Renewing the United Nations System


Book Description




Made in Africa


Book Description

This study presents the findings of original field research into the design, practice, and varied outcomes of industrial policy in three sectors in Ethiopia: cement, leather and leather products, and floriculture. Given that there is a single industrial strategy, why do its outcomes vary across sectors? To what extent is this a function of the specific market and political economy features of each sector? The book examines industrial structures and associated global value chains to demonstrate the challenges faced by African firms in international markets.




Know the Beginning Well


Book Description

With this book, the author offers a personal look at some of the landmark policies, people, and institutions that have shaped Africa's post-independence history - and will continue to shape its future. It is a true inside account - told from a very personal perspective - of the evolution of African development over the last five decades.




Charter of the United Nations and Statute of the International Court of Justice


Book Description

The Charter of the United Nations was signed in 1945 by 51 countries representing all continents, paving the way for the creation of the United Nations on 24 October 1945. The Statute of the International Court of Justice forms part of the Charter. The aim of the Charter is to save humanity from war; to reaffirm human rights and the dignity and worth of the human person; to proclaim the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small; and to promote the prosperity of all humankind. The Charter is the foundation of international peace and security.




UN Security Council Enlargement and U.S. Interests


Book Description

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) remains an important source of legitimacy for international action. Yet despite dramatic changes in the international system over the past forty-five years, the composition of the UNSC has remained unaltered since 1965, and there are many who question how long its legitimacy will last without additional members that reflect twenty-first century realities. There is little agreement, however, as to which countries should accede to the Security Council or even by what formula aspirants should be judged. Reform advocates frequently call for equal representation for various regions of the world, but local competitors like India and Pakistan or Mexico and Brazil are unlikely to reach a compromise solution. Moreover, the UN Charter prescribes that regional parity should be, at most, a secondary issue; the ability to advocate and defend international peace and security should, it says, be the primary concern.The United States has remained largely silent as this debate has intensified over the past decade, choosing to voice general support for expansion without committing to specifics. (President Obama's recent call for India to become a permanent member of the Security Council was a notable exception.) In this Council Special Report, 2009?2010 International Affairs Fellow Kara C. McDonald and Senior Fellow Stewart M. Patrick argue that American reticence is ultimately unwise. Rather than merely observing the discussions on this issue, they believe that the United States should take the lead. To do so, they advocate a criteria-based process that will gauge aspirant countries on a variety of measures, including political stability, the capacity and willingness to act in defense of international security, the ability to negotiate and implement sometimes unpopular agreements, and the institutional wherewithal to participate in a demanding UNSC agenda. They further recommend that this process be initiated and implemented with early and regular input from Congress; detailed advice from relevant Executive agencies as to which countries should be considered and on what basis; careful, private negotiations in aspirant capitals; and the interim use of alternate multilateral forums such as the Group of Twenty (G20) to satisfy countries' immediate demands for broader participation and to produce evidence about their willingness and ability to participate constructively in the international system.The issues facing the world in the twenty-first century--climate change, terrorism, economic development, nonproliferation, and more--will demand a great deal of the multilateral system. The United States will have little to gain from the dilution or rejection of UNSC authority. In UN Security Council Enlargement and U.S. Interests, McDonald and Patrick outline sensible reforms to protect the efficiency and utility of the existing Security Council while expanding it to incorporate new global actors. Given the growing importance of regional powers and the myriad challenges facing the international system, their report provides a strong foundation for future action.




The "Third" United Nations


Book Description

The Third UN is the ecology of supportive non-state actors-intellectuals, scholars, consultants, think tanks, NGOs, the for-profit private sector, and the media-that interacts with the intergovernmental machinery of the First UN (member states) and the Second UN (staff members of international secretariats) to formulate and refine ideas and decision-making at key junctures in policy processes. Some advocate for particular ideas, others help analyze or operationalize their testing and implementation; many thus help the UN 'think'. While think tanks, knowledge brokers, and epistemic communities are phenomena that have entered both the academic and policy lexicons, their intellectual role remains marginal to analyses of such intergovernmental organizations as the United Nations.




The Essential UN.


Book Description

"Everything you always wanted to know about the United Nations in one book! This primer to the United Nations is designed for all global citizens. It covers the history of the UN, what it does and how it does it. As the world's only truly global organization, the United Nations is where countries meet to address universal issues that cannot be resolved by any one of them acting alone. From international peace and security to sustainable development, climate change, human rights, and humanitarian action, the United Nations acts on our behalf around the world." --




The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations


Book Description

This major new handbook provides the definitive and comprehensive analysis of the UN and will be an essential point of reference for all those working on or in the organization.




Realizing the Right to Development


Book Description

This book is devoted to the 25th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development. It contains a collection of analytical studies of various aspects of the right to development, which include the rule of law and good governance, aid, trade, debt, technology transfer, intellectual property, access to medicines and climate change in the context of an enabling environment at the local, regional and international levels. It also explores the issues of poverty, women and indigenous peoples within the theme of social justice and equity. The book considers the strides that have been made over the years in measuring progress in implementing the right to development and possible ways forward to make the right to development a reality for all in an increasingly fragile, interdependent and ever-changing world.




The United Nations and a New World Order for a New Millennium


Book Description

The errors - military, political, and not least diplomatic - in the continuing unfolding of the Yugoslav tragedy over the decade since the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the final ending of the Cold War, offer certain lessons. It had been confidently predicted that the complex, multi-national Yugoslav state created by the World War I victors at Versailles in 1919, and continued by the post-World War II peace settlements, would not long survive Marshal Tito's death. As it happened, when the moment of truth arrived the concert of Western European powers had no clear and coherent plans ready for a rational brokering of the resulting problems of State Succession, including renewed federal or confederal structures, and peaceful and orderly transfer and relocation of civil populations if fragmentation and independence were to be the immediate policy options. The rush to a 'premature' State Recognition by one or more leading Western European political players, without having any congress of Berlin-style game-plan ready to guide and direct this, may have triggered the on-rush of political and military events that led, in quick succession, to the Bosnian and then the Kosovo tragedies of the 1990s. The author, currently President of the Institut de Droit International and a jurisconsult and advisor, over the years, to international and national governmental authorities, examines consequences and challenges for International Law and Law-making, as we enter the new Millennium. Taking note of the antinomies and contradictions inherent in Classical International Law Categories like Territorial Integrity and the Self-determination of Peoples, the Non-Use-of-Force and Collective (regional) Self-Defence, the author considers, in particular, the direct conflict, in the case of both Bosnia and Kosovo, between the United Nations Charter principle of Non-Intervention and the claimed 'New' International Law principle of Humanitarian Intervention. The legally permissible modalities and structures and processes for exercise of Humanitarian Intervention, in accord with the United Nations Charter and also general International Law, are canvassed and weighed.