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241. Engaging the public and the private in global sustainability governance

Author:
Kenneth W. Abbott
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Negotiators preparing for Rio+20 are missing an important opportunity. Reforming the institutional framework for sustainable development is a central part of the conference agenda. In the run up to Rio+20, negotiators have extensively discussed institutional reforms, but are focusing almost exclusively on intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD). At the same time, however, private sustainability governance is flourishing. Since 1992 numerous organizations created by business, civil society groups, multi stakeholder coalitions and other private actors, as well as diverse public–private partnerships, have adopted important regulatory standards and implemented significant operational programmes, covering financing, project support and information dissemination. Rio+20 negotiators remain almost wholly disengaged from these innovations.
Political Geography:
United Nations

242. Response

Author:
Jean-Pierre Karegeye
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
The movie Slumdog Millionaire (2008), adapted from Vikas Swarup's 2005 novel Q A, tells the story of Jamal Malik, a vulnerable orphan and street boy exposed to the misery of the world: extreme poverty, disease, lack of education, violence, murder, prostitution in Cherry Street, police brutality, and other misfortunes. Very painful images, but not without promise and determination, show Jamal at five years old, covered in excrement, succeed in reaching the Indian movie star, Amitabah, and receive an autograph. When Jamal starts playing and winning “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” Sergeant Srinivas and other policemen torture Jamal because they cannot understand how this vulnerable lost child is winning the game. Their conclusion: he must be cheating. The film places us into the dialectic of vulnerability and promise. What we can take from it is that the well-being of a child is not a private affair. It is linked to the order of the economic and the political, with these two words understood in their etymological sense. The fact of being on orphan evokes the oikos and miserable life in the streets, as well as the cops' response referring to the order of the polis. Jamal Malik's exceptional achievement raises the question of how is this possible? What is the correct answer among the four choices in the film: he cheated, he's lucky, he's a genius, it is destiny? There is a risk of celebrating the idea of heroism in Jamal Malik's character and forgetting the call to protect vulnerable children. Any promise is inscribed in a societal project that creates conditions of possibility for the protection and success of children. Tonderai Chikuhwa, senior advisor at the United Nations, discusses the Roundtable theme of “Children of the World: The Dialectic of Promise and Vulnerability” by focusing on particular situations of children involved in armed conflict and he evokes concrete actions/operations by the United Nations to protect such “child soldiers.” The well-being of children has been defined as a “categorical imperative” for the realization of planetary peace and security, which therefore calls for actions from the United Nations Security Council.
Topic:
Economics and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United Nations

243. Humanitarian Funding

Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
In both conflicts and disasters, people anywhere have the right to the humanitarian assistance and protection that they need. When national governments are unable to provide it, or need support, the international community has a responsibility to help, including through funding humanitarian action by disaster-affected governments, local and national NGOs, the UN and others. Despite increased funding, new donors and initiatives the level and nature of funding remains inadequate.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Human Welfare, Humanitarian Aid, Non-Governmental Organization, War, Natural Disasters, and Refugee Issues
Political Geography:
United Nations

244. Provision of Aid by Foreign Military Forces

Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Foreign military forces, including UN peacekeeping operations, should not provide relief or development assistance, other than in exceptional cases. Governments should follow the accepted international standards to judge those exceptional circumstances, and determine how military forces should act. These standards are the Guidelines on the Use of Foreign Military and Civil Defence Assets in Disaster Relief [the Oslo Guidelines] for natural disasters, and separate UN guidelines for conflicts.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, Humanitarian Aid, and Natural Disasters
Political Geography:
United Nations

245. Review article: The effectiveness of UN and EU sanctions: lessons for the twenty-first century

Author:
Alex Vines
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
This decade has been a difficult time for the United Nations. Splits among the dominant powers in an increasingly divided Security Council have stymied its efforts to resolve acute global problems. The UN global system, built more than 60 years ago, is finding today's challenges overwhelming. Many issues that the United Nations should lead on are being resolved through world capitals or by regional power blocs, leaving the UN at risk of being marginalized.
Political Geography:
China and United Nations

246. Status-Seeking and Iranian Foreign Policy: The Speeches of the President at the United Nations

Author:
Vahid Noori
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:
One of the major manifestations of the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran under the Principlists is its significant changes, particularly in comparison to the eras of reconstruction and reform. This paper seeks to analyze the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in this period, utilizing the explanatory capacities of the social identity theory and the analytical concept of status-seeking. The main question of the paper concerns the main reasons behind the change in the foreign policy of Ahmadinejad's government when compared to the governments in the reconstruction and reform eras. There are also some secondary questions: Can we consider a common ground for Iranian foreign policy in all these periods? What is the main difference between the foreign policy in the Principlist period and that of Ayatollah Hashemi and former President Khatami's governments? The first secondary hypothesis argues that Iran has always been a status-seeking state in the regional and international systems. The second secondary hypothesis states that Ahmadinejad's government's foreign policy differed from the two preceding governments simply in its search for status-seeking strategy. The main hypothesis is that the perception of the policy-makers of this period concerning the failure of former governments to attain status goals, political purposes, and U.S. containment policy has been the main reason accounting for the revision of status-seeking strategy in the Principlist period.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Iran, United Nations, and Sochi

247. Western Interests, Israeli Unilateralism, and the Two-State Solution

Author:
Neve Gordon and Yinon Cohen
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
This essay analyzes the impact of Israeli unilateralism-specifically that of its settlement project-on the two-state solution. After exploring the relationship between unilateralism and power, the authors show, inter alia, that in-migration has accounted for about half the settlement growth since the international embrace of the land-for- peace formula in 1991, that the level of in-migration does not fluctuate according to government composition (right or left), and that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have spurred rather than inhibited settlement expansion. The essay is framed by a contrast with the Palestinian bid for full UN membership, rejected as unilateralism by the Western powers but in fact aimed at undercutting Israeli unilateralism and creating the conditions for meaningful negotiations.
Political Geography:
Israel, Palestine, and United Nations

248. Compounding Vulnerability: Impacts of Climate Change on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank

Author:
Michael Mason, Mark Zeitoun, and Ziad Mimi
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Coping with (and adapting to) climatological hazards is commonly understood in intergovernmental and aid agency for a as a purely technical matter. This article examines the UN Development Programme's stakeholder consultations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in order to challenge the donor-driven technical-managerial framing of Palestinian climate vulnerability by showing how Israeli occupation practices exacerbate environmental stresses. While emphasizing the importance of social, economic, and political contexts in shaping populations' responses to climate change in general, the authors demonstrate the multiple ways in which the occupation specifically compounds hazards reveals it as constitutive of Palestinian climate vulnerability.
Political Geography:
Israel and United Nations

249. Photos from the Quarter

Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
This small sample of photos, selected from hundreds viewed by JPS, aims to convey a sense of the situation on the ground in the occupied territories during the quarter.
Political Geography:
United Nations

250. B. B'Tselem , "Three Years since Operation Cast Lead: Israeli Military Utterly Failed to Investigate Itself," Jerusalem, 19 January 2012.

Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
The document below was published by the Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, B'Tselem, on 19 January. Though in the wake of Operation Cast Lead the Israel Defense Forces insisted that an independent investigation of its activities was unnecessary, the B'Tselem report details the failure of the Israeli military to investigate either policy choices or the conduct of the forces in the !eld in particular cases three years after the operation. The footnotes have been omitted for space. The document was obtained from http://www.btselem.org/gaza_strip/20120118_3_ years_after_cast_lead.
Political Geography:
Israel and United Nations