scholarly journals Introduction: Looking Back to Look Forward

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-283
Author(s):  
Margaret P. Karns

The seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of the United Nations in 1945 invites us to look back at the achievement of creating this new organization even before the guns had fallen silent in World War II. It also prompts us to ask: Where is the organization today? How well has it fulfilled and is it still fulfilling the high ideals of its Charter? Even more importantly, how confident can we be that what has grown into the complex UN system will not just survive but also provide its member states and the peoples of the world with the organizational structures, resources, and tools needed to address twenty-first century challenges?

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Thomas G Weiss

AbstractThis essay poses two questions: “Would the World Be Better without the UN?” and “Would the World Be Better without Donald Trump?” The answers are “No” and “Yes.” It begins by discussing the UN’s value and continues by probing the historical context of U.S. approaches to multilateralism and Washington’s unhesitating leadership during World War II, an era as fraught as ours. It then analyzes the implications of the Trump Administration’s “America First” policy on the United Nations and considers the possibilities for concerted international action without Washington. It concludes by examining the odds that the world body can become fitter-for-purpose.


2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 365-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Poirier ◽  
Catherine Ouellet ◽  
Marc-Antoine Rancourt ◽  
Justine Béchard ◽  
Yannick Dufresne

The current COVID-19 crisis is unprecedented in recent history. On April 1, 2020, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, warned that the world was facing the most challenging crisis since World War II (Associated Press, 2020). With the pandemic taking on an unprecedented magnitude in the twenty-first century, it quickly monopolized media attention. As of early April, Radar+'s large dataset showed that about 65 per cent of headlines on major Canadian media websites were related to the COVID-19 pandemic.


1952 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence S. Finkelstein

Seven years have passed since the UN Charter was signed in San Francisco in the month of June 1945. In that short time, events have disproved some of the most important assumptions about the postwar world on which the 1945 decisions were based.Efforts have been made, notably in the improvisations of the Korea police action, in the creation of the Interim Committee, and in the Uniting for Peace Resolution, to adapt the structure conceived at San Francisco so that it would more closely meet the needs of the world as it emerged from the crucible of World War II.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-359
Author(s):  
Devaki Jain

AbstractIn its seventy-fifth year, the UN needs to reflect more seriously on its value in the current global scenario, the current flow of ideas, and the current flow of power that is prevalent in the world. It is important to recall that the UN was founded after World War II as a way of addressing conflict at the negotiating table rather than on the battlefield. Negotiating peace, attempting to provide some form of justice, and affirmation of human rights seemed to be the aspiration. It is within this context that women engaged in affirming their own special location in society and economy. However, over the years the UN has revealed its inability to fulfill these goals. Perhaps in the midst of all these failures, the only category of people that has drawn strength from the UN, but now has to leave it behind, are women. Scattered as they were across a world of distances, women of different cultures and classes found strength in numbers and, through the UN system and the conferences they convened, became a power of their own. As part of the special issue on “The United Nations at Seventy-Five: Looking Back to Look Forward,” this essay argues that today, however, women do not need and cannot have their aspirations be facilitated by the UN, because in their engagement with one another they have also recognized their differences. Being of similar gender does not necessarily overcome other oppressive differences.


JOURNAL ASRO ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (02) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Edwin Edwin

The United Nations (UN) was founded on October 24, 1945 or after World War II ended. At the time of its establishment, the UN consists of 51 member countries and continues to grow until now it has 193 members. The birth of the UN was motivated by the failure of The League of Nations because it could not realize the desire of its founders to create peace throughout the world by preventing war. After World War I, it turned out that World War II was still followed. The UN is considered successful in preventing a widespread war so that until now there has been no World War III. However, in the current situation, wars in several parts of the world have recurred, such as in Syria, Palestine, Azerbaijan and others. The existence of the UN as a universal organization that maintains peace is again being questioned. The ability, especially the Security Council, as one of its organs to prevent war, needs to be improved.   Keywords: The Security Council, UN Charter, Veto


This volume documents the intellectual influence of the United Nations through its flagship publication, the World Economic and Social Survey (WESS) on its seventieth anniversary. Prepared at the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and first published in 1948 as the World Economic Report (subsequently renamed the WESS), it is the oldest continuous post-World War II publication of this kind, recording and analysing the performance of the global economy and social development trends, and offering relevant policy recommendations. This volume highlights how well WESS has tracked global economic and social conditions, and how its analyses have influenced and have been influenced by the prevailing discourse over the past seven decades. The volume critically reflects on its policy recommendations and their influence on actual policymaking and the shaping of the world economy. Although world economic and social conditions have changed significantly over the past seven decades and so have the policy recommendations of the Survey, some of its earlier recommendations remain relevant today; recommendations in WESS provided seven decades ago seem remarkably pertinent as the world currently struggles to regain high levels of employment and economic activity. Thus, in many ways, WESS was ahead of the curve on many substantive issues. Publication of this volume will enhance the interest of the wider community of policymakers, academics, development practitioners, and members of civil society in the analytical work of the UN in general and UN-DESA in particular.


2019 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 336-344
Author(s):  
Andrew C. Isenberg

Seventy years ago, Pacific Historical Review published one of the journal’s first “special issues,” looking back on the California Gold Rush. The special issue came at a significant transitional moment in the study of the Gold Rush. In the late 1940s, historians had begun to turn away from nationalist and celebratory accounts of the Gold Rush and toward more critical perspectives. The influence of the World War II was acute, particularly in encouraging a more international perspective on the Gold Rush. (The full text of the 1949 special issue, “Rushing for Gold,” is available at http://phr.ucpress.edu/content/18/1.)


1970 ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Lebanese American University

The moment the United Nations declared 1990 as International Literacy Year, the international literacy movement began to consider how the year could strenghten the movement in every corner of the world. The U.N. plan of action is to "help member states in all regions to eradicate illiteracy by the year 2000".


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 10505
Author(s):  
María Mar Miralles-Quirós ◽  
José Luis Miralles-Quirós

On 25 September 2015, the member states of the United Nations approved an initiative in New York called “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” [...]


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Giles Scott-Smith

The United Nations Information Office (UNIO), dating from 1942, holds the distinction of being both the first international agency of the embryonic UN network and the first to hold the United Nations label. Run from 1942 to 1945 from two offices in New York and London, these two were merged at the end of World War II to form the UN Information Organisation, and subsequently transformed into the Department of Public Information run from UN headquarters in New York. This article adds to the history of the UN by exploring the origins and development of the UNIO during 1940–41, when it was a British-led propaganda operation to gather US support for the allied war effort. It also examines the UNIO from the viewpoint of the power transition from Britain to the United States that took place during the war, and how this reflected a transition of internationalisms: from the British view of world order through benevolent imperialism to the American view of a progressive campaign for global development and human rights.


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