Informational Memorandum No. 80 • Autumn 2009

ACUNSTHE ACADEMIC COUNCIL ON THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM

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The story of Prince Siddhartha Gautama who becomes the Buddha is but one of several examples in Indian history of the battle between the power of the state and the power of ideas. In ancient India, history was concerned more with philosophy than chronol-ogy. And so the ancient Buddhist texts focussed more on what the Buddha taught than on dates, events and places. It would be a courageous historian indeed who would be prepared to argue the counterfactual that Siddhartha Gautama would have shaped the arc of history more as king than he did as the Buddha.

Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the great Maurya Empire, ruled from approximately 320–298 BC and is generally considered to be the first ruler to have unified India, and thus has claims to be India’s first emperor. He renounced his kingdom and spent the final eight years of his life as a wandering ascetic. His grandson Ashoka the Great sat on the Maurya throne from 269 to 232 BC. Appalled by the pain and suffering of war in his military conquest of Kalinga (circa 264 BC), he renounced war, embraced ahimsa (nonviolence), truth and tolerance, and propagated Buddhism across the length and breadth of his empire, from modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan in the west to Assam and Bangladesh in the east, and to north-ern Kerala in the south. The most famous proponent of ahimsa in the modern era of course is Mahatma Gandhi, who himself never occupied a kingly throne yet was responsible, more than any other

individual, for the defeat of the British Empire in the subcontinent by the power of his ideas.

In other words, ideas matter and shape the course of history. The ebb and tide of history often takes the form of a contest of ideas. They impart vitality to a society. A society in intellectual ferment is fertile ground for progress and advancement, provid-ed the clash of ideas is given free play. Conversely, a society that is bereft of and represses new ideas is a society doomed to stagnation. The long-term success of civilizations and countries is due more often to the dynamism and vibrancy of ideas and their steady ascendancy over competing visions of the good life.

The provenance or marketplace of ideas is the university. Think tanks like the Brookings Institution in the US, the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in Canada, or the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa, have the mandate to link the two normally isolated worlds of scholarship and policy-making. They lie at the interface of ideas, national public and foreign policy, international organizations and international public policy. They seek to harness knowledge for the promotion of security, development and welfare. As think tanks, they are the conceptual and policy bridge between the worlds of ideas and praxis, between scholars, governments, and international and civil society organisations.

The Power of Ideas and The Power of The sTaTe R a m e s h T h a k u r

We are what we think All that we are arises with our thoughts

With our thoughts we make the world*

Universities in FermentThe process of transformation of large and complex societies cre-ates social ferment, disorder, dislocation, volatility and sometimes even conflict. The comments apply to international society as well. Universities often find themselves embattled because they are at the forefront of this struggle for social transformation. Education and scholarship provide the terrain on which intellectually arid and stag-nant societies encounter new worlds of ideas from foreign cultures.

A university, as a repository of scholarship, is dedicated to teach-ing and research in the spirit of free and critical inquiry, tolerance of diversity and a commitment to resolution of difference of opinion through dialogue and debate. That is, to the acquisition, criticism and transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next and to being a centre of creative and innovative learning. University qualifica-tions are the gateway to social mobility in an increasingly meritocrat-ic-technocratic society. The concomitant emphases on equitable and affordable access to quality education for all social classes and groups produced an explosion in the number of tertiary students.

Universities across the world are being forced to change from bureaucratic and risk-averse institutions to becoming agile and market-responsive due to changes in the higher education sector. Until about the 18th century, they used to be hierarchical, governed by religious rules, subject to religious authority, and interested very largely in religious scholarship amidst an essentially feudal society. Buffeted by broader social changes, universities too have been transformed through:

• Secularization of what is taught and how it is taught;• Democratization of access and a resulting expansion;• Consequences of expansion for maintaining balance between supply and demand, access and quality, resources and activities, teaching and research commitments (time, funds);• Internationalization of students, staff, curricula, campuses, best practice benchmarks, funding opportunities-cum-competition;• “Commodification” – education as a for-profit activity and service export;• Changing student profile – where previously education and employment came together in the ideal of a career, today it is becoming commonplace to think of multiple careers and periodic upskilling, leading to demand for lifelong learning opportunities and modules;• Knowledge intensity – the amount of knowledge per graduating student has increased dramatically from one generation to the next;• Technology intensity in the acquisition and transmission of existing knowledge and creation of new knowledge; and• The declining relevance of distance in the provision and generation of knowledge.

There is nothing to suggest that there will be a significant lessening of the pace/scale of change in the university sector in the foreseeable future. Such constant change is potentially frightening, but also exhilarating.

The trend lines in public investment in education are given in Table 1 (below). Across the OECD, while 37 percent of the relevant cohort entered a tertiary institution in 1995, this had risen to 56 percent by 2006. The implications of affordability, access and equity pose public policy challenges for governments and university alike, but they need not concern us here. Even with a diminishing share of the total expenditure for the tertiary sector coming from public sources, the average is still a healthy 73.8 percent. And the dramati-cally increased enrolment in university-level programs has meant an increase in the percentage of GDP accounted for by the tertiary edu-cation sector, for example from 2.1 to 2.6 percent for Canada in 1995 and 2005 respectively, and from 2.3 to 2.9 percent for the US over the same period (OECD 2008: 237). Of course, all such policy choices on investment come with opportunity costs.

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The Power of Ideas and The Power of The sTaTe

Table 1: OeCD COUnTRieS’ exPenDiTURe On eDUCaTiOn

As percentage of GDP (2005) Tertiary Education

Tertiary All Levels of Public Sources (%) Education Education 1995 2000 2005

OECD average 1.5 5.8 79.7 78.0 73.8

EU 19 average 1.3 5.5 86.0 85.0 81.2

Canada 2.6 6.2 56.6 61.0 55.1

USA 2.9 7.1 37.4 31.1 34.7

Source: OECD, Education at a Glance 2008: OECD Indicators (Paris: OECD, 2008), Tables B2.1 and B3.3, pp. 237 and 254.

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In practice, the main difficulty seems to be the lack of a common vocabulary around which scholars and practitioners can engage in shared and informed discourse.

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viSiT www.aCUnS.ORG FOR inFORmaTiOn

Security Challenges

To insist that the fruits of university research must never be permitted to be transmitted to the public authorities, in order that their policies might be based on the best available evidence and theory, is therefore the metaphorical equivalent of giving the one finger sign to society that is subsidising the tertiary sector. Clearly, that is an untenable position and no one advocates it. Conversely, no one seriously suggests that all university research must be policy-oriented and that fundamental research has no place in academia.

In his message introducing the 2007–08 annual report of Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, President Chad Gaffield writes of the three ambitions animating SSHRC: to increase the quality and support for research in Canada; to foster links between researchers and the wider community; and “to increase the positive impact of research on the lives of people in Canada and internationally” (p.2). That is, two of his three institutional ambitions are predicated on the belief that scientists have a duty to make their knowledge available for the betterment of humanity.

