scholarly journals The role of metaphor in shaping the identity and agenda of the United Nations: The imagining of an international community and international threat

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa J. McEntee-Atalianis
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Well Being ◽  
International Community ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
International Diplomacy ◽  
The Common ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
International Threat

This article examines the representation of the United Nations in speeches delivered by its Secretary-General (SG). It focuses on the role of metaphor in constructing a common ‘imagining’ of international diplomacy and legitimizing an international organizational identity. The SG legitimizes the organization, in part, through the delegitimization of agents/actions/events constructed as threatening to the international community and to the well-being of mankind. It is a desire to combat the forces of menace or evil which are argued to motivate and determine the organizational agenda. This is predicated upon an international ideology of humanity in which difference is silenced and ‘working towards the common good’ is emphasized. This is exploited to rouse emotions and legitimize institutional power. Polarization and antithesis are achieved through the employment of metaphors designed to enhance positive and negative evaluations. The article further points to the constitutive, persuasive and edifying1 power of topic and situationally motivated metaphors in speech-making.

scholarly journals Brazilian Hydropolitics under the United Nations 2030 Agenda

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabela Battistello Espindola ◽  
Maria Luisa Telarolli de Almeida Leite ◽  
Luis Paulo Batista da Silva
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Well Being ◽  
2030 Agenda ◽  
Development Agenda ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
The United Nations

The global framework set forth by the United Nations 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) include water resources in their scope, which emphasizes how water assets and society well-being are closely intertwined and how crucial they are to achieving sustainable development. This paper explores the role of hydropolitics in that Post-2015 Development Agenda and uses Brazilian hydropolitics set to reach SDG6 as a case study.

The Role of UN Documentation in Shaping Narratives at the International Criminal Court and the Implications for the Rights of the Accused

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Anne Herzberg
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Community ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Close Cooperation ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Primary Basis

Abstract The International Criminal Court (icc) is an independent treaty-based international organisation acting in close cooperation with the United Nations (UN). To that end, organs of the Court have extensively relied on UN documentation in proceedings. These materials have been used to support grounds for the exercise of jurisdiction, demonstrate legal elements of crimes, and prove matters of fact. In recent practice, including in the situations of Palestine, Bangladesh/Myanmar, and Mali, UN materials have been used to establish legal and factual matters on the primary basis that they represent the ‘views of the international community’. This paper examines the ways in which Court organs rely on UN documentation in icc proceedings. It assesses the interplay of such information with rights of the accused. The paper concludes that in order to safeguard its credibility and the fairness of the proceedings, the Court should adopt specific guidelines relating to the evaluation of and admissibility of UN materials.

Human Rights NGOs and their Role in the Promotion and Protection of Rights in Africa

2002 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Community ◽  
Emerging Issues ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
The United Nations

Abstract‘NGOs and, more generally, organizations of the civil society, no longer simply have a consumer relationship with the United Nations. They have increasingly assumed the role of promoters of new ideas, they alerted the international community to emerging issues, and they have developed expertise and talent which, in an increasing number of areas, have become vital to the work of the United Nations, both at the policy and operational levels.’

Mutuality and the study of suicide: Psychological notions on military suicides in Israeli courts

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (6) ◽  
pp. 1282-1299
Author(s):  
Nitzan Rothem ◽  
Eyal Ben-Ari
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Settings ◽  
The Common ◽  
Contractual Obligations ◽  
Psychological Reasoning ◽  
The Military

This article addresses the complementary work of psychological notions and courts in handling suicides occurring in the course of military service. We suggest the category of mutuality between individuals and social settings as an analytic perspective for the study of suicide, illuminating not only how suicide is constructed, but also theorizing the effects of this construction. Our findings rest on content analysis of 34 verdicts on cases of suicide occurring within the Israeli military. In these verdicts, mostly issued to resolve disputes between bereaved parents and state authorities, Israeli courts decided on the causes of death and the responsibilities of the military and state for soldiers’ suicides. Courts base their decisions on the ambiguous psychological concept of suicidal individuals, explaining self-demise as the result of an internal malaise and avoid addressing the coercive circumstances within which Israeli soldiers operate. By conclusively linking self-demise to suicidality, courts produce an idea of death-seeking soldiers, who fail to ensure their own well-being as well as to defend the common good. Courts render the difficulties encountered during military service mental and personal, thereby contracting, standardizing, and individualizing the idea of mutuality between soldiers, families, and state. To explain these repercussions of juridification and psychologization processes, we draw attention to Durkheim’s conceptualization of contractual obligations and non-contractual sentiments. We elaborate on the Durkheimian connection between solidarity and suicide, by highlighting the outcomes of their interrelated management, especially the courts’ shaping of thin mutuality when arbitrating suicide disputes. Adopting psychological reasoning and assessing personal responsibility, courts potentially fail in their constitutive role of discussing matters of collective concerns.

