Can the UN General Assembly act on Ukraine?
This food crisis suggests the need to establish secure transportation zones in Ukraine and the Black Sea to allow food to be gathered and transported.... Read More
UN Day: strengthening and reforming
24 October is UN Day, marking the day when there were enough ratifications including those of the five permanent members of the proposed Security Council... Read More
The United Nations at 75 – due for a rewrite?
The increasing frustration of the west with the United Nations will surely spell the organisation’s downfall unless it adapts to what its three western permanent... Read More
UN Day – strengthening and reforming
24 October is U.N. Day, marking the day when there were enough ratifications including those of the five permanent members of the proposed Security Council... Read More
Why is multilateral diplomacy so difficult?
Multilateral diplomacy is difficult, and we may only now be learning how most effectively to undertake this art. But it is necessary. There are too... Read More
Strategies for reforming the United Nations
If reform is not attempted and achieved, then increasingly the Great Powers of today are just going to ignore the United Nations and its bureaucracy,... Read More
Religious tolerance in an age of extremes – a multilateral approach
The promotion of the paramount moral pillars of religious identity, freedom and respect each for the other remains one of the foremost roles for the... Read More
What should the United States do with the United Nations?
The United Nations cannot be disciplined just by cutting budgets, and there is (marginally) more to be lost by withdrawing than by staying in. While... Read More
The sociology of the United Nations
To change the dysfunctional sociology of the United Nations, a freedom of information statute is required. There is seldom good reason to keep the operations... Read More
Insuring against war – the role of the United Nations in the modern world
The UN requires a root and branch change in the way it hires, trains, promotes and retains its staff. The organisation must redefine its purpose,... Read More
Are the sustainable development goals useful?
One should recognise the Sustainable Development Goals as a political tool for the international community to better achieve the goals of development economics using a... Read More
Human rights in the United Nations system
The scale of the crisis in the UN human rights architecture is confirmed when the world’s biggest donor, and one of the world’s principal advocates... Read More
A modern theory of international relations
The contemporary set of international institutions with which the globe is currently burdened, having developed into voluminous bureaucratic monstrosities over decades, have lost such a... Read More
Europe and the Trump Presidency
The UN is widely regarded as an embarrassment and even a disgrace. International law is honoured in the breach. Unless and until the international system... Read More
The future of the United Nations Development system
There remain many flaws in the UN Development System, arising from the bureaucratic waste typical in any multilateral agency. But because there is no money... Read More
International cooperation on intellectual property
The World Intellectual Property Organization was a brilliant idea, undoubtedly designed by a highly astute international intellectual property lawyer. Where it went wrong was in... Read More
The politics of identity
Identity politics is liable to rear its head during extended periods of recession or flat growth, because voters lose faith in ideological or even technocratic... Read More
Can the United Nations do peacekeeping?
The United Nations needs to be more dynamic. It has only limited resources. Once the UN can do no more in a crisis, it should... Read More
The international civil service
We have reached a crisis point, wherein the status quo is unsustainable. Member states who make budgetary contributions to the United Nations disproportionate to their... Read More
UN peacekeeping – are there other avenues for armed conflict resolution?
There is currently within the UN an active discussion of UN peacekeeping efforts, their usefulness and their weaknesses. More attention to non-governmental peace teams may... Read More
An introduction to financing the United Nations
The United Nations must be held to the same standards as other organizations of its size. These are legal, accounting, regulatory and transparency standards. It... Read More
How the United Nations can harness ‘People Power’
The United Nations has acknowledged that a vital element in peacebuilding is nonviolent, grassroots movements that can prevent violent conflict by providing ways for people... Read More
Peacekeeping, human rights and peacekeeper wrongdoing
The mandate of the United Nations is to protect the human rights of some of the world’s most vulnerable people. If people acting in its... Read More
What is the United Nations supposed to be doing?
The challenge the United Nations faces today is that the vast majority of people have forgotten what the UN is supposed to be doing, and... Read More
Chinese leadership on UN reform
The Chinese proposals for reform of the UN merit close attention. Most are not radically new. The proposals are very “State-centric”. The role and capacity... Read More
