United States Policy toward the United Nations: a Dossier

Journal Articles

Disclaimer: The materials in this section are from sources outside the U.S. Government and should not be construed as an endorsement of the views or privacy policies contained therein or as official U.S. policy.

Chollet, Derek. UN, REDISCOVERED. National Interest, March/April 2007, pp. 57-61.

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"After six years of tempestuous U.S.-UN relations, the next few months could prove a turning point. The proximate cause is the unusual confluence of four events: the ascension o f a new UN secretary-general, Ban Ki Moon; the end of John Bolton's stormy ambassadorship and the nomination of his skilled replacement, Zalmay Khalilzad; and the Democratic takeover in Congress. But a larger, more impersonal reason also contributes. In Washington, there is a greater sense of sobriety about the limits of America's power and influence to act alone -- and more appreciation for strong, effective international institutions." Derek Chollet is a fellow at the CSIS and a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution. He served as a speechwriter at the U.S. mission to the UN during the Clinton Administration.

Rupp, Richard. BEST INTENTIONS OR FALSE PROMISES: MULTILATERAL INTERVENTIONS IN DARFUR, AFGHANISTAN, AND SOUTHERN LEBANON. Mediterranean Quarterly, Spring 2007, pp. 85-106.

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"Regardless of an intervention’s designation or the rules of engagement, the international community’s efforts to stem armed conflicts and ameliorate human suffering have known only modest success in recent years. Indeed, ongoing conflicts in Darfur, Afghanistan, and southern Lebanon illuminate the daunting challenges confronting Western-led intervention efforts. As armed conflicts take the lives of thousands of people throughout the world each day, and new failed states and civil wars emerge, demands for Western action will continue. In this essay" the author examines "recent trends and developments affecting multilateral interventions, with special attention devoted to the involvement of the UN, NATO, and the US government. Each of these actors is inextricably linked, and yet their leadership has proven largely incapable of designing satisfactory relationships governing the design and management of the missions upon which they have jointly embarked." Richard Rupp is associate professor and acting head of the Department of History and Political Science at Purdue University Calumet.

 

Nowak, Manfred. WHAT PRACTICES CONSTITUTE TORTURE?: US AND UN STANDARDS. Human Rights Quarterly, November 2006, pp. 809-843.

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"This article is a response to the attempts of the US government to redefine torture in a highly restrictive sense and at the same time distinguishing it from other forms of cruel inhuman or degrading treatment (CIDT). To this end, the author undertakes a short analysis of the understanding of the concept of torture and CIDT by the present US Government and asks whether this interpretation corresponds to the definition of torture in Article 1, Convention against Torture (CAT). An analysis of the techniques authorized by US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for the interrogation of Guantanamo detainees is also carried out in light of applicable UN standards and international case law." Manfred Nowak is Professor of Constitutional Law and Human Rights at the University of Vienna and Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights (BIM). He holds an LLM. from Columbia University, New York and a Ph.D. from Vienna University. Since 1996, he has served as Judge at the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina, and, since 2000, as Chairperson of the European Master Programme on Human Rights and Democratization (EMA) in Venice.
 

 

 

Lebovic, James H. and Erik Voeten. THE POLITICS OF SHAME: THE CONDEMNATION OF COUNTRY HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES IN THE UNCHR. International Studies Quarterly, December 2006, pp. 861–888.

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"Although the United Nations Commission on Human Rights served as the primary forum in which governments publicly named and shamed others for abusing their citizens, the practices of the commission have been largely ignored by political scientists. To address that deficiency, this study analyzes the actions of the commission and its members' voting records in the 1977–2001 period. It establishes that targeting and punishment by the commission decreasingly fit the predictions of a realist perspective, in which naming and shaming is an inherently political exercise, and increasingly fit the predictions of a liberal 'reputation' perspective, in which governments hold others to their promises, and a constructivist 'social conformity' perspective, in which governments distribute and respond to social rewards and punishments. With the end of the Cold War, the commission's targeting and punishment of countries was based less on partisan ties, power politics, and the privileges of membership, and more on those countries' actual human rights violations, treaty commitments, and active participation in cooperative endeavors such as peacekeeping operations." James H. Lebovic is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at
George Washington University. Erik Voeten is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science at the George Washington University.

Soderberg, Nancy. THE U.S.-UN RELATIONSHIP - A DIFFICULT BUT NECESSARY PARTNERSHIP. American Foreign Policy Interests, August 2006, pp. 311-318.

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"In seeking to answer the two questions that she extrapolated from her analysis of the U.S. approach to the UN—Is the shift from UN bashing on the part of the Bush administration real? Is the UN up to the job?—the author provides a comprehensive analysis of the reforms associated with the 2005 World Summit." Nancy Soderberg is a trustee of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. From 1993 to 1996, she was the third-ranking official at the National Security Council, and from 1997 to 2001, she was a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Currently a distinguished visiting scholar at the University of North Florida, Ambassador Soderberg is the author of The Superpower Myth: The Use and Misuse of American Might, 2005.