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WORLDVIEWS

Climate Justice Finally Arrives Through the New Global Loss and Damage Fund

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari

• November 30, 2022

The decision at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to establish a fund to assist developing countries address loss and damage from the adverse impacts of climate change was a momentous signal of hope for humanity and the planet. The impacts of global warming have become more frequent and ferocious. Those who have contributed the …

Climate Change, SDGs, WORLDVIEWS

One Comment

How to Move From Hostility to Cooperation in the UN Security Council

Tapio Kanninen and Heikki Talvitie

• November 21, 2022

Globalization, with its pros and cons, is broken. The world is troubled by local and regional crises, and attempts to solve them are dividing countries, both small and large, in a way that prevents a common will from emerging to solve major global crises. Indeed, we are drifting toward a fatally dangerous situation where …

Secretary-General, Security Council, Ukraine-Russia War, WORLDVIEWS

2 Comments

Catch-22 in the Congo: Politics, Peacekeeping and the Fault Lines of Protection

• November 14, 2022

In September, the presidents of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda took their allegations against each other over the resurgence of conflict in the eastern Congo to the United Nations General Assembly. I recall vividly similar claims and counterclaims from more than a decade ago when I was serving as the special …

Africa, UN Peacekeeping, WORLDVIEWS

3 Comments

The Decline of Women’s Rights Is Inciting More Gender-Based Violence. Solutions Exist.

Susana Malcorra

• November 7, 2022

The deterioration of women’s rights across the world is enabling more gender-based violence. Even those who strive to defend and even expand their privileges at the exclusion of others recognize that half the global population suffers inequalities and injustice. This reality was recognized 27 years ago by the 189 countries that signed the Beijing …

Gender Violence, WORLDVIEWS

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Serious UN Reform: Going Beyond Minor Fixes?

Natalie Samarasinghe

• October 27, 2022

“The United Nations is dead,” said the Catholic Herald in 1947, two years after the UN was founded. Reports of its demise are perennial, but they seem to have reached a crescendo this year, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine considered a litmus test for the 77-year-old organization. Russia’s wanton act of aggression is not …

Africa, General Assembly, Secretary-General, Security Council, WORLDVIEWS

6 Comments

Sending Back the Gumbo

• October 25, 2022

As I left the talk on “The Future of the United Nations,” given at San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel by United States Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, I found myself disoriented, slipping into a Hitchcockian vertigo triggered by witnessing opportunities missed and bold goals unarticulated. Add to that a strange poignancy due to the location of the …

UN Diplomats, US-UN Relations, WORLDVIEWS

4 Comments

The Saga of Guterres and Putin

Stephen Schlesinger

• October 11, 2022

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres started out wobbly on the Ukrainian crisis. In the days leading up to the Feb. 24 Russian attack on Ukraine, he remained on the sidelines. He was apparently unconvinced that the Russians would invade the country. Had he taken the threat of Russian troops assembled on Ukraine’s borders seriously, …

General Assembly, Peace and Security, Secretary-General, Ukraine-Russia War, WORLDVIEWS

2 Comments

The UN General Assembly Must Fix Myanmar’s Muddled Representation and Send a Profound Message to the Junta

Chris Gunness and Damian Lilly

• September 13, 2022

The United Nations General Assembly will soon make a decision that will affect the lives of 55 million people in Myanmar and could influence the fate of their nation as it stands at a crucial crossroad. This week, as the 77th session of the Assembly opens, its Credentials Committee will deliberate on who represents …

General Assembly, Myanmar, Security Council, WORLDVIEWS

9 Comments

Peacekeeping Desperately Needs a New Model, and a People-Centered Approach Could Work

• September 4, 2022

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo is in trouble. Some of its problems are chronic, some are acute, but at its heart is a breakdown in trust between the mission and the community with which it operates. What is needed now more than ever is a genuine people-centered approach …

Africa, UN Peacekeeping, WORLDVIEWS

One Comment

Félix Baumann: The War in Ukraine Contributed to the Failure of the UN Nuclear Weapons Conference

Stephane Bussard

• August 31, 2022

After three weeks of negotiations at the United Nations headquarters, the 191 states parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) failed to adopt a final document at the 10th review conference of the NPT, held from Aug. 1-26. Given the toxic international context and the increased nuclear threat, this failure …

Nuclear Disarmament, Peace and Security, WORLDVIEWS

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Should We Be Optimistic About the Recent UN Talks on Killer Robots?

Lutiana Barbosa and Gustavo Macedo

• August 29, 2022

Think about a weapon that once activated, can select and engage targets without further human intervention. This might sound like science fiction, but autonomous weapons systems, also called killer robots, are being deployed in real time. The Turkish STM Kargu II drone was used in Libya in 2020, and it was “programmed to attack …

Disarmament, Peace and Security, WORLDVIEWS

One Comment

Unesco Protects Borscht as a National Treasure of Ukraine. What Would My Mother Say?

Dulcie Leimbach

• August 27, 2022

Unesco daringly announced this summer the “urgent need of safeguarding” borscht. Or as Ukrainians spell it, borsch. When the Ukrainian government asked the UN cultural and education agency to save the soup’s historical place as a national dish amid Russia’s bloodbath on Ukraine, they weren’t kidding. “The victory in the war for borsch is …

Ukraine-Russia War, UN Agencies, WORLDVIEWS

One Comment

The UN in Crisis: Big Powers and Bad Influence

• August 22, 2022

Individual member states have always exerted a heavy influence on the United Nations. The dominance of individual powers is the nature of multilateralism, but in the UN system it is particularly marked. The Security Council can only do its job if the five veto-wielding members (the P5: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United …

Development, Secretary-General, Security Council, WORLDVIEWS

6 Comments

The Afghanistan We Long to See: A Place Where the Rights of Women and Girls Are Restored

Geraldine Byrne Nason

• August 14, 2022

Today marks a dark anniversary — one year since Kabul fell to the Taliban. As Ireland’s ambassador to the United Nations, I have always said I will judge the Taliban by their actions, not by their words. Their actions in the last year speak of absolute contempt for the rights of the Afghan people, …

Asia, Gender Violence, Human Rights, Security Council, WORLDVIEWS

One Comment

Diplomats Without Borders: A New Niche Service Aims to Mend Our Frayed World

• August 10, 2022

The recent agreement between the United Nations and Türkiye to enable the export of grain from Ukraine is a hopeful sign of more active mediation by countries to mitigate the raging conflict in that country. But this step, while important, is not enough to mask the inability of the UN and other global players …

Peace and Security, WORLDVIEWS

4 Comments

PassBlue Quiz: Women in Politics. Test your knowledge of female leaders and the issues they confront.

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