Thomas G. Weiss

• June 26, 2020

Starting in June, a summary of the most important news on the United Nations’ work in New York City and worldwide will be highlighted weekly. The news will be drawn from the UN spokesperson’s briefings, our original reporting and other sources. We welcome your feedback on the new series, called This Week @UN. This …

General Assembly, Secretary-General, Security Council, This Week @UN

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WORLDVIEWS

Do We Even Need the UN? An Academic’s Quest to Find the Answer

Dulcie Leimbach

• June 24, 2018

Would the world be better off without the United Nations? The question couldn’t be more important in the age of Trump and his rejection of multilateral institutions as well as traditional allies. Thomas G. Weiss, Presidential Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York Graduate Center, took on this question, speaking …

Secretary-General, US-UN Relations, WORLDVIEWS

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GEOPOLITICS

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

Dulcie Leimbach

• April 10, 2017

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 …

Geopolitics, Secretary-General, Security Council, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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Less Politics and More Transparency: What New Leadership Will Mean for the UN

Barbara Crossette

• July 6, 2016

In a year when people who follow the United Nations are focusing on the election of the next secretary-general, the center of early action in that election has moved for the first time in history from the secretive deliberations of the Security Council to an unprecedented open campaign in the General Assembly, which normally …

General Assembly, Secretary-General, UN Diplomats

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Is a Better UN System Possible? Global Experts Respond to an Independent Survey

Barbara Crossette

• May 26, 2014

An unusual survey of 3,400 people worldwide who know the United Nations has found strong support for some basic rethinking over the next decade on the organization’s work in development. Among the recommendations, over two-thirds of respondents suggested adding more nongovernmental representatives to governing bodies and better consolidating both organizational representation and programs in …