Many rumors abound regarding the future of America’s top envoy at the United Nations, Susan E. Rice. While she is still working as the United States ambassador to the UN, some media reports are predicting that she will become President Obama’s next national security adviser, succeeding Thomas E. Donilon. As to who might succeed her, [...]
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The president of the International Criminal Court, Judge Sang-Hyun Song, told a Columbia University audience recently that a major challenge facing the court is what he called a steady lack of political support from the United Nations Security Council and UN member states. “We need a far more consistent and vigilant approach by the [...]
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The sounds of drums and chanting outside the United Nations in New York battled to be heard over traffic recently. In a continuation of rallies and demonstrations held in front of the UN earlier in January, seven Native American protestors gathered behind a large purple banner to show their solidarity with the Idle No More [...]
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In blocking adoption by the United States of a global convention to protect the disabled, the Republican right signaled on Dec. 4 that it intends to stall or kill all international treaties sent to the Senate for ratification by the Obama administration. Even pleas from a frail and crippled Bob Dole, a former senator, in [...]
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Eighteen members were elected by the United Nations General Assembly to the Human Rights Council on Nov. 12. The members, serving three-year terms beginning Jan. 1, join 29 other countries on the council. Of the 18 new members, only the United States was seeking a second term. The other states chosen were Argentina, Brazil, Estonia, [...]
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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 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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President Barack Obama, criticized in an intense election campaign for not being tough enough with the rest of the world, is expected to tell fellow leaders next week why his administration thinks that cooperative action, not bluster or the flaunting of power, is a better policy for meeting the crises of this century. The busiest [...]
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The United Nations Security Council will not renew the mandate for the monitoring mission it set up in Syria this spring to supervise a peace plan that never materialized. The mandate for the UN Supervision Mission, called Unsmis, expires Aug. 19. The unarmed mission, renewed in July for 30 days, is down to 100 officers [...]
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The mind-numbing daily reports of death and destruction in Afghanistan and Pakistan obscure a larger issue: the prevalence of political and ethnic violence across South Asia, a region dominated by India that includes Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Maldives and Bhutan. Recently, the publication of two annual global reports on human rights – from the [...]
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