scholarly journals Climate Collapse, Judgment Day, and the Temporal Sublime

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-143
Author(s):  
Ted Toadvine ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Web Page ◽  
Defining Moment ◽  
Important Challenge ◽  
Opening Line ◽  
The United Nations

It is commonplace today to hear climate change identified as the single most important challenge facing humanity. Consider the headlines from COP24, the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Poland in December 2018. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres opened the proceedings by calling climate change “the most important issue we face” (PBS 2018). The Secretary-General’s remarks paraphrase the opening line of the U.N.’s climate change web page, which announces that “[c]limate Change is the defining issue of our time and we are at a defining moment” (United Nations n.d.). Such statements about the singular significance of climate change—the most important, the defining issue—are often followed by proclamations about what hangs in the balance, and this was the case at COP24. There, the celebrated British naturalist Sir David Attenborough warned that “collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizons,” amounting to, in his words, “disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years” (PBS 2018).

United States Announces Plans to Withdraw from Paris Agreement on Climate Change

2017 ◽  
Vol 111 (4) ◽  
pp. 1036-1044 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
United Nations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
The United Nations

On September 3, 2016, the United States deposited with the UN its instrument of acceptance for the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The agreement entered into force on November 4, 2016. Following the change of U.S. presidential administrations, new President Donald Trump announced less than seven months later that the United States would withdraw from the Agreement. On August 4, 2017, the United States communicated this intention to the United Nations secretary-general, who serves as the depositary for the agreement.

The UN Secretary-General and the Security Council

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Organizational Relationships ◽  
Dynamic Relationship ◽  
International Mediation ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Relationship

The United Nations Secretary-General and the United Nations Security Council spend significant amounts of time on their relationship with each other. They rely on each other for such important activities as peacekeeping, international mediation, and the formulation and application of normative standards in defense of international peace and security—in other words, the executive aspects of the UN’s work. The edited book The UN Secretary-General and the Security Council: A Dynamic Relationship aims to fill an important lacuna in the scholarship on the UN system. Although there exists an impressive body of literature on the development and significance of the Secretariat and the Security Council as separate organs, an important gap remains in our understanding of the interactions between them. Bringing together some of the most prominent authorities on the subject, this volume is the first book-length treatment of this topic. It studies the UN from an innovative angle, creating new insights on the (autonomous) policy-making of international organizations and adding to our understanding of the dynamics of intra-organizational relationships. Within the book, the contributors examine how each Secretary-General interacted with the Security Council, touching upon such issues as the role of personality, the formal and informal infrastructure of the relationship, the selection and appointment processes, as well as the Secretary-General’s threefold role as a crisis manager, administrative manager, and manager of ideas.

scholarly journals The COVID-19 test of the United Nations Security Council

2021 ◽  
pp. 002070202098689
Author(s):  
Bruno Charbonneau
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Cooperation ◽  
Security Council ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Global Order ◽  
Multilateral Cooperation ◽  
The United Nations

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has failed the COVID-19 test, unable to promote or facilitate multilateral cooperation in dealing with the outbreak. This is worrying given its relevance as a principal organ of the United Nations (UN) that could enable or constrain international cooperation and given the need for such cooperation in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. The failure of the UNSC to respond adequately to the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the historical limits of the UNSC as a forum for international cooperation. It also suggests that highlighting and debating UNSC reforms are not sufficient or even productive ways to move forward, especially in the context of the challenges that pandemics and climate change represent for global cooperation. It is far from clear if the UN system can change the global structures on which it was built. What does seem clear is that the UNSC is not where one will find the seeds of change for reimagining global order.

Improving the Operation and Functioning of the International Criminal Tribunals

2000 ◽  
Vol 94 (4) ◽  
pp. 759-773 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daryl A. Mundis
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Expert Group ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
International Tribunals ◽  
The United Nations

Since the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, both International Tribunals have grown tremendously in terms of resources. Despite this growth, the International Tribunals have rendered judgments in only fifteen cases and conducted inordinately long trials—a fault for which, perhaps more than any other, they can be justly criticized. The Secretary- General of the United Nations recently appointed an expert group to review the efficiency of the operation of the International Tribunals and make recommendations for improvement. Following the release of the group's report, the General Assembly requested that the Secretary-General obtain comments from the International Tribunals on the experts’ recommendations. The ICTYjudges, for their part, considered these recommendations in a report to the United Nations setting forth a long-term strategy for improving the operation of the Tribunal.

2. Memorandum on the Legal Aspects of the Problem of Representation in the United Nations, Transmitted to the President of the Security Council by the Secretary-General (Lie), March 8, 1950.

1950 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 356-360
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Member States ◽  
Practical Standpoint ◽  
The United Nations

The primary difficulty in the current question of the representation of Member States in die United Nations is that this question of representation has been linked up with the question of recognition by Member Governments.It will be shown here that this linkage is unfortunate from the practical standpoint, and wrong from the standpoint of legal theory.

Environmental and Collective Rights: Differences between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous ngo s Involved with the United Nations Human Rights Council

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Maia Hallward ◽  
Charity Butcher ◽  
Jonathan Taylor Downs ◽  
Emily Cook
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Rights Council ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Indigenous Organizations ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Environment Sustainability

Abstract Scholarship on human rights and environmental justice suggests that organizations vary in their messaging regarding outcomes related to environmental protection and sustainability, differences often found in the divide between the Global North and Global South. The literature also suggests that Indigenous organizations represent groups that traditionally focus on issues of sovereignty, while grappling with unique problems related to assimilation, cultural preservation, and oppression. This study utilizes empirical data gathered from 333 non-governmental organizations affiliated with the United Nations Human Rights Council to explore whether Indigenous and non-Indigenous organizations, which share many aspects of their mission with one another at the transnational level, differ on issues related to environment sustainability and collective identity rights. Our results indicate that Indigenous organizations take a more holistic approach in addressing the relationship between humans and the natural world, centring marginalized perspectives through restorative justice and the needs of current and future generations.

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