• Security Council

    WORLDVIEWS

    Was America’s Attack on Syria Legal? An Asian Expert’s View

    by  • April 26, 2017 • Disarmament, Middle East, Security Council, Syria, US Foreign Relations, WORLDVIEWS • 

    The images of civilians, particularly children, being asphyxiated by chemical substances and dying in Idlib Province of Syria on April 4 were a game changer. Judging that the chemical attack was carried out by the Syrian government, the United States, two days later, attacked Syria’s Shayrat airbase with 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles. The US...

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    GEOPOLITICS

    Canada Is Still Wavering in Its Pledge to UN Peacekeeping

    by  • April 20, 2017 • Africa, Geopolitics, Security Council, UN Peacekeeping, US-UN Relations • 

    Although Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged in a splashy way right after his 2015 election to “renew Canada’s commitment to United Nations peace operations,” the country’s contribution to peacekeeping remains at an all-time low. Since Trudeau’s seemingly impetuous campaign promise a year and a half ago, allies and UN member states have anticipated a...

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    NIKKI HALEY WATCH

    Nikki Haley’s ‘Historic’ Debate on Human Rights Left a Small Impression

    by  • April 18, 2017 • Human Rights, Nikki Haley Watch, Peace and Security, Security Council, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations • 

    Nikki Haley, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, presided over what she was determined to sell as “an historic meeting exclusively on human rights” in the UN Security Council. But her brief speech in the April 18 meeting fell far short of introducing innovations to confront violations of human rights or prevent...

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    GEOPOLITICS

    Can António Guterres Fend Off Trump’s War on the UN?

    by  • April 10, 2017 • Geopolitics, Secretary-General, Security Council, Syria, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations • 

    When António Guterres was chosen by the United Nations Security Council in October to become the next leader of the UN, neither he nor anyone else could have predicted precisely who would be commanding the Oval Office of the White House in January 2017, just as Guterres’s term opened. Now that Donald Trump has...

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    GEOPOLITICS

    Russia and US Clash on Syria in the UN Security Council, Once Again

    by  • April 7, 2017 • Geopolitics, Security Council, Syria • 

    Russia called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Friday, a day after the United States launched a missile attack in Syria. But Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Vladimir Safronkov, faced a tough response from the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, who castigated the Russians for supporting...

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    NIKKI HALEY WATCH

    Nikki Haley Tells New York Elites: I Will Change the UN

    by  • March 29, 2017 • Nikki Haley Watch, Security Council, UN Diplomats, UN Peacekeeping, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations • 1 Comment

    Nikki Haley, the Trump administration’s ambassador to the United Nations took her ambitious plans and convictions about the role of the United States in the UN to the center of New York’s foreign policy establishment: the Council on Foreign Relations. Her central message, delivered on March 29, was that the UN needs the “breath...

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    Who’s on the Security Council? New York City Junior Ambassadors Tour the UN

    by  • March 17, 2017 • Education, Security Council, UN Diplomats, UN-NY Relations • 

    They have years to go before they could conceivably sit in the Security Council seat as the United States ambassador to the United Nations, participate in a high-level summit on refugees or cast a vote for their country in the General Assembly. But for a select group of New York City students, the ways...

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    GEOPOLITICS

    Jerusalem Has Always Been a Contested City

    by  • March 7, 2017 • Geopolitics, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Middle East, Security Council, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations • 

    The long-simmering dispute over the fate of Jerusalem stands at the center of the Middle East conflict. Israelis and Palestinians, divided on many points, become most emotional when discussing the future of the walled, ancient crossroads city that is holy to three world religions. So international diplomats took notice when foreign policy neophyte Donald...

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    GEOPOLITICS

    Can a Trusteeship Rescue South Sudan? Unlikely, Experts Say

    by  • February 22, 2017 • Africa, Gender-Based Violence, Geopolitics, Security Council, UN Peacekeeping, US Foreign Relations • 

    The intense civil conflict in South Sudan that broke out in December 2013 and has brought the world’s youngest nation to the edge of genocide has not subsided, with no solution in sight. Once more, the United Nations Security Council will meet to discuss the newest status report from the UN Secretariat, as President...

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    Vitaly Churkin, 64, Russia’s Longtime Ambassador to the UN, Dies Suddenly

    by  • February 20, 2017 • Security Council, UN Diplomats • 

    Vitaly Churkin meets the press

    Vitaly Churkin, 64, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations since April 8, 2006, died on Feb. 20. A statement from the Russian mission to the UN said Churkin “died suddenly.” It added: “A prominent Russian diplomat has passed away while at work. We’d like to express our sincere condolences to Vitaly Churkin’s family.” Churkin was...