So the principle that knowledge produced in universities should be made available to the policy community is unexceptionable, even though the terms on which the exchange takes place might vary from one set of individuals and institutions to another. In practice, the main difficulty seems to be the lack of a common vocabulary around which scholars and practitioners can engage in shared and informed discourse. Particularly acute in the world at large, this is true even within the UN system. For several years the UN University joined hands with the Director-General of UN Offices in Geneva to convene, in Geneva, a meeting, which I co-chaired, of the producers and consumers of research in the UN system. Both sides complained that their worlds rarely met. Each blamed the other. The operational side was dissatisfied with the relevance and timeliness of the research, and unimpressed by the inability of many researchers to compress esoteric research into eas-ily digested two-four page executive summaries that highlighted the policy implications. The researchers were critical of the failure to provide clear requests of what was needed, the ignorance of what was available by way of existing research or qualified personnel within the system, and the looking-for-keys-where-the-light-is-and-not-where-we-lost-them syndrome that led the Secretariat, Agencies, Funds, and Programmes to commission research from proximate institu-

tions and scholars on the east coast of the US (with a correspond-ing worsening of the US bias for the system as collateral damage).

None of this will be unfamiliar to scholars and practitioners outside the United Nations. In practice, perhaps the more significant impact that ideas have had on national and international public policy is firstly through a revolving door system of insider-outsider roles – think of Pierre Trudeau and potentially Michael Ignatieff in Canada, Henry Kissinger and Condoleezza Rice in the US, and Francis Deng, Michael Doyle, John Ruggie, Jeffrey Sachs and Amartya Sen in the UN – and secondly as public intellectuals (with some overlap in the two groups). This does suggest that the cherished image of intellectuals speaking truth to power is somewhat inflated. To be sure, many scholars in their role as custodians of a critical social con-science will take this path. But just as many are eager to lend their expertise for the public good and derive satisfaction from making a difference that cannot be given a monetary value. Certainly many good and great scholars worked for UNU projects for honoraria that were modest, if not risible: they felt good about it.

A third mode for scholarly input into policy is via blue-ribbon international commissions. A project between UNU and CIGI (International Commissions and the Power of Ideas, UNU Press, 2005) studied how international commissions have shaped the discourse concerning a wide range of global issues: the global economic order, global inequality and poverty, international security, the utility and risks of nuclear weapons, environmentalism, and the tension between sovereignty and intervention to stop or prevent genocide and atrocity crimes. Commissions seldom produce dramatic shifts in thinking. But, as the conduit for bringing ideas into intergovernmental forums, they do make a difference over the long term in various subtle and nuanced ways. The Brundtland Commission mainstreamed sustainable development – a legacy that endures; the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty seems to have had a similar impact through the responsibility to protect.

Peace ResearchThe debate on the relationship between the research and policy com-munities can be put in perspective by recalling the role that students of war and peace have played, continue to play and aspire to play in shaping statecraft. This takes us back to the quotation with which

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ACUNS Board Members 2 0 0 9 - 2 0 1 0Chair Christer Jönsson | Lund University

Past Chair Thomas G. Weiss | CUNY Graduate Center

Members Aldo Caliari | Center of Concern Sam Daws | UN Association, UK Lorraine Elliott | Australian National University Shin-wha Lee | Korea University Julie Mertus | American University Henrike Paepcke | Dusseldorf Institute for Foreign and Security Policy Roland Paris | University of Ottawa Ramesh Thakur | Balsillie School of International Affairs Margaret Vogt | United Nations Secretariat

ACUNS Secretariat Staff Patricia Goff, Executive Director

Brenda Burns, Administration, Communications and Program Development

ACUNS Wilfrid Laurier University75 University Avenue, West, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5

t. (519) 884-0710, ext. 2766

f. (519) 884-5097

e. bburns@wlu.ca

www.acuns.org

It’s an exciting time at ACUNS as we look back on two successful events this past sum-mer and look forward to equally stimulating activities next year. This past July, I had the pleasure of spending 12 days in Edmonton on the beautiful campus of the University of Alberta, where we held our Summer Workshop. In this issue, we report on our activities there. In June, of course, we held our 2009 Annual Meeting in Trinidad and Tobago. If you missed it, be sure to visit the ACUNS website to view videos of the Holmes Lecture and the plenary sessions.

Plans are well in hand for the 2010 Annual Meeting and Summer Workshop. Notices for both will go out in the coming months. Check the website for updates. We are pleased to note that our 2010 Annual Meeting, taking place in Vienna, Austria from 3-5 June, is falling into place around the theme of New Security Challenges. Confirmed participants include Lakhdar Brahimi, Jan Egeland, Hans Blix, and the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak.

The 2010 Summer Workshop will be taking place in Geneva, Switzerland in late July in partnership with the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. The topic this year is “Humanitarian Space: The Civil-Military Nexus in Complex Emergencies.” We’ll circulate our call for applications for the summer workshop before the end of the year.

This newsletter’s article contributions take up an issue that preoccupies many of us. What is the relationship between the academic and the practitioner? What has it been in the past? What should it be? Of course, it is easy to overstate the rift that supposedly separates these communities. Many of the policy staff inside the UN, for example, hold PhDs while many people teaching in leading universities have spent time in policy circles. Nonetheless, a tension remains concerning the contributions that academics and practioners (theory versus practice?) each make to global politics. Three able commentators leave us with food for thought on this issue. If you’d like to share your reactions on this subject, visit us at the ACUNS website www.acuns.org and click on “Forums.” Here’s wishing you a safe and productive end to 2009.

N o t e s f r o m t h e e x e c u t i v e d i r e c t o r

STAYI NG on topic: AT The INTerSecTIoN

o f I d e A S A N d Ac T I o N r e c e n t a n d u p c o m i n g AC U N S e ve n t s a n d a r t i c l e s t o i n s p i r e

Patricia Goff, Executive Director, ACUNS

Did you miss us?

Couldn’t attend the 2009 ACUNS Annual Meeting? Visit our website to see video of the Holmes Lecture and the plenary sessions.

www.aCUnS.ORG

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I began. War in human society is as pervasive as the wish for peace is universal. The use of force and the possibility of controlling it and so controlling others has preoccupied rulers and scholars alike since time immemorial—from Thucydides, Kautilya, and Machiavelli to Karl Marx, Mao Zedong, Hans Morgenthau, and Henry Kissinger. But so too have some of the most charismatic and influential per-sonalities in human history – from Gautama Buddha and Jesus Christ to Mahatma Gandhi – reflected on the renunciation of force and the possibility of eliminating it from human relationships.

