World Bulletin
For Students, a Close Look at the UN
By Conor Gallagher
From left: Ed Elmendorf of UNA, Bob Orr of the UN and Courtney Smith of Seton Hall. Chika Moses.
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Aug. 4 -- Every summer for the last 11 years, the United Nations Association of the USA, in partnership with the John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University, set up an intensive weeklong summer study program at the United Nations. This year’s program took place from July 26-30 in New York City.
The course provides students a chance to look at the inner workings and mechanics of the UN from the people who know it best, the practitioners.
The program is structured around 60- to 75-minute off-the-record dialogues with UN participants representing UN member countries; the UN Secretariat and its agencies; and nongovernmental organizations working with the UN. This year’s roster featured 18 topical sessions, a visit to a Security Council briefing on Darfur and a tour of the UN. The course is offered for credit or noncredit.
Fifty-four senior undergraduate and graduate students specializing in international relations, law and history as well as midlevel professionals from Justice Department, local government offices, the military and the World Bank participated this year, making one of the largest groups in the program’s history.
The students were almost as diverse as the UN, and included individuals from India, Brazil, China, Colombia, Kenya, Algeria, Somalia, Eritrea, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and Peru. Some participants were immigrants living in the US and hoping to go back to their country to apply the knowledge they gained from the program. There were also participants from a range of US locales, including Salt Lake City, Kansas City, Detroit, Arkansas and Miami.
Dr. Courtney Smith, the associate dean of the Whitehead School and the author of “Politics and Process at the United Nations: The Global Dance,” teaches the program. Dr. Smith described it as an “an honest appraisal about the UN’s strengths and limitations” and encouraged students to be critical of the UN. “Don’t feel like you have to be a cheerleader,” he said at the opening session.
“I like the idea of the UN, but I would like to know what the UN actually does,” said a graduate student from the Whitehead School.
Another student, from Canada, said: “I would like to know the way UN accommodates rising powers.”
A. Edward Elmendorf, president and chief executive of UNA-USA, kicked off the program with a talk on US-UN relations under the Obama administration, noting its achievements and the limits of its accomplishments.
Gillian Sorensen, a senior adviser at the United Nations Foundation, spoke on civil society’s participation at the UN, saying: “I don’t pretend for a minute that the governments are not the prevailing players. But they can’t do what they do without the civil society.”
Amir Dossal, executive director of the UN Office of Partnerships, another speaker, said that innovative partnerships are essential for governments and the UN in accomplishing goals. “Social responsibility starts with and by people… individual leadership and activism is very important.”
The chief of public affairs for peacekeeping, Nick Birnback, said in his session that UN peacekeeping and the member states learned from the mistakes of the 1990s, and he described conditions that best suited a peacekeeping role.
Jared Kotler from the Department of Political Affairs spoke on conflict prevention, peacemaking and peace-building, while Bob Orr, the assistant secretary-general for the policy and strategic planning unit, talked to the students about Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s priorities and the leading role UN takes on global goods such as global health, climate change and nonproliferation.
These issues, Orr said, “require all governments to deliver because it affects all.”
Michael Meyer, director of communications and the head of the speechwriting unit for the UN’s Executive Office, provided insight into various public perceptions of the secretary-general and the communication tools his office uses to convey the UN’s message to a global audience.
The students also heard from Warren Hoge on the UN’s relationship with the media and the public perceptions of UN secretaries-general. Hoge is the vice president of the International Peace Institute and a former New York Times UN bureau chief.
This year the program featured its first speaker from the Chinese Mission to the UN, Liu Yutong, the chief press officer and spokesperson. Liu spoke on China’s growing role in the UN and the Security Council. Joanna Weschler, director of research for the Security Council Report, discussed the performance and changing dynamics of the Security Council since the cold war.
Modest J. Mero, a minister at Tanzania’s mission to the UN, spoke on a session titled “Investing in Africa” and said that “fighting poverty is a process that needs careful planning and focussed interventions and investments…The upcoming MDG Summit [Sept. 20-22] is an opportunity to place effective plans and strategies to utilize the remaining five years.”
Utku Teksoz, an economist in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, spoke on the role that the G20 and the UN were playing in financial recovery. “The Global Pulse” http://www.unglobalpulse.org/, a project born out of G20–UN cooperation, allows all of UN entities “to pull together and get more up to date picture of vulnerability,” he said.
Other speakers included Ambassador Vanu Gopala Menon, permanent representative of Singapore to the UN; Bertil Lindblad, director of the UNAIDS office in New York; Yasin Samatar, special assistant to the assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs at the UN’s Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs; Hugh Dugan, adviser at the US Mission to the UN; Roland Rich, executive head of the UN Democracy; Thomas Markram, secretary-general of the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference; and Simone Monasebian, representative and chief of the New York office of UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
Conor Gallagher is an intern at the UNA-USA’s global policy programs and a master’s degree student in peace and conflict studies at the University of Ulster.
Keywords:
Seton Hall, Whitehead School of Diplomacy, Courtney Smith, UN
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