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COULD CULTURE CONTRIBUTE MORE TO THE UN'S CORE GOAL SPELLED OUT IN the Charter's preamble of 'saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war'? More specifically, could deeper cultural understanding [...]

Why, despite well-established and well-publicized intergovernmental processes that date back to the early 1970s, have we been unable to put in place effective mechanisms to combat climate change? Why, despite the existence of extensive global human rights machinery, do we live in a world where mass kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder continue to blight the lives of so many? Why, despite a great deal of effort on the part of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and nonstate actors, have we been unable to make much of a difference to the lives of the ultra-poor and attenuate the very worst aspects of growing global inequalities? Most fundamentally, why have the current international system and the outcomes that it has produced remained so inadequate in the postwar period? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Sustainable development’ – as currently and politically correctly formulated – provides an inappropriate basis on which to frame a future-oriented UN agenda, and risks perpetuating patterns of assistance in which most UN organisations perform poorly and in the shadow of alternative and more able multilateral and bilateral sources. UN operations should take as their point of departure the comprehensive agenda outlined by the two world summits of 2000 and 2005. This agenda recognises the value-based UN as the only universal-membership organisation, which combines the concerns of satisfying human needs while ensuring security, human rights, justice and sound governance. The post-2015 agenda should not look only at development and environment but aspire to what a million global voices canvassed by the UN in ‘the world we want’ campaign are clamouring for. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses how the United Nations (UN) development system is becoming irrelevant and what it can do to stop this from happening. Sustainable development for the UN consists of three dimensions namely, economic, social, and environmental. The article stresses that the UN defines development in a narrow sense because human development which includes rights, capacities, and opportunities should be part of these dimensions.

This article is based on UN Voices: The Struggle for Development and Social Justice (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), a volume of oral history interviews with 73 individuals who were key to the evolution of UN development thinking. This article has two purposes: to provide a flavour of the UN story that those 73 voices tell in the book; and to discuss its central conclusions about the role of international organisations as intellectual actors. Oral history as method and product provides insights in solving a key puzzle in contemporary affairs -- how ideas eventually become part of international discourse, policy, and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article begins to examine the history of economic and social ideas launched or nurtured by the United Nations (UN). In 1999, the United Nations Intellectual History Project was initiated, to analyse the UN as an intellectual actor, and to shed light on the role of the UN system in creating knowledge and in influencing international policy-making: this article is based on the first five books and the oral histories from that Project. The starting point is that ideas may be the most important legacy of the UN for human rights, economic and social development, as well as for peace and security. For the authors, this‘intellectual history’ provides a way to explore the origins of particular ideas; trace their course within institutions, scholarship, and discourse; and in some cases evaluate the impact of ideas on policy and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]