William vanden Heuvel, a former US envoy to the UN, helped set up the Franklin Roosevelt International Disability Rights Award, among the many roles he has played in his life related to the world body. Here, he awards the prize to Queen Sofía of Spain on behalf of her country, Sept. 9, 2013. PAULO FILGUERIAS/UN PHOTO
[Prefatory Note: The following statement on US warmongering in relation to Iran was prepared by Mark LeVine, Professor of History, University of California, Irvine and myself. Some of the early signatories are among the leading scholars in the field of Middle East Studies. Their names are listed below.
Women from North Darfur performing a traditional dance during a celebration organized by the UN mission there. The author of this essay, an international rights lawyer, argues that Omar al-Bashir, the now-ousted president of Sudan, should be transferred to the International Criminal Court for prosecution of atrocities. ALBERT GONZALEZ FARRAN/UNAMID
The people of Sudan finally ousted President Omar al-Bashir from power, on April 11, 2019.
Mansour Al-Otaibi, Kuwait’s ambassador to the UN, in his office in New York. He is leading the monthly rotating Security Council presidency in June for his country’s last time in this role for what could be decades. STÉPHANIE FILLIONGeopolitically, Kuwait’s plate is nearly full for its Security Council presidency in June, with rising tensions with Iran to mediate and the American-led peace plan for Palestine and Israel possibly unveiled, although that appears to be more unlikely by the day.
A trip by the members of the UN Security Council, above background, to the Congo in October 2018 included meeting with female political candidates (front rows) who are competing in the country’s Dec. 23 elections. Recent murders of UN peacekeepers in the Congo raise the question as to whether the Council is clear on the consequences of peacekeepers becoming parties to a conflict. MICHAEL ALI/Monusco
A memorial service was held for the six peacekeepers from Malawi and one from Tanzania who died during clashes with the ADF militia in the Congo on Nov. 15, 2018. Seventeen members of the same UN force intervention brigade were killed nearly a year ago battling the ADF. MIRIAM ASMANI/MONUSCO
United Nations peacekeepers working for the mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were killed by a militia in a jungle in North Kivu Province on Nov. 15, leaving seven soldiers dead: six Malawians and one Tanzanian. Ten were injured.
The conditions of membership in the U.N. are specified in the U.N. Charter. Specifically, “Articles 5 and 6 of the Charter of the United Nations deal respectively with suspension of rights and privileges of membership, and with expulsion from the United Nations.” But the operative part is Article 6, which reads:
Endings and Beginnings: A Commentary on 2017 to 2018
The bad news from a global perspective is that the world crisis worsened during 2017, largely due to the inept and anachronistic orientation toward reality and human wellbeing exhibited by the Trump presidency. Two things
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There are very few inventions which are perfect at the moment of their creation, or which cannot be improved over time. The League of Nations was a new invention when it was first created after the First World War. It was the first attempt to form a global organisation whose main purpose was to prevent war through achieving disarmament and settling disputes through negotiation and arbitration. Like most new inventions, it wasn’t perfect. It failed, and World War Two followed.
