scholarly journals Central and Eastern Europe and the Decline of Russia in the United Nations Administrative Bodies: 1996-2015

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 24-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Parízek ◽  
Ekaterina Ananyeva
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Professional Staff ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Political Divide ◽  
New Eu Member States

In international organizations, states seek representation not only in decision-making and political fora but also in the administrative bodies, or secretariats. This article maps the representation of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries in the secretariats of 36 bodies of the United Nations (UN) system in the years 1996-2015. The CEE region is interesting due to the deep political divide between Russia and the Western-oriented new EU member states. Using new empirical evidence regarding the participation of CEE countries’ citizens on the professional staff of the UN bodies, we show that Russia has dramatically lost much of its representation in the UN administration over the last twenty years. In contrast, a number of other CEE countries have considerably improved their position in it. In spite of that, the countries of the entire CEE region belong to those with an overall weak representation in the administrative bodies of the UN.

scholarly journals Nationality versus Gender? The Administrative Politics of Gender Parity in the United Nations and the Implementation of SCR1325

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Davies
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Peace Operations ◽  
Gender Parity ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract This article will shed light on an under-researched aspect of the implementation of gender policies in the UN Secretariat—the administrative and budgetary committees that establish the staff regulations for civilian personnel. The article will explore how the politics of UN recruitment invokes two primary identities—nationality and gender—and how these conflict with each other. Using demographic analysis of UN civilian staff in peace operations and a micro-case study of an ongoing attempt by the Secretary-General to change the staff rules and regulations to introduce a form of affirmative action to reach gender parity, this article finds that efforts to achieve the representative provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, including through gender parity of civilians in peace operations, are hampered by the primacy of national identity in international organizations as well as by the highly politicized and nation state-driven process of administrative and budgetary decision-making. By focusing on the inner dynamics of decision-making in the United Nations, the article contributes to the literature on international organizations and gender by demonstrating how normative goals can be undermined by competition among member states over internal administrative processes arising from complex principal–agent relationships.

8. International Organizations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dapo Akande
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Legal Personality ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
Treaty Interpretation ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Domestic Law

This chapter examines the legal framework governing international organizations. It begins with an examination of the history, role, and nature of international organizations. It is argued that although the constituent instruments and practices of each organization differ, there are common legal principles which apply to international organizations. The chapter focuses on the identification and exploration of those common legal principles. There is an examination of the manner in which international organizations acquire legal personality in international and domestic law and the consequences of that legal personality. There is also discussion of the manner in which treaties establishing international organizations are interpreted and how this differs from ordinary treaty interpretation. The legal and decision-making competences of international organizations are considered as are the responsibility of international organizations and their privileges and immunities. Finally, the chapter examines the structure and powers of what is the leading international organization—the United Nations (UN).

scholarly journals Delegating diplomacy: rhetoric across agents in the United Nations General Assembly

2021 ◽  
pp. 002085232199756
Author(s):  
Julia Gray ◽  
Alex Baturo
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Single Voice ◽  
United Nations General Assembly ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Career Incentives

When political principals send agents to international organizations, those agents are often assumed to speak in a single voice. Yet, various types of country representatives appear on the international stage, including permanent representatives as well as more overtly “political” government officials. We argue that permanent delegates at the United Nations face career incentives that align them with the bureaucracy, setting them apart from political delegates. To that end, they tend to speak more homogeneously than do other types of speakers, while also using relatively more technical, diplomatic rhetoric. In addition, career incentives will make them more reluctant to criticize the United Nations. In other words, permanent representatives speak more like bureaucratic agents than like political principals. We apply text analytics to study differences across agents’ rhetoric at the United Nations General Assembly. We demonstrate marked distinctions between the speech of different types of agents, contradictory to conventional assumptions, with implications for our understandings of the interplay between public administration and agency at international organizations. Points for practitioners Delegations to international organizations do not “speak with one voice.” This article illustrates that permanent representatives to the United Nations display more characteristics of bureaucratic culture than do other delegates from the same country. For practitioners, it is important to realize that the manner in which certain classes of international actors “conduct business” can differ markedly. These differences in tone—even among delegates from the same principal—can impact the process of negotiation and debate.

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.