At any given time, most of the countries in the world are ready to go to war if necessary. Yet most of them are also at peace and long to keep it so. Therein lies the key to the difference between peace research and strategic studies. More countries seem prepared to reach out to scholars for the latter than the former cause, tapping expertise in strategic studies institutes while ignoring much of the peace research and conflict resolution expertise.

As a general rule, strategic studies is infused with realist assump-tions. International politics is seen as a struggle for power. The primary actors in world affairs are autonomous states engaged in power-maximizing behaviour. National security is the ultimate and overriding goal, and force is the principal instrument. In such a realist paradigm, violence is seen as endemic, inevitable and an instrument of conflict resolution. The task of strategic analysts is to predict courses of action that will enable states to maximize their own power while neutralizing or minimizing the national power of opponents so that the conflict is resolved on one’s own terms and not that of the enemy.

Peace research changes focus from the welfare of the state to that of individuals and the world community. Strategic studies focuses on the successful use of violence; peace research is concerned to reduce the frequency of latent and manifest use of force by human beings. Strategic studies accepts and refines the instrumentality of violence; peace research questions and rejects it. The central problem for peace research is not just to understand violence, but to eliminate or tame it by challenging the basic tenets of the conventional analyses of violence and offering critical alternatives with a view to improving the human condition, providing a better life in a safer world for all.

From the perspective of strategic studies, the most critical lesson of the interwar period (1919–39) is that pacifism and appeasement do not work against the Adolf Hitlers of the world. Few peace research-ers would dispute this. But most would point to the injustice and inequity of the Treaty of Versailles, and the subsequent treatment of Germany from within the realist paradigm, as having spawned Hitler in the first place.

For an Indian strategic studies analyst, the key question on Kashmir is how best to secure the province against the threat from Pakistan. For a peace researcher, it is equally legitimate to ask how best to protect the people of Kashmir against killings by terrorists and extrajudicial killings by Indian security forces. The threats posed by the agents of the state – whether India, Pakistan, Serbia, Bosnia or any other country – to individual and group rights are conceptu-ally alien to strategic studies. They are central to peace research.

Possibilities for the breakdown of peace exist everywhere and at all times. The task for strategic studies is to identify them through the exploration of worst-case scenarios. Possibilities for building peace exist in every human crisis. The challenge for peace research is to identify them through the exploration of best-case scenarios. Under the strategic-studies paradigm, states hope for the best but prepare for the worst. “Trust, but verify,” said President Ronald Reagan in the context of his historic arms-control agreements with the former Soviet Union. For peace researchers, nations should be prepared for the worst but work for the best: Verify, but do trust.

United nationsGradually over the course of the last century or two the idea of an international community bound together by shared values, benefits and responsibilities, and common rules and procedures, took hold of peoples’ imagination. The United Nations is the institutional expression of that development, with a structural continuity that runs from the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907, through the establishment of the League of Nations in 1919, to the great social movements that swept the world episodically throughout the 20th century. While many instinctive UN supporters might well embed the organization in the intellectual tradition of peace research, the historical fact is that the formal organization has its institutional antecedents in the wartime alliance led by the three “Us”: the UK, USA and USSR. Hence too the creative, and at times overwhelm-ing, tension between idealism and realism that is integral to the UN identity and project. That is, the United Nations lies at the cross-roads of the power of ideas and the power of the state.

UNESCO’s Preamble declares that if wars begin in the minds of men, then it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed. The primary responsibility for maintaining inter-national peace and security is vested in the Security Council. But if the ramparts of peace must be constructed in the minds of men (and this must be one of the few contexts in which gender-specific language perhaps is still appropriate), then the primary forum for the transformation from a culture of war to a culture of peace must be the educational classroom and the research laboratory. The com-ment holds true also with respect to the UN’s other great normative mandates, from economic development and environmental sustain-ability to human rights promotion and humanitarian protection. The UN’s operational activities must be guided by in-depth empiri-cal and analytical research. As already noted, intellectual pedigree, respectability and advance is crucial to the development and evolu-tion of society, at both national and international levels.

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The principle that knowledge produced in universities should be made available to the policy community is unexceptionable, even though

the terms on which the exchange takes place might vary from one set of individuals and institutions to another.

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millennium ecosystem assessmentBecause of the heightened and sustained public debate on climate change and its policy implications, awareness of the existence and role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is fairly widespread. Less known outside the world of specialists is another interesting exercise in multinational scientific collabora-tion on a pressing global problem. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was launched by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2001 and completed in 2005. The largest ever assessment of the state of health of the world’s ecosystems, it involved around 1,350 scientific experts from 95 countries under the joint chairmanship of Robert Watson of the World Bank and Hamid Zakri of the UN University. Its dual purpose was to assess the consequences of ecosystem for human well-being and establish the scientific basis for actions need-ed to enhance the conservation and sustainable use of ecosystems.

It came to four main findings. First, ecosystems have changed more rapidly and extensively over the last half century than in any other 50-year period in human history, largely in order to meet grow-ing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fibre, and fuel. Second, the changes to ecosystems have contributed to and underpinned major gains in human wellbeing and economic development, but only at the cost of substantial degradation of ecosystem services that will significantly degrade the ability of future generations to obtain comparable benefits from ecosystems. Third, at present rates of use and exploitation, the degradation of ecosystems will worsen dramat-ically in the next fifty years. And fourth, the challenge of reversing the degradation of ecosystems while meeting increasing demands for their services requires significant change in practices, policies, and institutions.

The ecosystem approach is relatively new. While this was not the first scientific assessment, most previous ones had been conduct-ed on an issue-by-issue basis in response to specific environmental problems. As a result, there are many different types of assessments on freshwater, climate, ozone, and other environmental issues. The problem with this piecemeal approach is that the natural environment is not comprised of separate, disconnected components: soils, oceans, rivers, forests, plants, animals, and microorganisms are all part of the same ecosystem. They are dependent on one other, and highly interactive. On a global scale, the same principle applies. Each of the different components of the earth’s ecosystems is affect-ed by human activity as well as by the other components. [Compare this to the Buddha’s principle of dependent origination or contin-gency (prat_tyasamutp_da in Sanskrit): in a complex web of cause and effect that links the past, present and future, any one particular phenomenon exists only because of the existence of other phenome-na. Therefore, all things are both conditioned by others, and imper-manent; nothing has its own independent identity. But the MEA team would presumably part company with the conclusion reached by Buddhists from this cardinal doctrine in their philosophy: all phe-nomena are therefore insubstantial and empty, and wisdom is attained by renouncing attachment to worldly desires and possessions.] So in order to assess fully the natural environment and its capacity for supporting human life, scientists must take better account of

this connectivity and adopt a more integrated approach to environmental assessment. Within the scientific community, this cross-sectoral methodology is referred to as the ecosystem approach.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment provides a critical study of the status of ecosystems worldwide and the services they provide to human beings dependent on these ecosystems. It found that two-thirds of the services that ecosystems provide to humankind are in decline. Many of them, such as global fisheries, have been weakened beyond repair. But while these ecosystem services are already in a state of stress, the eradication of hunger and poverty requires significant increases in the supply of the very same services.

