• A. Edward Elmendorf

    About A. Edward Elmendorf

    A. Edward Elmendorf, who lives in Washington, is a former president and chief executive of the United Nations Association of the USA. He is a member of UNA's Leo Nevas Human Rights Task Force and spent most of his career, before retiring, at the World Bank.

    Reasons to Love and Criticize the UN

    by  • November 4, 2012 • BOOKS, US-UN Relations • 

    Minustah in Haiti peacekeepers

    In his new book, “Living With the UN: American Responsibilities and International Order,” Kenneth Anderson forces readers who lean sympathetically toward the United Nations to consider why they support it despite its faults. On the other hand, the acerbic views of Anderson, a law professor at American University, about the UN are deeply colored by his [...]

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    The Human Rights Council Gets More Respect

    by  • September 14, 2012 • BOOKS

    Migrants locked up in a camp in Libya.

    The visibility of human-rights violations by the Syrian government amid the current turmoil owes much to the United Nations, particularly to its Independent International Commission of Inquiry, led by Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, a Brazilian lawyer, public official and professor.  Such commissions are part of a growing number of tools used by the UN to promote [...]

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    In Washington, the Human Rights Council Endures Scrutiny

    by  • November 13, 2011 • Human Rights, US-UN Relations, WORLDVIEWS • 1 Comment

    The Kyrgyzstan delegate at the General Assembly submits her ballot for Human Rights Council elections this spring.  The council was scrutinized in Washington in October to favorable and critical views.  DEVRA BERKOWITZ/UN PHOTO

    The United Nations Human Rights Council is attracting more attention in Washington by both supporters and critics in the government and beyond. Some of the council’s defenders and naysayers, speaking at various Washington venues last month, ultimately expressed the same goal: to see the rights body improve. The council’s action last winter recommending that the [...]

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