Italy’s Long Decolonization in the Era of Intergovernmentalism

2020 ◽  
pp. 77-133
Author(s):  
Pamela Ballinger
Keyword(s):  
Nongovernmental Organizations ◽  
United Nations ◽  
European Integration ◽  
The State ◽  
State System ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The 1960S

This chapter situates the story of relief to both national and foreign refugees in Italy in the immediate postwar years within the entangled internationalisms and Italian struggles to reassert and reframe sovereignty in the aftermath of defeat. Although the concept of intergovernmentalism only originated in the 1960s in the context of nascent European integration, in practice it proved a key aspect of interwar and early postwar politics. Indeed, the retrenchment after 1945 of the nation-state in the international state system gained its most obvious expression in the creation of a series of intergovernmental institutions, including the United Nations and its subsidiary agencies (such as UNRRA, the IRO, and finally the UNHCR). In the realm of refugees, these agencies quite literally mediated between the realms of the state and the international; the UNHCR's statute gave expression to this interstitial role with its requirement that aid provided by states to the displaced be distributed through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). In addition, decolonization—which took as its goal national independence and sovereignty—reaffirmed the centrality of the statist principle undergirding the United Nations. The chapter then considers UNRRA's Dodecanese Mission and the 1947 Peace Treaty with Italy.

The Fifty-Fifth Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights

2000 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Dennis
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Nongovernmental Organizations ◽  
United Nations ◽  
The State ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
The World ◽  
Fundamental Freedoms ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Kofi Annan

The fifty-fifth session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights took place in Geneva from March 22 to April 30, 1999, and was chaired by Ambassador Anne Anderson of Ireland. The Commission reviewed the state of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the world, adopting eighty-two resolutions, fifty-eight by consensus, and thirteen decisions.More than thirty-two hundred participants represented fifty-three member and ninety-one observer states, over two hundred nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and some fiftyfive specialized agencies and other organizations. Secretary-General Kofi Annan underscored the priority he attaches to human rights by stating that “the promodon and defense of human rights is at the heart of every aspect of our work and every article of our Charter. ”

scholarly journals Nongovernmental Organizations and International Law

2006 ◽  
Vol 100 (2) ◽  
pp. 348-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Charnovitz
Keyword(s):  
Nongovernmental Organizations ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
General Thesis ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Temple

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have exerted a profound influence on the scope and dictates of international law. NGOs have fostered treaties, promoted the creation of new international organizations (IOs), and lobbied in national capitals to gain consent to stronger international rules. A decade ago, Antonio Donini, writing about the United Nations, declared that “the Temple of States would be a rather dull place without nongovernmental organisations.” His observation was apt and is suggestive of a more general thesis: had NGOs never existed, international law would have a less vital role in human progress.

Part 3 The United Nations: What it Does, 21 Disaster Relief

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Higgins Dame Rosalyn, DBE, QC ◽  
Webb Philippa ◽  
Akande Dapo ◽  
Sivakumaran Sandesh ◽  
Sloan James
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Disaster Relief ◽  
The State ◽  
General Applicability ◽  
Legal Standards ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The United Nations

This chapter begins by discussing the notion of disaster relief. Disaster relief is the relief provided by entities following a disaster, for present purposes, by actors outside the state affected by the disaster. As with the notion of a disaster, different instruments take different approaches to the content of disaster relief. The international law of disaster relief exists as a patchwork of norms. There are a few multilateral conventions in the area, which regulate the response to specific types of disasters, or to particular aspects of disasters. Other conventions of more general applicability also contain provisions that concern disaster relief. The remainder of the chapter covers the historical provision of disaster relief; the role of the United Nations (UN) in the creation of international law relating to disaster relief; and the provision of disaster relief, including coordination, cooperation, legal standards, funding, and reporting.

