scholarly journals Ending Corporate Anonymity: Beneficial Ownership, Sanctions Evasion, and What the United Nations Should Do About It

2021 ◽  
pp. 177
Author(s):  
Vineet Chandra
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
International Peace ◽  
Peace Research ◽  
The World ◽  
Beneficial Ownership ◽  
Terrorism Financing ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Defense Studies

In the vast majority of jurisdictions around the world, there is a generous array of corporate forms available to persons and companies looking to do business. These entities come with varying degrees of regulation regarding how much information about the businesses’ principal owners must be disclosed at the time of registration and how much of that information is subsequently available to the public. There is little policy harmonization around the world on this matter. Dictators and despots have long taken advantage of this unintended identity shield to evade sanctions which target them; in July of 2019, the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) published a comprehensive, investigative report into North Korea’s supply chain for luxury vehicles outlawed by U.N.S.C resolution 1718. C4ADS found eighty-two previously unreported shipments of 803 luxury vehicles – including two armored Mercedes limousines Kim Jong-Un was later pictured in – between 2015 and 2017 alone. At least twenty-four corporate entities, mostly based in China and Russia, participated in the process of covertly moving the cars to North Korea as guarantors, consignors, or consignees. Hugh Griffiths, Senior Researcher and Head of Countering Illicit Trafficking-Mechanism Assessment Program at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and coordinator for the U.N. panel convened to monitor North Korean sanctions compliance, summed up the significance of the problem succinctly. “If you can smuggle luxury limos into North Korea, which is done by shipping container,” he says, “that means you can smuggle in smaller components – dual-use items for ballistic and nuclear programs.” Deficient beneficial ownership protections around the world are not just the esoteric consequence of complicated legal systems; they present a significant threat to international peace and security as a vehicle for terrorism financing, sanctions evasion, and other forms of criminal activity. In six parts, this paper considers the development of beneficial ownership regulation since the 1990s, describes current efforts to harmonize jurisdiction-specific approaches, suggests more intensive involvement by the United Nations, establishes the legal basis for the use of the U.N. Security Council’s legislative powers on this issue, and argues that the United Nations is the international organization best-suited to drive towards universal, international compliance with the modern regulatory consensus.

scholarly journals Rethinking the Palestinian Problem and the ‘Right Strategy’ for Palestinian Liberation

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (Summer 2021) ◽  
pp. 11-25
Author(s):  
Berdal Aral
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Peace ◽  
Regional Organizations ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Occupied Territories ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War

The Palestinian tragedy is not simply a matter of one nation-state suppressing another nation that has been deprived of its legitimate right to establish its own state. It is also an ‘international problem’ granting that it has regional, international and global dimensions which implicate the hegemonic world system. Besides, Israel’s aversion to a peaceful posture vis-à-vis the outside world is a threat to international peace and security as defined in the Charter of the United Nations. An emancipatory approach to the Palestinian problem requires that the narrative about the ‘two-state solution’ be abandoned given that it has become a rhetorical shield for international society’s silence in the face of the Israeli fait accomplis in occupied territories. The Arab and the Muslim world, alongside the rest of international society, should no longer view Israel as a ‘normal’ state. Rather, the world ought to consider acting collectively to impose economic, financial, military, political/diplomatic, and cultural embargo against this aggressive, expansionist, and racist state through the United Nations and a host of other international and regional organizations, as was the case vis-à-vis the Apartheid South Africa during the Cold War.

