A synthesis of personal and public history : 1990’s Achkar and Peck

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-106
Author(s):  
Servanne Woodward
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Public History ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Personal Impact ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
Administration Of Justice ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Raoul Peck ◽  
World Organization

The 1991 films of David Achkar, a French-Guinean filmmaker, and Raoul Peck, a Haitian filmmaker whose family spent many years in the Congo, intersect around Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961), the first Congolese prime minister and victim of a political murder. Both films remain intensely personal if not intimate. Achkar is reminiscent of Beckett in the depiction of “waiting for” an occurrence ever differed. What is haunting about Achkar’s quest is that the filmmaker is in search of his father Marof David Achkar (1930-1971), a choreographer of the Keïta Fodeba “Ballets Africains” (1955-1960) and cultural counsellor to the Guinean embassy in Washington (1960-1964). Marof had replaced Telli Diallo at the United Nations (1964-1968) when he worked against apartheid in South Africa; in 1968 U. Thant (secretary to the United Nations) recommended him to a post of high commissioner to the World Organization in Namibia, a proposal rejected by Sékou Touré (elected as the first President of Guinea, serving from 1958 until his death in 1984) who recalled him to Conakry. Upon his return to Guinea, Marof Achkar was arrested and brought to camp Boiro, where he was tortured, made to sign charges of embezzlement and executed on January 25, 1971. At the time, David Achkar was a child — something of the child remains in the biography of his father. Beyond his father’s political ordeal is the first-hand demonstration of the personal impact the execution had on him; he connects more publicly and didactically with the administration of justice versus political murders in his last film, Kiti, justice en Guinée (1996). Both Achkar and Peck employ collages of family reels, documentaries, and film that may be inspired by Surrealism, a movement mentioned in Death of a Prophet (1991). Peck also moved toward a stronger Marxist message in his 2017 film about the German philosopher, and though he has done several documentaries, he is attached to the current relevance of legacies when he depicts Marx as appealing to today’s youth. In both 1991 films, the sliding distance of political heroes, from public careers to intimate family documents is further complicated by the filmmakers’ decision to intertwine plain autobiography to their biographies. They are working from the premises of affective encounters to create a sense of community. Eventually, Achkar and Peck raise issues about the philosophical nature of identity and the autobiography involved in the encounter with sacrificed or resurrected prophets as interpreted in Allah-Tantou—God’s Will be Done [À la grâce de Dieu] (1991) by David Achkar (1960-1998) and Death of a Prophet, by Raoul Peck (1954-present).

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian MacNaughton ◽  
Mariah McGill
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Limited Capacity ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right

For over two decades, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has taken a leading role in promoting human rights globally by building the capacity of people to claim their rights and governments to fulfill their obligations. This chapter examines the extent to which the right to health has evolved in the work of the OHCHR since 1994, drawing on archival records of OHCHR publications and initiatives, as well as interviews with OHCHR staff and external experts on the right to health. Analyzing this history, the chapter then points to factors that have facilitated or inhibited the mainstreaming of the right to health within the OHCHR, including (1) an increasing acceptance of economic and social rights as real human rights, (2) right-to-health champions among the leadership, (3) limited capacity and resources, and (4) challenges in moving beyond conceptualization to implementation of the right to health.

Mandate or Donors? Explaining the UNHCR’s Country-Level Expenditures from 1967 to 2016

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172097433
Author(s):  
Svanhildur Thorvaldsdottir ◽  
Ronny Patz ◽  
Klaus H Goetz
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Voluntary Contributions ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
Country Level ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
Donor Influence ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Major Donors ◽  
Expenditure Allocation

In recent decades, many international organizations have become almost entirely funded by voluntary contributions. Much existing literature suggests that major donors use their funding to refocus international organizations’ attention away from their core mandate and toward serving donors’ geostrategic interests. We investigate this claim in the context of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), examining whether donor influence negatively impacts mandate delivery and leads the organization to direct expenditures more toward recipient countries that are politically, economically, or geographically salient to major donors. Analyzing a new dataset of UNHCR finances (1967–2016), we find that UNHCR served its global mandate with considerable consistency. Applying flexible measures of collective donor influence, so-called “influence-weighted interest scores,” our findings suggest that donor influence matters for the expenditure allocation of the agency, but that mandate-undermining effects of such influence are limited and most pronounced during salient refugee situations within Europe.

Fever Chart of the U.N.