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    NIKKI HALEY WATCH

    On a Light Note: 10 Tips for Nikki Haley, New US Ambassador to UN

    by  • February 9, 2017 • Journalists, Nikki Haley Watch, Security Council, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations • 

    A recent email sent out by a member of the United States Mission to the United Nations, then tweeted and possibly subtweeted, contained the following statement: This is to let you know that Ambassador Haley will be spending her first few months learning about the UN and Security Council and its members. She will...

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    Nikki Haley Tells US Congress: The UN Does Matter

    by  • January 21, 2017 • Security Council, UN Peacekeeping, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations • 

    Nikki Haley, President Donald Trump’s nominee to become the United States ambassador to the United Nations, appeared in a confirmation hearing on January 18 lasting more than three hours in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. She introduced herself in an address to members that was both autobiographical — the daughter of immigrants — and political....

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    Russian Spies Left Out in the Cold? New Details of the Country’s Oyster Bay Estate

    by  • January 10, 2017 • Security Council, UN Diplomats, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations • 2 Comments

    UPPER BROOKVILLE, N.Y. — Not long after the United States abruptly ordered all Russians to leave an estate that Moscow owns in Upper Brookville, Long Island, the village was recovering from the whirlwind that swept through it right before New Year’s Eve. As to who was there and what they were exactly doing remains...

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    In a Single Day, US Congress Castigates Both the UN and Obama Over Israeli Vote

    by  • January 6, 2017 • Health and Population, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Middle East, Security Council, UN Agencies • 

    While Washington is caught up in the unfolding drama about the extent and motives of Russian hacking and possible attempted manipulation of the 2016 American presidential election, another story is playing out around threats to “punish” the United Nations. On Jan.5, the United States House of Representatives voted to repudiate the Security Council resolution...

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    WORLDVIEWS

    Trump Upends US Foreign Policy Before He’s Even Sworn In

    by  • January 4, 2017 • Security Council, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations, WORLDVIEWS • 1 Comment

    Never has a president-elect so roiled American foreign policy before even taking office. On a dizzying range of fronts — Russia, China, Europe, the Middle East — Donald J. Trump has dissented from longstanding United States policy, challenged the outgoing president as he has managed America’s international relations and put in doubt the future...

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    In the US Congress, a Campaign Opens to ‘Punish’ the UN

    by  • December 26, 2016 • Security Council, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations • 

    It was inevitable that a triumphant Republican government in Washington, D.C., would sooner or later launch an assault on the United Nations. A near-unanimous UN Security Council resolution on Dec. 23 condemning Israeli settlements on Palestinians’ land provided the trigger. That the administration of President Barack Obama stood aside with an abstention, allowing a...

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    Defying Trump in Momentous Vote, UN Security Council Condemns Israeli Settlements

    by  • December 23, 2016 • Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Middle East, Security Council, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations • 

      In last-minute drama before the Christmas holiday, a vote by the United Nations Security Council on a resolution condemning illegal Israeli settlements boiled down to one country’s tacit approval: the United States. In an intensely watched vote on Dec. 23 at the UN, 14 elected and permanent members of the council voted yes...

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    WORLDVIEWS

    The Syrian War and the Refugee Crisis: Spawning the Rise of the Far Right

    by  • December 21, 2016 • Middle East, Peace and Security, Security Council, Syria, US Foreign Relations, WORLDVIEWS • 

    The butterfly effect teaches us that seemingly insignificant actions can have enormous future consequences. A tiny pair of fluttering wings can disturb the air in a way that helps trigger a hurricane halfway around the world. Witness Syria, where the Arab Spring made its debut in 2011 in the form of a tame wave...

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    WORLDVIEWS

    Message to Trump: The US Needs the UN and Vice Versa

    by  • December 17, 2016 • Development, Peace and Security, Security Council, Sustainable Development Goals, UN Agencies, UN Peacekeeping, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations, WORLDVIEWS • 1 Comment

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Strong American leadership at the United Nations would greatly enhance President-elect Trump’s foreign policy agenda. United States investment in the UN is an effective use of taxpayer dollars to serve the US military, diplomatic, economic and national security interests. UN peacekeepers, for example, cost one-eighth the expenses of US boots on...

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    BOOKS

    The Rules of War Need a Major Overhaul

    by  • December 3, 2016 • BOOKS, Human Rights, Peace and Security, Responsibility to Protect, Security Council • 

    Donetsk People's Republic fighters in Ukraine

    Evidence is piling up: the global security framework that emerged from the ashes of World War II is no longer capable of pursuing international peace. The arrangement, conceived by the major powers that won the war, has expanded into a grab bag of rules and institutions that the crises of our own era have...

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