“Instrumentalizing” The United Nations: Nigeria and Its Quest for Regional Leadership in Africa

World Affairs ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 184 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-100
Author(s):  
Segun Oshewolo ◽  
Agaptus Nwozor ◽  
Femi Fayomi ◽  
Motolani Oluwatuyi
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Peace ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Domestic Security ◽  
Power Resources ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
Social And Economic Development ◽  
The World ◽  
Regional Leadership ◽  
The United Nations

This study demonstrates that Nigeria’s power scheme in the United Nations (UN) clearly amounts to “instrumentalizing” the world body in favor of its hegemonic interest in Africa. Through the UN, Nigeria has employed its abundant power resources to support the dismantling of apartheid and colonialism in Africa, contribute actively to the maintenance of international peace, and promote social and economic development in the developing world, including Africa. Nigeria’s exploits in the above areas have yielded notable dividends, particularly the projection of the country as a leading African power. The notable dividends notwithstanding, there have been some major setbacks such as occasional disdain for Nigeria’s interest and ambition in the UN by smaller African countries, overwhelming domestic security challenges, and the consequent waning of Nigeria’s role in UN-mounted peacekeeping. The study recommends that Nigeria must urgently address these challenges to return to its position of prominence in the world body.

North Korea

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boris Kondoch
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Republic Of Korea ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Special Rapporteur ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations

North Korea ranks among the least free societies in the world. The human rights situation inside the country has been described by the first UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Vitit Muntarbhorn as sui generis (in its own category). In 2014, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea released a landmark report. In its detailed and well-written report, the Commission found that North Korea commits crimes against humanity. This chapter discusses the report from the perspective of the responsibility to protect (R2P).

CZY ZALEWA NAS FALA PRZEMOCY? POLITYCY I MEDIA VS. DANE STATYSTYCZNE

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Hamer ◽  
Hanna Hamet
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Police Data ◽  
Sense Of Security ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Drugs And Crime

By detailed analyses of Polish and world statistics, the authors search for the answer if in fact,as some politicians and citizens claim, the world and in particular European Union and Polandare overcome by the wave of violence. Data gathered, among others, by Polish Public OpinionResearch Center (CBOS), Eurostat and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNOCD), aswell as anthropologists and police, clearly prove the opposite. Scientific comparisons concerningviolence over the centuries show that its scale drastically decreased and the world gets saferwith time. Statistical reports of the United Nations especially clearly indicate European Union(including Poland) as particularly peaceful region against the rest of the world, having the lowestmurder rates. Eurostat data confirm these results, also showing decrease in other crimes overthe years. Polish police data similarly prove existence of this trend and CBOS indicates thatit is reflected in increasing sense of security among Poles. In the second part of the article theauthors explain potential reasons for using such false slogans as “increasing wave of violence” bypoliticians and raising fear in voters as well as psychological mechanisms responsible for theirpotential effectiveness.

A Bifurcated Global Nuclear Order

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramesh Thakur
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations

The very destructiveness of nuclear weapons makes them unusable for ethical and military reasons. The world has placed growing restrictions on the full range of nuclear programs and activities. But with the five NPT nuclear powers failing to eliminate nuclear arsenals, other countries acquiring the bomb, arms control efforts stalled, nuclear risks climbing, and growing awareness of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear war, the United Nations adopted a new treaty to ban the bomb. Some technical anomalies between the 1968 and 2017 treaties will need to be harmonized and the nuclear-armed states’ rejection of the ban treaty means it will not eliminate any nuclear warheads. However, it will have a significant normative impact in stigmatizing the possession, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons and serve as a tool for civil society to mobilize domestic and world public opinion against the doctrine of nuclear deterrence.

The World Economy through the Lens of the United Nations

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Policy Recommendations ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
World Economic ◽  
The United Nations

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.

Conference on the Role of Industrialisation in Developing Countries

1964 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 440-442
Author(s):  
Ronald Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
United Nations ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Business Executives ◽  
Agricultural Revolution ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations

At the fourth Cambridge conference on development problems, the role of industry was discussed by ministers, senior officials, economic advisers, and business executives, from 22 African, Asian, and Caribbean countries, the United Nations, and the World Bank. Have some, if not all, of Africa's new nations now reached the stage when it would pay them to put their biggest bets on quick industrialisation? Or must they go on putting most of their money and brains into bringing about an agricultural revolution first, before striving for industrial take-off? These questions started the conference off on one of its big themes.

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