Gert Rosenthal

• March 17, 2022

In 2019, the independent inquiry into the United Nations’ response to the Rohingya crisis, which drove 750,000 refugees from Myanmar’s Rakhine state into Bangladesh in 2017, found “systemic and structural failures.” UN Secretary-General António Guterres accepted all the findings of the inquiry and will present a report on the progress that has been made …

Human Rights, Myanmar, WORLDVIEWS

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A Highly Respected UN Legacy to Fight Corruption Crumbles in Guatemala

Maurizio Guerrero

• August 25, 2021

When Guatemala’s Attorney General Consuelo Porras recently removed the anticorruption leader Juan Francisco Sandoval from his post as the special prosecutor against impunity, her action ended the last semblance of prosecutorial independence generated by one of the most successful projects run by the United Nations: the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, or Cicig. …

Humanitarian Aid, Latin America, Migration, Secretary-General, US-UN Relations

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‘He Is Who He Is’: 4 Experts Assess the Record of the UN’s António Guterres

Barbara Crossette

• December 14, 2020

Ever since the day in 1946 when the first secretary-general of the United Nations, Trygve Lie of Norway, took office, big powers have meddled in how the job is done. Most often, the United States has been the most intrusive. Lie resigned in 1953, before the end of his second, shortened term, with his …

Gender Violence, Human Rights, Secretary-General, US-UN Relations

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A New UN Brigade Will Make Combat Moves in Congo

Lorraine Boissoneault

• April 11, 2013

For the first time, the United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution allowing UN troops to go on the offensive in a mission against armed rebels. The combat intervention brigade will operate as part of the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the northeastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Monusco). …

Africa, Peace and Security, Security Council

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Guatemala’s Role on the Security Council, as Viewed by Its Ambassador

Dulcie Leimbach

• March 5, 2013

Gert Rosenthal does not sound like a Spanish name, but the mother of Rosenthal, the Guatemalan ambassador to the United Nations, was born there and his father was German. To complicate matters, “a little accident happened,” he said, as his parents, Florence and Ludwig, left Germany in the 1930s, and Rosenthal was born in …

ICC, Security Council, UN Diplomats

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Congo Miners See Hope While Rebels Sow Unrest

Dulcie Leimbach

• October 17, 2012

Important progress in controlling the mining of tin, tantalum and tungsten in the troubled eastern region of Democratic Republic of Congo has been achieved, says a report from the Enough Project, a Washington nonprofit group focused on Africa. Yet renewed fighting that began in the spring between regional militias and Congolese national troops, who …