Worldview ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 19 (10) ◽  
pp. 9-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe Byrns Sills
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Early Years ◽  
International Labor Organization ◽  
Great Expectations ◽  
Palestine Liberation Organization ◽  
Current State ◽  
International Labor ◽  
Current Attitude ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
World Organization

Recent events in the United Nations have called into question American support for the world organization—particularly resolutions of the Twenty-Ninth General Assembly (1974) giving observer status to the Palestine Liberation Organization, resolutions of the Thirtieth Assembly (1975) equating Zionism with racism, and recent actions of the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Labor Organization. What I plan here, using polling data primarily, is an analysis of the current state of American public opinion about the U.N., and I want to place the current attitude in historical perspective.In the early years of the organization—roughly from the signing of the Charter in 1945 through the Korean armistice in 1953—the American public tended to have great expectations of the United Nations.

The Repatriation and Resettlement of the Southern Sudanese

1972 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 23-26
Author(s):  
Louise W. Holborn
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Displaced Persons ◽  
Refugee Population ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
The Past ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations

While the world press has focused over the past year on problems surrounding the creation of still another refugee population in Africa — that of Uganda's Asians — far too little attention has been directed to the remarkable though still fragile process of repatriation and resettlement of hundreds of thousands of Southern Sudanese. This population of displaced persons includes both refugees who fled to other countries and large numbers of homeless who hid in the bush during the civil war that wracked the Sudan for seventeen years, from 1955 through the first months of 1972. Responding to the initiatives of President Gaafar al-Nimeiry of the Sudan, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (HCR), under an explicit mandate from the Secretary- General of the United Nations, has been raising funds, organizing activities on behalf of the most pressing needs and working closely with all local interests to meet overwhelming problems.

Making the United Nations Work

1946 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 528-532
Author(s):  
Quincy Wright
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
World Federation ◽  
Human Welfare ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Social Council ◽  
Domestic Jurisdiction ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Important Position ◽  
World Organization

The United Nations is a transitional organization. It includes in its structure aspects of several types of world organization. The privileged position of the great powers suggests that it is a world empire governed by these powers.The broad principles stated in the preamble and the first two articles providing for pacific settlements of disputes, forbidding aggressive wars, requiring cooperation in suppressing such war, encouraging international cooperation, and protecting the domestic jurisdiction of all states suggests that the United Nations may rely primarily on moral principles. The fact that there are five great powers, each with a veto vote on the use of sanctions, suggests that the success of the organization depends upon maintaining a balance of power among these states. Finally, the provisions concerning human rights and cooperation for human welfare through the Economic and Social Council, together with the important position given the International Court of Justice, look in the direction of world federation.

Origins of the United Nations

2018 ◽  
pp. 40-58
Author(s):  
Justin Morris
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
United Nations ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
World Organization

This chapter analyzes the transformational journey that plans for the United Nations undertook from summer 1941 to the San Francisco Conference of 1945 at which the UN Charter was agreed. Prior to the conference, the ‘Big Three’ great powers of the day—the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom—often struggled to establish the common ground on which the UN’s success would depend. However, their debates were only the start of the diplomatic travails which would eventually lead to the establishment of the world organization that we know today. Once gathered at San Francisco, the fifty delegations spent the next two months locked in debate over issues such as the role of international law; the relationship between the General Assembly and Security Council; the permanent members’ veto; and Charter amendment. One of modern history’s most important diplomatic events, its outcome continues to resonate through world politics.

Responsibility of the United Nations for the Activities of Private Military and Security Companies in Peacekeeping Operations: In Need of a New International Instrument

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 152-187
Author(s):  
Jessica Pressler
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Legal Obligation ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Legal Obligations ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
World Organization ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Security Companies

This chapter deals with the rising deployment of private military and security companies (pmscs) in peacekeeping operations of the United Nations and the demand for an increased willingness on part of the international organisation to take on responsibility for potential wrongdoings by its contracted personnel. It aims to demonstrate that the un is vested with a legal obligation to ensure that the conduct of private contractors under its command complies with obligations under international law and identifies possibilities to formulate a new regulatory framework in light of the recent Montreux Process and the Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations. The chapter further outlines ways for remedial mechanisms for potential victims of pmsc peacekeeper wrongdoings and offers an insight into the general tension between the organization’s immunity and its accountability. While the un’s reliance on pmscs in peacekeeping operations is an efficient mean to secure troops, it must go hand in hand with the compliance of international legal obligations and institutional responsibility so as to ensure its legitimacy and credibility as a world organization mandated to maintain peace and security and to respect human rights.

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