One of the most important conclusions of the assessment is that poverty cannot be measured by income alone. This is the first study to make a concrete link between the environment and poverty. Living on one dollar a day, or even on five, will make little difference to the poor if there is no fertile soil to grow crops, or if the fisher-ies or forests on which they depend for subsistence are so deplet-ed that they cannot supplement their existence. The dynamics of poverty cannot be delinked from the natural environment in which people live. Their natural environment, more than the feted dollar a day, is in many cases the foundation of their livelihood. For this reason, environmental issues cannot just be tucked away in a neat, separable closet and dealt with singly. Environment underpins all aspects of development and it must be mainstreamed into finance and planning ministries to have a chance of eradicating extreme poverty and disease.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was launched by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2001 and completed in 2005. The largest ever assessment of the state of health of the world’s ecosystems,

it involved around 1,350 scientific experts from 95 countries under the joint chairmanship of Robert Watson of the World Bank and Hamid Zakri of the UN University.

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Environmental issues cannot just be tucked away in a neat, separable closet and dealt with singly.

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Un Centre and the University of vienna

Plans are under way to organize the aCUnS 2010 conference in vienna, austria on June 3-5, one of the major Un capitals, around the theme, new Security Challenges.

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Security Challenges

DiD you know As an ACunS member, you are invited to:

• use the aCUns newsletter and website to advertise the publication of your book

• use the Calendar of events on the website to inform other members about your upcoming events

• use the Professional opportunities area of the website to notify other members of work, study, fellowship and conference opportunities

If you are interested in taking advantage of any of these

benefits please contact bburns@wlu.ca.

Confirmed plenary participants include:

• Jan egeland, former Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator

• Hans blix, former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency

• Dame margaret anstee, former Director General of the United Nations, Vienna, and the Secretary General’s Special Representative to Angola

• manfred nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture

• lakhdar brahimi, veteran United Nations envoy and advisor and author of the Report of the Panel on United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, commonly known as the Brahimi Report

• abiodun williams, Vice-President, Center for International Conflict Analysis and Prevention, US Institute of Peace

Call for Papers will be available on the aCUnS website in early December.

aCUnS Board Nominationsas of June 2010, multiple positions will be open on the AcuNS Board of directors. ACUNS members are invited to nominate qualified individuals, including themselves, for these positions. Please send nominations with a curriculum vitae, bio (300-500 words), and a short supporting statement outlining what the nominee will bring to ACUNS. Please send nominations to bburns@wlu.ca of by march 31, 2010.

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COnClUSiOn

Like the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment team, the IPCC is a body of scientific experts linked to but outside the UN system, part of what the UN Intellectual History Project calls the “third UN” of scholars, civil society, public intellectuals and so on. The “second UN” of secretariat officials does not make policy but plays a role instead in producing technical reports to assist policymakers in mak-ing informed decisions, and then can be tasked with monitoring implementation and compliance with international agreements and benchmarks. “Policy” decisions are made by the “first UN” of mem-ber states, who meet, for example, in Copenhagen in December to see how far they can advance the agenda based in part on the cutting edge research, evidence-based analysis, net cost and benefits of the different options, and recommendations of the IPCC. But even here policy decisions amount to treaties negotiated and signed at interna-tional conferences, or resolutions adopted by the Security Council and the General Assembly. That is, they are not action but com-mitments/promises and/or recommendations/exhortations. They amount to global standards and norms. The policy authority for translating principles into action, and the capacity to mobilize the necessary resources for achieving common targets, are still vested in states. Thus the second principle-action gap – think Kyoto Protocol or the disarmament Article 6 of the NPT – is between states and international organizations. Even with respect to enforcement, the United Nations can authorize but only member states can execute diplomatic, economic and/or military action.

This helps to explain why the United Nations is sometimes thought of as a knowledge management system more than an actor in its own right. Universities of course are in the business of produc-ing and disseminating knowledge. Interestingly, one of the practices

the Buddha warned against was intellectual disputation for its own sake, for it distracts from practices that lead us to enlightenment. The scholar is driven by intellectual curiosity, the practitioner is pre-occupied in addressing pressing policy challenges. Both are engaged in solving puzzles, albeit from different entry points. The crossroads on which the professor meets the ambassador, where the study of international relations crosses path with its practice, is that of global governance. Tom Weiss and I define this as the sum of laws, norms, policies and institutions that define, constitute and mediate relations between citizens, society, market and the state on the world stage – the wielders and objects of the exercise of international public power (Global Governance and the UN: An Unfinished Journey, Indiana University Press, forthcoming). So defined, it is clear that individuals and groups from outside government are actors and participants – not merely advocates, lobbyists and activists – in global governance. Moreover, the United Nations is at the centre of the multilateral system of global governance – a set of arrangements that allocates international values authoritatively even in the absence of world government. For standards of international governance to be raised, best practice for diplomats must be informed by state of the art scholarship, and best practice for the academy must be grounded in real-world problem solving.

*T. Byrom, The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha. New York: Vintage, 1976, p. 3.

Ramesh Thakur is the inaugural Director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, and a Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo. He is a member of the ACUNS Board.

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Mourning the loss of a scholar, and champion of anti-racism

I n M e M o r I a M

IT IS WITH GREAT SADNESS that we acknowledge the passing of dr. Mark Alleyne, associate professor of communication at Georgia State University. Professor Alleyne was an accomplished scholar of international communication and his loss will be felt by his colleagues.

Professor Alleyne’s scholarship focused on the legacy of racism within the international system, and he sought in particular to better understand the anti-racism campaigns undertaken by the United Nations. In coordinating this work, Alleyne joined with scholars from across Central and South America and organized multinational projects with others similarly committed to undoing the centuries-old social and political consequences of racial discrimination. The study abroad experience he had organized for Georgia State University students travelling with him in Guatemala and his collaboration with university faculty affiliated with the college Center for Latin American and Latino Studies were among his many activities designed to instill in students a more subtle appreciation for the cultures and countries he loved.

The ACUNS community extends its sympathies to Professor Alleyne’s family.

Interestingly, one of the practices the Buddha warned against was intellectual disputation for its own sake, for it distracts from practices that lead us to enlightenment.

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The 2009 ACUNS-ASIL Summer

Workshop was held on the campus of

the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

In addition to our Alberta hosts, we

partnered with the UN University in

Tokyo. Our theme this year was

Global Public-Private Partnerships.

