Wartime Origins and the Future United Nations

Wartime Origins and the Future United Nations
Author: Dan Plesch
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2015-01-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1134668732

The creation of the UN system during World War II is a largely unknown or forgotten story among contemporary decision makers, international relations specialists, and policy analysts. This book aims to recover the wartime history of the United Nations and explore how the forgotten past can shed light on a possible and more desirable future. To achieve this, each chapter takes three snapshots: "Then," the imaginative and transnational thinking about solutions to post-war problems demonstrated a realization that victory in WW II required an intergovernmental "system" with enough power and competence to work—that is, the UN was not established as a liberal plaything and public relations ploy but rather as a vital necessity for post-war order and prosperity. "Now," which often seems a pale imitation of wartime thinking that nonetheless reflects a growing and widespread recognition of the fundamental disconnect between the nature of trans-boundary problems and current solutions seen as feasible by 193 UN member states. "Next steps," or the collective wisdom about the range of new thinking and new institutions that, in fact, may well have antecedents in wartime thinking and experimentation and could be labelled blue-prints for a "third generation" of intergovernmental organizations. This work will be essential reading for all students and scholars of the United Nations, International Organizations and Global Governance.

Wartime Origins and the Future United Nations

Wartime Origins and the Future United Nations
Author: Dan Plesch
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2015-01-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1134668805

The creation of the UN system during World War II is a largely unknown or forgotten story among contemporary decision makers, international relations specialists, and policy analysts. This book aims to recover the wartime history of the United Nations and explore how the forgotten past can shed light on a possible and more desirable future. To achieve this, each chapter takes three snapshots: "Then," the imaginative and transnational thinking about solutions to post-war problems demonstrated a realization that victory in WW II required an intergovernmental "system" with enough power and competence to work—that is, the UN was not established as a liberal plaything and public relations ploy but rather as a vital necessity for post-war order and prosperity. "Now," which often seems a pale imitation of wartime thinking that nonetheless reflects a growing and widespread recognition of the fundamental disconnect between the nature of trans-boundary problems and current solutions seen as feasible by 193 UN member states. "Next steps," or the collective wisdom about the range of new thinking and new institutions that, in fact, may well have antecedents in wartime thinking and experimentation and could be labelled blue-prints for a "third generation" of intergovernmental organizations. This work will be essential reading for all students and scholars of the United Nations, International Organizations and Global Governance.

FDR and the Creation of the U.N.

FDR and the Creation of the U.N.
Author: Townsend Hoopes
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 1997-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780300085532

In this comprehensive account, two prize-winning historians explain how the idea of the United Nations was conceived, debated, and revised, first within the U.S. government and then by negotiation with its major allies in World War II. 28 illustrations.

Human Rights after Hitler

Human Rights after Hitler
Author: Dan Plesch
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2017-04-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1626164339

Human Rights after Hitler reveals thousands of forgotten US and Allied war crimes prosecutions against Hitler and other Axis war criminals based on a popular movement for justice that stretched from Poland to the Pacific. These cases provide a great foundation for twenty-first-century human rights and accompany the achievements of the Nuremberg trials and postwar conventions. They include indictments of perpetrators of the Holocaust made while the death camps were still operating, which confounds the conventional wisdom that there was no official Allied response to the Holocaust at the time. This history also brings long overdue credit to the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC), which operated during and after World War II. From the 1940s until a recent lobbying effort by Plesch and colleagues, the UNWCC’s files were kept out of public view in the UN archives under pressure from the US government. The book answers why the commission and its files were closed and reveals that the lost precedents set by these cases have enormous practical utility for prosecuting war crimes today. They cover US and Allied prosecutions of torture, including “water treatment,” wartime sexual assault, and crimes by foot soldiers who were “just following orders.” Plesch’s book will fascinate anyone with an interest in the history of the Second World War as well as provide ground-breaking revelations for historians and human rights practitioners alike.