UNICEF in Central America

1960 ◽  
Vol 329 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-77
Author(s):  
Alice C. Shaffer
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Central America ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Central American ◽  
The World ◽  
Working Together ◽  
Integrated Programs ◽  
Regional Basis ◽  
The United Nations

Central America has been one of the pioneer areas for the United Nations Children's Fund assisted pro grams. When the United Nations Children's Fund, under a broadened mandate from the United Nations, shifted the emphasis of its aid from emergency to long term and from war-torn countries to those economically less developed, Cen tral American governments immediately requested its assist ance to strengthen and extend services to children and mothers. As one of the first areas in the world to aim at the eradication of malaria and to have engaged in an inten sive campaign against malnutrition on a regional basis, the Central American experiences in these fields have become known, watched, and studied by people from many countries. Against this background, international and bilateral organi zations are working together with governments as they broaden the scope and the extent of their programs. Ten years of co-operative action have highlighted the need for train ing of personnel, both professional and auxiliary. This period has also made clear the value of more integrated programs with wider collaboration both within the ministries of government and between the international organizations.

International Labor Organization

1948 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 359-360 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Labor Organization ◽  
International Labor Organization ◽  
American States ◽  
International Labor ◽  
Social Council ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
June July

Report to the Economic and Social Council: The International Labor Organization submitted to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations on, September 29, 1947 a report on its activities during the year 1947. This report, the first of a regular series which ILO had agreed to submit regularly (Article V paragraph 2(a) of the Agreement between the United Nations and the ILO), included background information and covered the period from the establishment of the United Nations to July 15, 1947. This report dealt with the decisions of five successive sessions of the International Labor Conference, i.e., those held in Philadelphia, May 1947, in Paris, October–November 1945, in Seattle, June 1946, in Montreal, September–October 1946, and in Geneva, June–July 1947. Future reports, it was announced, would cover only one year's work. The report was accompanied by a volume containing a series of appendices which included the text of the Constitution of ILO as amended by the 1946 Instrument of Amendment, the text of the Agreement between the United Nations and ILO, a list of the committees of ILO, a list of meetings convened by ILO as well as meetings of other international organizations at which ILO was represented during the period covered by the report, a list of and the texts of Conventions, Recommendations, and some of the Resolutions adopted by the International Labor Conference, resolutions adopted by the third Conference of American States Members of ILO, held in 1946, and the text of the agreement between ILO and FAO.

How Persons with Intellectual Disabilities Are Fighting for Decision-Making Rights

2022 ◽  
Vol 121 (831) ◽  
pp. 30-35
Author(s):  
Chester A. Finn ◽  
Matthew S. Smith ◽  
Michael Ashley Stein
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Intellectual Disability ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Intellectual Disabilities ◽  
Legal Capacity ◽  
Disability Rights ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The United Nations

Paternalistic attitudes about what is in the interests of a person with an intellectual disability have long led to abuses, and are embedded in the guardianship laws still in place in most countries. Self-advocates, who identify as people with intellectual or other disabilities and are committed to demanding their rights and educating others about them, are calling for a new approach. They have found support for reforms in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, adopted by the United Nations in 2006 and since acceded to by 182 countries. By supporting the fundamental right of those with disabilities to make decisions, it has enabled disability rights advocates to successfully challenge legal capacity restrictions and push for “supported decision-making.”

scholarly journals Theorizing or Negotiating the Law?: A Response to Devika Hovell

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 3-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonios Tzanakopoulos
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Regional Level ◽  
Cholera Outbreak ◽  
A Value ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
State Practice ◽  
The United Nations

Devika Hovell’s article is a very welcome and useful contribution to the debate regarding the “accountability” (whatever the term may mean) of international organizations, and the United Nations in particular. The author argues that scholarship has tended to focus on (descriptive) state practice to the detriment of (normative) theoretical appeal, and so the relevant discussion “has received inadequate theoretical attention.” In response, she sets out to tell the story of the United Nations being held to account through a highly theorized (and, if I may venture even at the outset, perhaps a bit stylized) scheme of contrasting “instrumentalist,” “dignitarian,” and “public interest” approaches to due process. This she applies to two case studies, one regarding targeted sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council, mainly in the context of antiterrorism; and one regarding the cholera outbreak in Haiti, where the United Nations has been implicated. Hovell critiques both the instrumentalist and dignitarian approaches, which correspond in broad terms to legal action at the international, and the domestic/regional level, respectively, and argues in favor of a “public interest” approach as better reflecting a “value-based” due process.

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