Fifteen participants gathered from all corners of the world, including UN duty stations in Chile, Vienna, Geneva, and New York and universities in Uganda, India, France, Canada, and Great Britain. Their research spanned the range of issue areas where global public private partnerships are being proposed or tried, including health, crime preven-tion, finance, human rights, conflict prevention, and disaster reduction. (Visit the ACUNS website to read participant research abstracts).

The workshop was ably led by our two co-directors, Andy Knight from the University of Alberta and Obi Aginam from the UNU, Tokyo. Expert guests joined the participants throughout the 10 days, including the Chief of Operations and the Executive Director of the UN Office for Partnerships. In addition to all-day sessions, participants managed to steal away to explore the magnificent Canadian wilderness, even spying in the distance local wildlife, including a brown bear!

Discussions were wide-ranging. Participants recognized the necessity to arrive at some agreement on what constitutes a global public-private partnership… is it a public-private partnership that includes an international institution? A PPP with a transnational dimension? A PPP model that has been replicated in multiple national jurisdictions? What distinguishes a (Global) PPP from a client-supplier relationship? From outsourcing

or contracting out? What distinguishes a global PPP from a local PPP that includes a foreign partner? Must a private sector, for-profit actor be present for an arrangement to be a public-private partnership? If so, how do we conceptualize rela-tionships with civil society actors? Foundations? What are the parameters of the category of “private actor?” These were just some of the conceptual questions that participants confronted. We also discussed reasons for the emergence of global PPPS, as well as motivations for entering into or resisting such arrangements. A good portion of the workshop was given over to assessments of the socio-political and ethical consequences of global PPPS and to evaluations of why some GPPP models succeed while others fail. Questions of accountability and regulation underpinned many exchanges. Overall, the workshop provided a rich opportunity for sharing views among academics and practitioners and among international rela-tions and international law specialists. We’ll pres-ent workshop findings in two formats in the coming months – in a short report and in an edited volume. Stay tuned!

2009 ACUNS-ASIL Summer Workshop on International Organization Studies

2009 SUmmER WORkSHOP

Pictured left: Our two co-directors, Obi Aginam (left) from the UNU, Tokyo, and Andy Knight (right) from the University of Alberta.

Below left: Our co-directors and participants in the Summer Workshop.

10

Notable iN this assertioN– in addition to its time and venue, the convocation ceremony of Fairleigh Dickinson University– was the reference to “new” partnerships. To place it in context, it would be helpful to refer to the definition of the “Third UN” offered by Richard Jolly, Louis Emerij and Tom Weiss most recent-ly in their extraordinary capstone volume of the UN Intellectual History Project, as “comprising NGOs, academics, consultants, experts, independent commissions, and other groups of individuals who routinely engage with the First UN (Member States) and the Second UN (UN staff) and thereby influence UN thinking, policies, priorities, and actions.”

Here, I would suggest, the key word is “routinely;” the considerable academic contribution to the UN since 1945 has been in immediate disciplines whose spontaneity has made their engagement with the Organization and system a matter of ready routine. What the Academic Impact seeks to do is build upon this robust base and encourage the investment of scholarship and research in areas that can have a durable, if not immediately self-evident, UN dimension.

In his John W. Holmes Memorial Lecture last year, Roger A. Coate mentioned the “complex interdependent and holistic organic world in which the UN operates;” by extension, response and support to the UN must itself be holistic and interdependent, allowing the wisdom of very precise specialisations to contribute to the easing of that complexity. Science, not diplomacy or politics, is the principal source of clarity and conviction on climate change, for instance. And science too will be the principal source for its solutions, although the choice to effect them will necessarily be diplomatic and political.

Areas of academic scrutiny and investigation such as this suggest the viability of a fourth UN, where this independent scholarship can lead to an engagement between the institution, the Organization and, ultimately, to global and national soci-ety. The “Third UN” offers excellent contributions specifically designed for a United Nations purpose; the “Academic Impact” seeks to effect change and raise the individual voice to a collective position of inquiry, exploration and creative solutions based on research that does not suggest such specificity. Its framework allows institutions to work with the UN and with each other to aggregate a still greater impact in supporting universally accepted principles, including those in the areas of human rights, literacy, sustainability and conflict resolution. Details about the Impact are available at www.academicimpact.org. There is no cost associated with affiliation; the only expectation from participants is an activity each year that supports one or more of these principles.

For the United Nations Department of Public Information, the Impact is a logical reflection of its “convening” role in bringing together thoughts and ideas that promote informed awareness and debate about what the United Nations does and, as important, what it can do. As its head, Under Secretary-General Kiyo Akasaka observed, “it is a particular mission of my depart-ment at the United Nations to be a forum where the scholarship and enquiry that is so integral to science can be expressed and shared, and, ultimately, lend itself to practical programmes of action.”

Some thirty international networks of universities and other institutes of higher education and research have endorsed the Impact and encouraged their members to join. More than two hundred individual institutions have done so, representing a global diversity of regions and a thematic wealth of disciplines. A number of these already have courses in, or undertake research on, the United Nations system. Such studies are usually located in schools or centres dealing with international affairs, political science or history. Others are institutions whose programmes may not immediately suggest a United Nations link but whose work and experience have a direct relevance on what we, as an Organization and system, are trying to do. Schools of medicine, for instance, can have bearing on our work in health-care; those in architecture can yield innovative models for swift, economical housing in the wake of natural disasters. Research on conserva-tion in a faculty of arts can offer the means to preserve the creative work of indigenous communities. A campus that is able to efficiently and economically move to non-conventional energy sources for its power needs can offer a replicable model. An institution that grants credits for student involvement in specific developmental or inter-cultural activities offers a similar example.

When Secretary-General Ban publicly announced the Academic Impact initiative a year ago, he spoke of the United Nations “continuing to open our doors to new partners. The academic community is surely at the top of that list.” He saw in the Impact the “hope to build stronger ties with institutions of higher learning...to benefit from your ideas and scholarship.”

Academic Impact Initiative: An Idea whose Time has Come

ramu damodaran

The “Academic Impact” seeks to effect change and raise the individual voice to a collective position of inquiry, exploration and creative solutions based on research that does not suggest such specificity. Its framework allows institutions to work with the UN and with each other to aggregate a still greater impact in supporting universally accepted principles, including those in the areas of human rights, literacy, sustainability and conflict resolution.

Details about the “Impact” are available at www.academicimpact.org. > There is no cost associated with affiliation; the only expectation from participants is an activity each year that supports one or more of the principles.

11

These are illustrative instances of how every subject and discipline can have a UN imprint. What we are trying to do is to get relevant institutions to recognise this link and, often without additional effort or expense, undertake activities that can directly support United Nations mandates and objectives. For our part, we would transmit details of such activities, including studies or projects undertaken, to the nodal department or office best placed to act upon them. Such action could include inputs into policy formulation or the sharing of the specific experience with other institutions and, indeed, with Member States.