Remarks by Saul H. Mendlovitz

1973 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 117-122
Author(s):  
Saul H. Mendlovitz ◽  
Alan Gerson
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Community ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Global Village ◽  
Basic Premise ◽  
Entire World ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Authority Structures

It is a basic premise of my remarks here today that it is necessary to take quite seriously not only the rhetoric but the reality of the term “the global village.” That is to say, it is now clear that 98% of humankind sees the entire world as human society. This phenomenon, it should be underscored, is a psycho-historical first, and has had a drastic impact on the images and the attitudes we have in regard to authority structures within domestic societies, as well as within the international community. One of the implications of saying that there is a “global village” is that sometime within the next two decades many people throughout the globe are likely to begin to discuss quite seriously the governance of that global village in ways perhaps which we previously had eschewed. I should like to address myself initially to that theme and then come back to the role of the United Nations and some specific recommendations.

The United Nations: A Real Force for the Common Good

2011 ◽  
Vol 100 (412) ◽  
pp. 95-96
Author(s):  
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Common Good ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Common ◽  
The United Nations

Building UNESCO science from the “dark zone”: Joseph Needham, Empire, and the wartime reorganization of international science from China, 1942–6

2021 ◽  
pp. 007327532098742
Author(s):  
Thomas Mougey
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Scientific Cooperation ◽  
International Diplomacy ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Second World

In recent years historians have revisited the creation of the United Nations (UN) system by highlighting the enduring influence of Empire and recognizing the substantial role of cultural and scientific actors in wartime international diplomacy. The British biochemist Joseph Needham, who participated in the creation of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), was one of them. Yet, if historians have recognized his role as the leading architect of the sciences at UNESCO, they still fall short of engaging with the Chinese and imperial geography of his involvement with UNESCO. During the Second World War, Needham was stationed in war-torn China. As director of the Sino-British Scientific Cooperation Office, Needham not only organized Sino-British scientific cooperation against the Japanese invasion, but his mission inspired his engagement for a reform of international science and fueled an international campaign that led him to become the director of UNESCO’s Natural Science division after the war. By reconstructing his campaign in context, this article seeks to demonstrate how the imperial and transnational scientific networks of the wartime era fostered the creation of a scientific mandate for UNESCO. It situates Needham’s activism and ideas in the context of the Sino-Japanese war, imperial wartime technocracy, and China’s scientific nationalism. In so doing, it reveals a string of forgotten partners from China and the British Empire. Their conception of a reorganized international science and shared belief in modern science and its ideal of universality shaped Needham’s vision for science at UNESCO, while their activism contributed decisively to the success of his campaign. This inquiry hence participates in recent efforts to challenge the existing Eurocentrism corseting the historiography of the UN and expands the historiography of scientific internationalism beyond Europe and North America. Importantly, it also contributes to uncovering the technocratic ties established between Empire and the UN system from its onset.

scholarly journals Learning from Rohingya Refugee Repatriation to Myanmar

Refuge ◽  
2000 ◽  
pp. 38-43
Author(s):  
K. C. Saha
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Community ◽  
The Status ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
National Governments

The author examines the role of the United Nations and the international community in establishing criteria for the return of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar from Bangladesh. This study highlights the importance of the international community in establishing standards and supporting the return, even in cases where the national governments involved (Myanmar and Bangladesh) have never signed the un Convention on the Status of Refugees. The author concludes that the repatriation of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh has been relatively successful, and that the pattern seen in this return could be usefully replicated in order to bring about the voluntary repatriation of other refugee groups to Myanmar.

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