Once described by Trygve Lie as the "most impossible job on earth," the position of UN Secretary-General is as frustratingly constrained as it is prestigious. The Secretary-General's ability to ...influence global affairs often depends on how the international community regards his moral authority. In relation to such moral authority, past office-holders have drawn on their own ethics and religious backgrounds-as diverse as Lutheranism, Catholicism, Buddhism, and Coptic Christianity-to guide the role that they played in addressing the UN's goals in the international arena, such as the maintenance of international peace and security and the promotion of human rights. InThe UN Secretary-General and Moral Authority, contributors provide case studies of all seven former secretaries-general, establishing a much-needed comparative survey of each office-holder's personal religious and moral values. From Trygve Lie's forbearance during the UN's turbulent formative years to the Nobel committee's awarding Kofi Annan and the United Nations the prize for peace in 2001, the case studies all follow the same format, first detailing the environmental and experiential factors that forged these men's ethical frameworks, then analyzing how their "inner code" engaged with the duties of office and the global events particular to their terms. Balanced and unbiased in its approach, this study provides valuable insight into how religious and moral leadership functions in the realm of international relations, and how the promotion of ethical values works to diffuse international tensions and improve the quality of human life around the world.
Global competition for crude oil has increased in the past decade with the entry of industrializing nations such as China and India. Yet we still do not know much about the spatial structure of crude ...oil commodity trade and its evolution over time. In this paper, we apply complex network analysis to examine the geography of global crude oil flows and its evolution based on the United Nations commodity trade database from 1988 to 2013. Attention is given to the geo-visualization of the networks that trace the rise and decline of oil hubs. The results show that world crude oil is characterized by network characteristics that capture both small world and flat world properties.
•The spatial dynamics of crude trade is examined through small and flat worlds.•Oil trade connectivity generally increased between 1988 and 2013.•Complex networks and GIS show USA and China became top hubs in 2000 and 2013.•Community structure identified four and five small worlds for 1990/2000 and 2013.•Small worlds are connected across dispersed nodes and complemented by flat worlds.
The health of the ocean, central to human well-being, has now reached a critical point. Most fish stocks are overexploited, climate change and increased dissolved carbon dioxide are changing ocean ...chemistry and disrupting species throughout food webs, and the fundamental capacity of the ocean to regulate the climate has been altered. However, key technical, organizational, and conceptual scientific barriers have prevented the identification of policy levers for sustainability and transformative action. Here, we recommend key strategies to address these challenges, including (1) stronger integration of sciences and (2) ocean-observing systems, (3) improved science-policy interfaces, (4) new partnerships supported by (5) a new ocean-climate finance system, and (6) improved ocean literacy and education to modify social norms and behaviors. Adopting these strategies could help establish ocean science as a key foundation of broader sustainability transformations.
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A healthy ocean is critical to a healthy planet and underpins several sustainable development goals. Ahead of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030), we chart a course to overcome the most pressing conceptual, organizational, and technical scientific hurdles and achieve transformative action to help usher in a sustainable future for all.
Ahead of the Curve? Emmerij, Louis; Jolly, Richard; Weiss, Thomas G
2001, 1999
eBook
Ideas and concepts are arguably the most important legacy of the United
Nations. Ahead of the Curve? analyzes the evolution of key ideas and concepts about
international economic and social ...development born or nurtured, refined or applied
under UN auspices since 1945. The authors evaluate the policy ideas coming from UN
organizations and scholars in relation to such critical issues as decolonization,
sustainable development, structural adjustment, basic needs, human rights, women,
world employment, the transition of the Eastern bloc, the role of nongovernmental
organizations, and global governance. The authors find that, in
many instances, UN ideas about how to tackle problems of global import were sound
and far-sighted, although they often fell on the deaf ears of powerful member states
until it was apparent that a different approach was needed. The authors also
identify important areas where the UN has not stood constructively at the
fore.