Important also will be the realisation by faculty and students that the very specific areas of their campus and academic activity can have global relevance and resonance through the United Nations. What is needed, to use the phrase of Michael

J. Adams, President-elect of the International Association of University Presidents, in a work co-authored with Angelo Cartagna, “is not a form of citizenship that replaces the bond with the nation, but an added dimension of citizenship that reaches out to others beyond the nation.” (“Coming of Age in a Globalised World”). In the vein of that thought, what the Academic Impact seeks to do is not to replace, but to enhance, the bond that the scholar has with her discipline or institution. In so doing it aspires to build upon the critical studies of the United Nations (which ACUNS and its membership have so notably pioneered) to critical studies for the United Nations and the children, women and men who animate its purpose.

Ramu Damodaran, Chief, Academic Impact, Outreach Division, United Nations Department of Public Information

Academic Impact Initiative: An Idea whose Time has Come

What we are trying to do is to get relevant institutions to recognise this link and, often without additional effort or expense, undertake activities that can directly

support United Nations mandates and objectives.

ACUNS Dissertation Award Program | ACUNS, Wilfrid Laurier University | 75 University Ave. W. | Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5 CANADATel: 519.884.0710, ext. 2766 | Fax: 519.884.5097 | Email: bburns@wlu.ca | Website: www.acuns.org

A completed application must include:

(a) A dissertation proposal, a representative dissertation chapter, or a description of the research of no more than 25 pages in length;

(b) A curriculum vitae;

(c) Two letters of recommendation, including one letter from the applicant’s doctoral advisor or a faculty member who knows his/her work;

(d) Completed award application form which can be found at www.acuns.org.

Submissions are preferred via email (mS Word or PDF) or in hard copy. If a hard copy is sent, please include three copies of the paper and three copies of the curriculum vitae.

This award, in the amount of $1000 US, is intended to distinguish the selected recipient as one who combines both innovation and excellence in his/her work, and thereby serves as a catalyst for wider attention.

The central consideration for the award looks beyond the substance of a particular global problem and the individual applicant’s disciplinary background, to a clear demonstration of a direct link to institutional issues of the United Nations system.

To be eligible candidates must:

• be at the PhD, JSD or LLm level and engaged in the writing stage of their program.

• be or become a member of ACUNS. To become a member please visit www.acuns.org.

The winner will be notified by May 3, 2010. Details of the winning research project will also be announced at the ACUNS Annual Meeting in Vienna, June 3-5, 2010. The winner is encouraged to submit some written product to Global Governance, though use of any materials remains at the discretion of the journal editorial team.

Send applications to: Brenda Burns, ACUNS Dissertation Award Program at the address below or email to: bburns@wlu.ca

Applications must be received by Friday, March 12, 2010.

A v A l u A B l e S t u d e N t o p p o r t u N I t y

12

Reflecting my past ACUNS experience—as executive director and board chair as well as editor of Global Governance—led me when I was elected president of the International Studies Association (ISA) to select the theme of “Theory vs. Practice? Connecting Scholars and Practitioners” for the upcoming 51st Annual Convention in February 2010 in New Orleans. This is the first ISA gathering that will focus on what always has been the bread and butter of the Academic Council on the UN System. ACUNS was founded in 1987 to foster links between scholars of international organization and law, on the one hand, and individuals who have fled the ivory tower for the dirty-fingernails world of international public policy, on the other hand.

The so-called chasm between these two groups in world politics—those who observe and analyze a subject and those who practice it—need not be as deep and mysterious as we often think. To most scholars, the development of theory, regardless of its relevance outside academia, is highly valued. Simplification and generalization are of the essence. Social scientists ask the “so what” question, but they do so usually in the context of theory-building and not because an answer is actually necessary. Some scholars might even go so far as to deny that theories and methodologies need be applied out-side of the academy. The inappropriate use or misuse of scientific knowledge for the pursuit of political agendas is cited as one reason to assume the role of the detached critic who remains on the sidelines and away from the policy fray. Someone like Harvard’s Stanley Hoffman has meticulously kept his distance from practitioners, especially in Washington, even though virtually everything he has written is of consequence to decision- and policy-makers. Indeed, he hopes that they will occasionally read what he has written.

At the same time, for most practitioners and activists, the word “theory” is associated with abstraction and irrelevance for their day-to-day activities. Every situation seems sui generis, and thus generalizations can cause more problems than they solve. Even if theories offer explanations for practitio-ners, the “unreal” assumptions and simplicity of many theories are not useful when events are unpredictable and do not follow the neat patterns that are thought to be necessary to qualify as “parsimonious.” Often practitio-ners worry about the sources that form the basis for some theoretical propositions; if these sources are unreliable, flawed conclusions follow. The seemingly ever unresolved character of academic debates and knowledge makes theoretical findings difficult to apply in practice.

These stereotypes appear extreme because visible scholars of international studies (from Henry kissinger to Condoleezza Rice) have often changed academic robes for prominent policy-making or decision-making positions. Yet Harvard’s Joseph Nye just lamented in The Washington Post in April that the gap between the two worlds is actually growing—with academic theorizing saying “more and more about less and less” and the Barack Obama administration appointing too few political scientists to high-profile government positions.

Whatever the current state of affairs in Washington, Nye’s is not an accurate characterization of the historical relationship between academia, academic knowledge, and the United Nations. While the relationship could

and should be made closer and more institutionalized in a way that will not compromise scholarly independence, for better or worse many academ-ics have had an important influence in fostering ideas that have come to be associated with the world organization. These ideas, especially in the human rights and development arenas, and the people who wield them have made a difference as the research and oral histories from the United Nations Intellectual History Project (UNIHP) demonstrate. Indiana University Press has just published the capstone volume of this project, UN Ideas That Changed the World.

This research has breathed new life into one of the UN’s overlooked characteristics: the quality and diversity of its intellectual leadership, and its values-based framework for dealing with the global challenges of our times. The decade-long effort that I have had the pleasure of directing with Richard Jolly and Louis Emmerij (the co-authors with me of the book) has explored what is omitted or underemphasized in textbooks about the world organization or other units of the UN system—namely, the ideas, norms, and principles that permeate the world organization’s atmosphere. This reality flies in the face of UN bashing, a favorite sport in the Washington Beltway and elsewhere.

For those who do not see the relevance of connecting scholars and practitioners, UNIHP clearly shows the relevance of academics working as staff members, consultants, or experts inside and outside the world organi-zation. They are a key part of what earlier this year in Global Governance we dubbed the “Third UN” —a group of non-state actors closely engaged with the UN but distinct from member states (the first UN) or members of the Secretariat (the second UN). The roles of scholars in the third UN include research, policy analysis, and idea mongering. Together with other Third UN players such as NGOs, they help put forward new information and ideas, push for new policies, and mobilize public opinion around UN deliberations and operations.

