global civil servants in world politics, this book analyses the interaction between rising and declining powers, and the UN Secretariat. Contributors explore a wide range of case studies, examining UN interactions with a diverse range of states, UN agencies, and other global secretariats such as the WHO and WTO. The book considers both the ethical and practical questions facing UN staff, revealing the tension between political pragmatism and institutional idealism. Advancing the debate on institutions and global change, it argues that Secretariat staff play a complicated but active role in managing power transitions and shaping international politics. Global Institutions in a Time of Power Transition will be an invaluable resource for scholars of political geography, international relations, regulation and governance, and the United Nations. It will also be essential reading for staff at international organisations who wish to understand their role in world politics.

The UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has instructed all UN specialized agencies and other affiliated organizations to consider how their work might advance the cause of human rights around the world. Many of these bodies have taken this call to heart, with a wide range of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) trying to play a more active role in promoting human welfare. "Power and Principle" is a comparative study of how and why IGOs integrate human rights standards into their development operations. It focuses on the process of policy innovation in three UN-related IGOs: the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF,) the World Bank, and the World Health Organization (WHO). In his comprehensive analysis, Joel E. Oestreich uses case studies to demonstrate how their policies have evolved during the past two decades to reflect important human rights considerations. Drawing on interviews with dozens of staffers from IGOs, Oestreich creates a gripping narrative of the inner workings of these large bureaucracies. In each study he describes how the organization first became interested in human rights standards, how these standards were adopted as a priority, how the organization defined rights in the context of their work, and what a rights-based approach has meant in practice. The book argues that IGOs ought to be seen as capable of meaningful agency in international politics, and describes the nature of that agency. It concludes with an examination of these organizations and their ethical responsibilities as actors on the world stage.

In 2003, the United Nations adopted a common rights-based approach to development in their efforts to promote an international standard of human rights throughout the world. The approach emphasizes economic, social, and cultural rights, but plays down the role of civil and political rights in development. Intergovernmental and non-governmental agencies operate only at the invitation and sufferance of their hosts, and states retain full sovereignty and control over their territory; and the direct promotion of civil and political rights by foreign organizations has seemed beyond the ability of multilateral development agencies. But as Development and Human Rights shows, UN agencies have begun to take on a remarkable set of development priorities that, while carefully circumscribed and defined, constitute greater involvement in a state's internal affairs than anyone would have considered in the past. In this book, Joel E. Oestreich presents the first full-length study of how international agencies evaluate the rights situation in a single country, and the first study to look at both the good and the bad in a rights-based approach. It looks particularly at the human rights challenges faced in India, considering the work of five UN agencies: UNICEF, the UN Development Programme, the World Bank, the UN Fund for Population Activities, and UN Women. Over the course of the book, Oestreich summarizes how the UN navigates this difficult political terrain, and how effectively these policies are being implemented. Development and Human Rights ultimately considers how rights-based approaches fit in the traditional discourse on human rights, and the ability of these agencies to initiate meaningful change on state behavior in the rights arena.

Development and Human Rights examines how United Nations agencies are following a "rights based approach to development" in India. It asks two questions: how (if at all) does the implementation of a rights based approach differ from traditional development work? And what strategies do development agencies follow to overcome local opposition to this politically controversial strategy? Integrating human rights into the development process means that development agencies can be vitally important instruments in rights protection and promotion, which has been overlooked in almost all existing literature on human rights. This book, then, presents the first full-length study of how these agencies evaluate the rights situation in a single country, and the first study to look at both the good and the bad in a rights based approach. It begins with a description of what a rights based approach is, and an examination of the human rights challenges faced in India. It then focuses on the work of five agencies: UNICEF, the UN Development Programme, the World Bank, the UN Fund for Population Activities, and UN Women. Chapters then summarize how the UN navigates this difficult political terrain, and how effectively these policies are being implemented. It also considers how rights based approaches fit in the traditional discourse on human rights, and what it says about the ability of these agencies to initiate meaningful change on state behavior in the rights arena.