Aims
This paper provides a concise review of the efficacy, effectiveness and affordability of health‐care interventions to promote and assist tobacco cessation, in order to inform national guideline ...development and assist countries in planning their provision of tobacco cessation support.
Methods
Cochrane reviews of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of major health‐care tobacco cessation interventions were used to derive efficacy estimates in terms of percentage‐point increases relative to comparison conditions in 6–12‐month continuous abstinence rates. This was combined with analysis and evidence from ‘real world’ studies to form a judgement on the probable effectiveness of each intervention in different settings. The affordability of each intervention was assessed for exemplar countries in each World Bank income category (low, lower middle, upper middle, high). Based on World Health Organization (WHO) criteria, an intervention was judged as affordable for a given income category if the estimated extra cost of saving a life‐year was less than or equal to the per‐capita gross domestic product for that category of country.
Results
Brief advice from a health‐care worker given opportunistically to smokers attending health‐care services can promote smoking cessation, and is affordable for countries in all World Bank income categories (i.e. globally). Proactive telephone support, automated text messaging programmes and printed self‐help materials can assist smokers wanting help with a quit attempt and are affordable globally. Multi‐session, face‐to‐face behavioural support can increase quit success for cigarettes and smokeless tobacco and is affordable in middle‐ and high‐income countries. Nicotine replacement therapy, bupropion, nortriptyline, varenicline and cytisine can all aid quitting smoking when given with at least some behavioural support; of these, cytisine and nortriptyline are affordable globally.
Conclusions
Brief advice from a health‐care worker, telephone helplines, automated text messaging, printed self‐help materials, cytisine and nortriptyline are globally affordable health‐care interventions to promote and assist smoking cessation. Evidence on smokeless tobacco cessation suggests that face‐to‐face behavioural support and varenicline can promote cessation.
This article provides a review of the literature on the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and serves as an introduction to the JEMS special issue devoted to this organisation. IOM has ...long been a neglected research topic. Since the 1990s, however, it has experienced substantial growth; its role and visibility in the global politics of migration have increased, which has culminated in IOM's elevation to a UN-related organisation status in 2016. This has spurred growing interest in its history, structure, and activities. The main argument developed in this article is that IOM exemplifies some of the key changes currently taking place in the way international migration is apprehended and governed. This is analysed in terms of four main research issues: (1) the role of IOM in migration politics and its relationship to state sovereignty, (2) IOM's managerial and market-inspired approach to the role of migration in the global economy, (3) IOM's relationship to civil society and the implications of its activities in terms of human rights and humanitarian protection, and (4) IOM's normative influence on the production of knowledge and the way migration is intellectually and politically constructed as a research and policy issue.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Review(s) of: A seat at the table: New Zealand and the united nations security council 2015- 2016, edited by Graham Hassall and Negar Partow, Published by: Massey University Press, Auckland, 2020, ...392pp, $45.
This paper discusses the FATF and its relationship with other normative frameworks (security, human rights), and actors (states, private institutions, civil society). It explains how the FATF, was ...appropriated willingly by states, beyond the peer-pressure, or financial repercussions explanations. It finds that one of these reasons was that states could use them to their own benefit through 'rhetorical adaptation'. At the same time, it explains that the FATF's frameworks go beyond merely being 'vague and broad'; they are erroneous in terms of their methodology and contradict certain human rights such as the freedom of association, and the rights to due procedure. To illustrate this, it takes the case of India which has been coerced by the FATF to amend its security legislations to comply with its standards, but which has also instrumentally used these standards against minorities and political dissenters - particularly those that have organized themselves into some form of association (a segment specifically identified by the FATF as being vulnerable to money laundering and financing terrorism). Despite drawing attention to these issues, the FATF continues to operate with empty promises, and the standards continue to be supported and endorsed by the UN mechanisms, in what would otherwise be 'hypocrisy'. This is because the FATF and the UN too, operate within institutional and material limitations - in this case, that its primary members are states or (in fact) representatives of the states, for whom security and political expediency stand at the forefront. Under these circumstances, the organizational doublespeak is but necessary.
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