In fact, many individuals who have played an essential role in the world organization’s intellectual and norm-building activities were neither govern-ment officials nor international civil servants but academics. Moreover, many key contributors to ideas as members of the first and the second UN frequently had significant prior associations with a university, a policy think-tank, or an NGO—or joined one after leaving government or UN service. moreover, intellectual energies among the three UNs blend, and there is often a powerful synergy. A revolving door turns as academics and national political actors move inside to take staff positions in UN secretariats, or UN staff members leave to join NGOs, universities, or national office and subsequently engage from outside, but are informed by experience inside.

During Kofi Annan’s tenure, visible U.S. political scientists (John Ruggie and michael Doyle, both of whom have played important roles in ACUNS) worked as assistant secretaries-general to give advice on various new initiatives and specialized concerns (such as terrorism, relations with the private sector, UN reforms, and overall strategic planning and coordination). Yet it is generally believed that contemporary political science does not often advance the careers of those who engage in “policy” work or “policy-relevant” research.

We should realize that the importance of scholarly engagement with the UN and vice versa has traditionally not gone unrecognized. So far nine persons with substantial experience within the UN and its policy

COnneCTinG SCHOlaRS anD PRaCTiTiOneRS

thomas g. weiss

bringing together willing hands to create the “Third Un”

formulation processes have won the Nobel Prize in economic sciences—Jan Tinbergen, Wassily Leontief, Gunnar myrdal, James meade, W. Arthur Lewis, Theodore W. Schultz, Lawrence R. klein, Richard Stone, Amartya Sen—and Joseph Stiglitz is a possible tenth, a former World Bank official who resigned and is now closely associated with the UN. This is not to mention individual Nobel Peace Prize winners who worked for years as staff members of the United Nations, including the distinguished political scientist Ralph Bunche, the first African-American PhD in government from Harvard.

much of contemporary international relations literature privileges developing mathematical models, new methodologies, or the most parsi-monious theories expressed in jargon that is less and less intelligible to policymakers; yet the bulk of scholarship about the United Nations and the main substantive issues on the world organiza-tion’s agenda have long emanated from universi-ties, specialist research institutes, and learned societies mainly in North America and Western Europe. During World War II, the notion that the UN would be a major instrument of Washington’s foreign policy attracted support from U.S. founda-tions. For example, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace actively followed and promoted research on the new organization by scholars and by officials from the League of Nations.

External policy research organizations with intimate links to UN affairs include the Stanley Foundation, the International Peace Institute, the Social Science Research Council, and the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue. Two professional asso-ciations, the Society for International Development (founded in 1967) and of course ACUNS, emerged as part of policy research networks focused on the UN and the international system. While UN think tanks such as the UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) and UN University (UNU) are subject to financial pressure from govern-ments, their semi-autonomy often provides a backdoor channel for external academic and analytical expertise.

Thus, the United Nations has developed both formal and informal institutional channels to get inputs from academics. And it is not infrequently that scholars in the Third UN launch or doggedly pursue notions about which important players in the first or the second UN are less than enthusias-tic about necessary change. Three examples help illustrate this point.

The first is Francis Deng, a distinguished anthro-pologist and lawyer and diplomat, whose mandate (1992-2004) as the representative of the secretary-general was intertwined with the Project on Internal Displacement directed by him and Roberta Cohen at the Brookings Institution. Deng and Cohen deftly reframed “sovereignty as responsibility” in the late 1980s and early 1990s to help foster international assistance and protection for internally displaced persons. Their reframing of state sovereignty not as a privilege but as responsibility helped pave the way for the 2001 report of the International

Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Responsibility to Protect. Deng’s success was because he had a foot in two camps—taking advantage of being within the intergovernmental system of the United Nations and outside it.

In another variation, members of the Second UN may sometimes turn to the Third UN to formulate ideas that are controversial but propitious to place on the agenda and pursue when they come from non-state actors. One of the clearest examples is the idea of “human development,” which UNDP administrator William Draper imported through the work of Cambridge-trained economists and roommates mabbub ul Haq and Amartya Sen. The concept has seen continual refinements since the publication of the first Human Development Report in 1990. Certainly, some UNDP staff members were keen on the notion, but the technical details were always supported by a team of independent international scholars (including Paul Streeten and Richard Jolly), both inside and outside the Secretariat.

The Human Development Report is a prime example of intellectual bite. As an outsider becoming a temporary UN insider, ul Haq and others associated with the effort took political flack from irritated governments. Many of them resent that poorer neighbors get higher ratings because they make more sensible decisions about priorities, for example devoting limited resources to education and health instead of weapons. Indeed, many governments disputed the appropriateness of UNDP’s using official contributions to commission finger-pointing research. But complaints were resisted by the UNDP. This appears to contradict the perspec-tives of scholars such as Susan Strange and Robert Cox (who spent twenty-five years in the International Labor Organization before returning to academia and was an early chair of ACUNS), which posit that views from inside any intergov-ernmental secretariat can only be orthodox and sustain the status quo.

A third example is the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—established by UN Environment Programme and the World meteorological Organization in 1988 to bring to bear the knowledge of card-carrying academics (natural scientists no less) on the dispute over human contribution to climate change. Over twenty years a solid scientific consensus (90 percent of the several thousand scientists involved) emerged: not only is the evidence for global warming unequivocal, but the human influence behind this change is now beyond doubt, largely the result of increases in carbon emissions. The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to the IPCC for advancing the frontiers of scientific knowledge about the climate and to former U.S. vice president Al Gore for his advocacy role in raising American and international awareness.

In short, the role of outside-insider or inside-outsider offers advantages that should be replicated for other controversial issues

when independent research is required, institutional protective barriers are high, normative gaps exist, and political hostility is widespread. Professor Lawrence klein, an eloquent member of the Third UN on disarmament and development, has observed, “I believe that it would be quite valuable if the UN had a better academic world contact.” Indeed, the import of new thinking, approaches, and policies from scholars remains vital to the world organization. To this end, there is an essential role to be played by ACUNS and others devoted to helping break new common ground between scholars and practitioners.

Thomas G.Weiss is Presidential Professor of Political Science and Director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, The CUNY Graduate Centre. He has served ACUNS as chair of the board (2006-2009), editor of Global Governance (2000-2005), and executive director (1992-1998).

13

bringing together willing hands to create the “Third Un”

Intellectual energies among the three UNs blend, and there is often a powerful synergy.

A W A r d S

friends of ACUns

2010 book AwArd

$1,000 awaRD for the

beST ReCenT bOOk

Submissions for the 5th annual Friends of ACUNS Book Award are now being accepted. The Award, including $1000, will go to the author(s) or editor(s) of the best recent book on some aspect of the United Nations and/or the United Nations System. Please send three copies by March 1, 2010 to: c/o: Jean krasno, Treasurer, Friends of ACUNS, International Security Studies, Yale University, 31 Hillhouse Ave., New Haven, CT 06511. Only books published since 2007 will be considered. Please note that only books are eligible. Nominations can be made either by the author or by another source. A committee of three qualified scholars will review submissions.The winner will be announced at the 2010 ACUNS Annual Meeting in Vienna, June 3-5, 2010. For more information, visit the ACUNS website at www.acuns.org or contact Jean krasno at jean.krasno@yale.edu.