Australia and Indonesian Independence

1967 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. J. Hudson
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Colonial Power ◽  
South West ◽  
South West Africa ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Southern Rhodesia ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The One ◽  
United Nations Charter

Relations between Australia and Indonesia became strained within months of Indonesia's attainment of independence, deteriorating as conflict developed first on the question of West Irian and then as a result of Indonesia's hostility towards Malaysia. For many years, it seemed ironical that Australia should have played a major part in the emergence of a neighbour whose external policies and internal trends endangered rather than safeguarded Australian interests. But there is more involved here than historical irony in the context of Australian-Indonesian relations. Sufficient time has now elapsed for Australian policy on the Indonesian independence question to be seen in the wider context of the whole postwar phenomenon of decolonisation. For it is not merely of interest that Australia should have assisted neighbouring Asian rebels against a European colonial Power (remembering that Australia herself was, and is, a European colonial Power) and should then have been embarrassed by the activities of the rebels coming to office. It is of greater interest that, of the immense number of colonial issues anxiously engaging the attention of international society in the 1940s and 1950s, the years which saw the virtual demise of western colonialism, this was the one issue on which Australia took up the rebel cause. Throughout this period and irrespective of the complexion of the parties in power in Canberra, Australia persistently jeopardised her regional objective of friendly relations with anti-colonial Asia by opposing strongly and, at times, bitterly the anti-colonial cause in the United Nations. If nothing else, the United Nations has provided a forum in which each year Australia and other members have been forced to declare themselves on colonial questions. And, until the 1960s when Australia switched policy, Australia fought against all the anti-colonial Powers' largely successful attempts to have developed a system of international control over colonies under the authority of Chapter XI (“Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories”) of the United Nations charter, to tighten the trusteeship system of supervision erected under Chapters XII and XIII of the charter, and to involve the United Nations in particular disputes so as to meet alleged threats to peace — all of them being attempts, however indirectly, to hasten the attainment of independence by dependent territories. Thus, Australia supported South Africa on South-West Africa, the Netherlands on West New Guinea, the British on Southern Rhodesia and Oman, the Portuguese on their African territories, the French on Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. But Australia opposed the Netherlands on the Indonesian question.

The Fifty-Sixth Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 213-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Dennis
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Nongovernmental Organizations ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Member States ◽  
Sixth Session ◽  
The United Nations

The fifty-sixth session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights took place in Geneva from March 20 to April 28,2000, under the chairmanship of Ambassador Shambhu Ram Simkhada of Nepal. The delegations of fifty-three member states and ninety-one observer states werejoined by 1760 representatives of 224 nongovernmental organizations. The Commission ultimately adopted one hundred resolutions and decisions, three-fourths of them by consensus.

Unfulfilled Promise: Palestinian Family Reunification and the Right of Return

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 24-39
Author(s):  
Nabila El-Ahmed ◽  
Nadia Abu-Zahra
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Family Reunification ◽  
The State ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Successor State ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
Right Of Return ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Right

This article argues that Israel substituted the Palestinian refugees' internationally recognized right of return with a family reunification program during its maneuvering over admission at the United Nations following the creation of the state in May 1948. Israel was granted UN membership in 1949 on the understanding that it would have to comply with legal international requirements to ensure the return of a substantial number of the 750,000 Palestinians dispossessed in the process of establishing the Zionist state, as well as citizenship there as a successor state. However, once the coveted UN membership had been obtained, and armistice agreements signed with neighboring countries, Israel parlayed this commitment into the much vaguer family reunification program, which it proceeded to apply with Kafkaesque absurdity over the next fifty years. As a result, Palestinians made refugees first in 1948, and later in 1967, continue to be deprived of their legally recognized right to return to their homes and their homeland, and the family reunification program remains the unfulfilled promise of the early years of Israeli statehood.

Redefining the Issues: NGO Influence on International Forest Negotiations

2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Humphreys
Keyword(s):  
Nongovernmental Organizations ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Forest Policy ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
International Forest Policy ◽  
Environmental Challenge

How successful have nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) been in influencing international forest policy? Specifically, how effective have they been at altering the texts of international forest policy declarations and agreements? This paper studies NGO efforts to influence international forest policy from the mid-1980s, when deforestation first emerged as an international environmental challenge, to 2001 when the United Nations Forum on Forests was created. This paper demonstrates that, in the short term, NGOs are more effective when they: 1. involve themselves in the early stages of negotiations, 2. suggest substantive and procedural ideas that are already well-known in fora outside forest politics, and 3. align their suggestions with the prevailing neoliberal discourse of international politics. The paper suggests that such conditions can be rather limited and thus speculates about NGO efforts within a longer time frame.

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