United Nations

Biden Administration Seeks US Readmission to UN Cultural Body, Aims at Countering China's Soft Power

In a reversal of Trump policy, the US will seek to rejoin UNESCO and pay back dues because of the perception that China has gained extensive influence over the body, which supervises international educational and cultural heritage initiatives. 

For First Time, UN Commemorates Palestinian Nakba

Rashid Khalidi discusses the history of Palestinian displacement and the struggle to have the Palestinian side of the Arab-Israeli conflict recognized. 

Stronger Global Governance is the Only Way to a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

by Lawrence Wittner

The war in Ukraine and escalating tensions between the PRC and Taiwan are just two examples of the resurgent danger of nuclear war. A revived movement for true international governance is needed to ensure that the unthinkable becomes impossible. 

Climate Policy Needs a Return to Land Reform

by Jo Guldi

In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the United Nations' international development agenda took its cues from struggles for decolonization from Ireland to India, making the redistribution of rural land a top priority. Is this the key to more effective climate change mitigation? 

Can the Ukraine Crisis Push the UN To the Reforms it Needs to Remain Relevant?

by Gary B. Ostrower

The United Nations' power to prevent war has long been subordinated to the protection of traditional national sovereignty. Will instability push the powerful nations on the Security Council to accept change? 

Can the World Stop Imperialist War?

by Lawrence Wittner

It's past time to finish the halting progress made a century ago to rally international cooperation against imperial aggression. The stakes are too high to leave peace in the hands of individual nations. 

Bye Bye, World: Will Humanity Continue to Tolerate the Risk of Nuclear War?

by Lawrence Wittner

Since the dawn of the nuclear age, broad-based disarmament movements have demanded a world without the threat of nuclear annihilation. Will the governments of powerful nations lead the way to realizing that goal? 

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is a Model for Global Progressive Leadership

by Walter G. Moss

As many American Catholic leaders and officials tend toward conservatism and even authoritarianism, it's crucial to look to other examples of the faith informing public action. 

Ukraine Shows the Need to Break the Cycle of National Insecurity

by Roger Peace

It doesn't excuse Russian aggression against Ukraine to recognize that the United States has fumbled the opportunity to forge a global order based on cooperative and mutual security in the years since the end of the Cold War. 

UN Report Highlights Ongoing Racism in US

by Alan J. Singer

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) called out American health disparities, police abuse and crackdowns on protesters as key failures of the United States to address racial inequality. 

Shirley Temple Black's Second Act as a Diplomat

An unpublished memoir of her late life, recently released to the Smithsonian, shows how Shirley Temple Black worked to thwart pervasive sexism in the diplomatic arena while advocating for a global environmental awareness.

Despite What You Hear, Most Americans Look Favorably on Internationalism

by Lawrence Wittner

Most Americans recognize the lessons of worldwide crises in climate, migration and health: a system of nearly 200 nations guarding their own interests is not going to solve humanity's biggest problems. 

The U.N. Rights Chief Says Reparations Are Needed For People Facing Racism

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called on nations to "stop denying and start dismantling" racism through means including, but not limited to, monetary compensation. 

Can Abolition of Nuclear Weapons Overcome the Opposition?

by Lawrence Wittner

People who want to end the nightmare of nuclear destruction that has haunted the world since 1945 should consider widening the popular appeal of nuclear weapons abolition by strengthening the UN’s ability to provide international security.

Has the One World Idea's Time Come Again?

by Samuel Zipp

Can remembering the “one world” vision for America’s global role—largely forgotten today ­–­ help us get beyond both America First and the “liberal world order”?

Brian Urquhart, a Foundational Leader at the United Nations, Dies at 101

"In the mid-1950s, as the lone official in Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold’s inner circle with military experience, Mr. Urquhart helped invent the practice of U.N. peacekeeping through the establishment of the U.N. Emergency Force."

America May Need International Intervention

by Peter Beinart

When other democracies have fallen into peril, they have sought help from the United Nations. The United States might consider it, writes Peter Beinart, since Black Americans have long had to appeal to the community of nations to intervene to secure their democratic rights. 

‘Ten Days in Harlem’: An Interview with Historian Simon Hall

An interview with historian Simon Hall examines the links between revolutionary Cuba, anticolonial rebellion, and civil rights militancy in the United States as revealed by Fidel Castro's 10-day visit to Harlem and the United Nations in 1960.

“A Tragic Illusion” - Did the Atom Bomb Make the United Nations Obsolete Three Weeks After its Birth?

by Tad Daley

President Harry Truman's knowledge of the imminent success of the Manhattan Project led him to fear that the United Nations' charter was inadequate to the task of preventing war; the Cold War meant that a better form of internationalism was never achieved. 

Who Can Learn From Taiwan? Apparently not WHO

by Keith Clark

The World Health Organization is unable to effectively learn from Taiwan's response to COVID-19 because the agency adheres to a "One China" policy that doesn't recognize both the People's Republic of China and Taiwan.