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A c a d e m i c c o u n c i l o n t h e u n i t e d N a t i o n s S y s t e m

dancing in Shadows: Sihanouk, the Khmer rouge and the united Nations in cambodiaBenny WidyonoPublished by: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers ISBN: 9780742555532This fascinating book recounts the remarkable tale of a career UN official caught in the turmoil of international and domestic politics swirling around Cambodia after the fall of the khmer Rouge. First as a member of the UN transitional authority and then as a personal envoy to the UN secretary general, Benny Widyono recreates the fierce battles for power centering on Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge, and Hun Sen. He also sets the international context, arguing that great-power geopolitics throughout the cold war and post-cold war eras triggered and sustained a tragedy of enormous proportions in Cambodia for decades, leading to a flawed peace process and the decline of Sihanouk as a dominant political figure in Cambodia. Putting a human face on international operations, this book will be invaluable reading for anyone interested in Southeast Asia, the role of international peacekeeping, and the international response to genocide.

International protection of Human rights: A textbookedited by catarina Krause and Martin ScheininPublished by the Åbo Akademi University Institute for Human Rights, 2009 ISBN: 9789521222856This textbook presents the main universal and regional systems and standards for the international protection of human rights, also taking note of recent changes in procedure together with substantive developments in the field of human rights law. In addition to the United Nations at the universal level, it outlines the existing regional protection systems in Europe, Africa and the Americas as well as bringing forth the discussion pertaining to human rights law in Asia and the Arab countries. moreover, the various means for domestic implementation of human rights law are covered, and attention is drawn to the role of non-governmental organizations in the protection of human rights. The volume is not limited to human rights law in the strict sense, but rather places human rights within a wider context of public international law as well as philosophy. The primary target group for this textbook are master’s level students in law schools and specialized master’s programmes in international law or human rights law, but the book may also appeal to more advanced human rights researchers and professors teaching human rights topics.

the evolution of Sustainable development in International law: Inception, Meaning and Status Nico SchrijverPublished by: Brill Academic Publishers, 2008 ISBN 9789004174078In a relatively short time the concept of “sustainable development” has become firmly established in the field of international law. The World Commission on Environment and Development concisely defined sustainable development as follows: “development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. This definition takes into account the needs of both the present and future generations as well as the capacity of the earth and its natural resources which by clear implication should not be depleted by a small group of people (in industrialized countries). The aim of this book is threefold: to review the genesis and to clarify the meaning of the concept of sustainable development, as well as to assess its status within public international law. Furthermore, it examines the legal principles that have emerged in the pursuit of sustainable development. Lastly, it assesses to what extent the actual evolution of law demonstrates the balance and integration with all pertinent fields of international law as urged by the Rio, Johannesburg, and World Summit documents. This is the second volume in the Hague Academy of International Law Pocket Book series; it contains the text of the course given at the Hague Academy by Professor Schrijver.

coNtINued oN pAge 11 >

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Please note: Submissions of books for inclusion in the aCUnS newsletter should be for publications no earlier than 2007.

Belgium in the uN Security council: Reflections on the 2007-2008 Membershipedited By: Jan Wouters, edith drieskens and Sven BiscopPublished by Intersentia Publishing, 2009 ISBN: 9789050959308In 2007 and 2008, Belgium was once again a privileged observer of the international community’s approach to peace and security, serving as non-permanent member at the UN Security Council. Participating in this ‘global core cabinet’ for the fifth time, it would build upon its historical expertise, especially in relation to Central Africa. Yet its role would not be limited to the region of the Great Lakes only: the government aimed to contribute in a substantial way to all major issues, ‘from North korea to Haiti’, taking the role of ‘bridge builder’. Now that the Belgian delegation has exchanged its blue front row seats for regular red ones again, it seems a good time to look back and forward, assessing its recent performance and putting it into perspective. This volume contains a variety of essays in light of Belgium’s 2007-2008 membership of the UN Security Council, covering issues that were high on the international agenda in addition to more horizontal ones. Contributions from policy officials and academics give a comprehensive overview of these two years and provide an insight into the limits and opportunities of a smaller EU member State in global politics.

concepts and practice of Humanitarian Medicineedited by S. William A. gunn and Michele MasellisPublished by Springer, 2007 ISBN: 0387722637This book seeks to define the field of humanitarian medicine. This is the field practiced and advanced by organizations like the UN, WHO, Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, and the International Association of Humanitarian medicine (IAHm), which all provide medical relief in developing countries as well as war and disaster situations. Co-editors Gunn and masellis have gathered new and previously-published articles and speeches that set out the principles of humanitarian medicine, starting with the idea of health as a human right, and examining topics such as quality of life, torture, and nuclear conflict. The book takes a historical view, drawing on important treatises and conventions throughout the history of the United Nations and the World Health Organization, and paying tribute to Brock Chisholm, the first Director-General of the WHO. Contributors are all major world figures in health and human rights, including Nobel laureates Kofi Annan and Joseph Rotblat.

can the united Nations be taught?colloquium on Innovative Approaches to teaching the uN System(November 22, 2008)

The Vienna Diplomatic Academy has just published the proceedings of a colloquium on Innovative Approaches to Teaching about the United Nations. The proceedings contain over 40 contributions by teachers and students from around the world on the topics ranging from active learning techniques to simulations and computer based learning. In it senior UN officials and renowned academics grapple with whether the covert power games, contradictions, and ambiguities of the UN can be conveyed alongside promotion of the highest principles and aspirations of mankind. The challenges of promoting idealism, critical evaluation, and higher order thinking alongside job training for UN positions are discussed. The volume recounts lessons learned both from innovative university teaching programs and from the field, specifically global peacekeeping and police operations in Bosnia, Kosovo and Sierra Leone. Contributors demonstrate the pedagogical value of intern experiences, study tours, historical model UNs, human rights debate clubs, law clinics, and learning through translation of UN documents. In addition, a section on computer-based learning outlines the electronic materials available from the UN and its agencies; discusses online teaching and virtual classrooms in the United States and Europe, and the use of e-learning in DPkO, UNITAR, UNU, and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. This colloquium was sponsored by the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS) in conjunction with the Austrian Science and Research Liaison Office in Ljubljana, Slovenia and held at the Vienna Diplomatic Academy. Copies of the Compendium can be obtained from the colloquium organizer and ACUNS Liaison Officer in Vienna, Michael Platzer, from the Diplomatic Academy or www.acuns.org.

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