The United Nations: A Very Short Introduction

The United Nations: A Very Short Introduction
Author: Jussi M. Hanhimäki
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2015-05-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190222727

After seven decades of existence has the UN become obsolete? Is it ripe for retirement? As Jussi Hanhimäki proves in the second edition of this Very Short Introduction, the answer is no. In the second decade of the twenty-first century the UN remains an indispensable organization that continues to save lives and improve the world as its founders hoped. Since its original publication in 2008, this 2nd edition includes more recent examples of the UN Security Council in action and peacekeeping efforts while exploring its most recent successes and failures. After a brief history of the United Nations and its predecessor, the League of Nations, Hanhimäki examines the UN's successes and failures as a guardian of international peace and security, as a promoter of human rights, as a protector of international law, and as an engineer of socio-economic development. This updated edition highlights what continues to make the UN a complicated organization today, and the ongoing challenges between its ambitions and capabilities. Hanhimäki also provides a clear account of the UN and its various arms and organizations (such as UNESCO and UNICEF), and offers a critical overview of the UN Security Council's involvement in recent crises in Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, Libya, and Syria, and how likely it is to meet its overall goals in the future. Regardless of its obstacles, the UN is likely to survive for the foreseeable future. That alone makes trying to understand the UN in all its manifold - magnificent and frustrating - complexity a worthy task. With this much-needed updated introduction to the UN, Jussi Hanhimäki engages the current debate over the organizations effectiveness as he provides a clear understanding of how it was originally conceived, how it has come to its present form, and how it must confront new challenges in a rapidly changing world. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Would the World Be Better Without the UN?

Would the World Be Better Without the UN?
Author: Thomas G. Weiss
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2018-02-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1509517294

Do we need the United Nations? Where would the contemporary world be without its largest intergovernmental organization? And where could it be had the UN’s member states and staff performed better? These fundamental questions are explored by the leading analyst of UN history and politics, Thomas G. Weiss, in this hard-hitting, authoritative book. While counterfactuals are often dismissed as academic contrivances, they can serve to focus the mind; and here, Weiss uses them to ably demonstrate the pluses and minuses of multilateral cooperation. He is not shy about UN achievements and failures drawn from its ideas and operations in its three substantive pillars of activities: international peace and security; human rights and humanitarian action; and sustainable development. But, he argues, the inward-looking and populist movements in electoral politics worldwide make robust multilateralism more not less compelling. The selection of António Guterres as the ninth UN secretary-general should rekindle critical thinking about the potential for international cooperation. There is a desperate need to reinvigorate and update rather than jettison the United Nations in responding to threats from climate change to pandemics, from proliferation to terrorism. Weiss tells you why and how.

America, Hitler and the UN

America, Hitler and the UN
Author: Dan Plesch
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2010-12-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 0857718614

In January 1942, the Declaration by United Nations forged a military alliance based on human rights principles that included over 24 countries, marking the beginning of the UN. But how did the armies of the United Nations co-operate during World War II to halt Nazi expansionism? When did the UN start to tackle the international economic and social challenges of the post-war world? This is the first book to explore how the profound restructuring of the international world order was organized. Drawing on previously unknown archival material, Plesch analyzes the engagement with the UN by all levels of society, from grassroots to the political elites. Plesch has pieced together the full story of how the UN intervened in surprising ways at a pivotal time in world history and argues that the UN s success is as vital today as it was then."

International Cooperation in Cold War Europe

International Cooperation in Cold War Europe
Author: Daniel Stinsky
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2021-04-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 1350169048

Formed in 1947, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) was the first postwar international organization dedicated to economic cooperation in Europe. Linking the universalism of the UN to European regionalism, both Cold War superpowers, the USA and the Soviet Union, were founding members of the UNECE. Building on the League of Nations' difficult heritage, and in an increasingly challenging political environment, the UNECE's mission was to facilitate European cooperation transcending the boundaries set by the Cold War . With a number of competitor organizations set against it, the UNECE managed to carve out a niche for itself, setting norms and standards that still have an impact on the everyday lives of millions in Europe and beyond today. Working against an overwhelming geopolitical trend, UNECE succeeded in bridging the Cold War divide on several occasions, and maintained a broad system of contacts across the Iron Curtain. This book provides a unique study of this important but hitherto under-researched international organization. Incorporating research on the Cold War, the history of internationalism and European integration, Stinsky weaves these different threads of historical enquiry into a single analytical narrative.

The Parliament of Man

The Parliament of Man
Author: Paul Kennedy
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2007-09-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0307387607

The Parliament of Man is the first definitive history of the United Nations, from one of America's greatest living historians.Distinguished scholar Paul Kennedy, author of the bestselling The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, gives us a thorough and timely account that explains the UN's roots and functions while also casting an objective eye on its effectiveness and its prospects for success in meeting the challenges that lie ahead. Kennedy shows the UN for what it is: fallible, human-based, often dependent on the whims of powerful national governments or the foibles of individual administrators—yet also utterly indispensable. With his insightful grasp of six decades of global history, Kennedy convincingly argues that "it is difficult to imagine how much more riven and ruinous our world of six billion people would be if there had been no UN."