In the first few months of 2005, the Security Council considered granting the International Criminal Court the jurisdiction to investigate alleged war crimes in Darfur. The debate was tough at the time. The United States is not a signatory to the treaty that created court and it was unclear whether or not it would support the referral in the Security Council. The crisis in Darfur, however, seemed to inspire a brief détente between the United States and the ICC. When the resolution came to a vote, the United States abstained and let the measure pass.

Nearly 20 months later, we are seeing the first results of that decision. On Tuesday, the ICC's top prosecutor released the names of two individuals against whom his office has built a case. According to the recently released court documents, Ahmad Harun, a Sudanese government official, is alleged to have hired a janjaweed militia commander named Ali Kushyb to clear out villages and towns in West Darfur.

Though these are two relatively mid-level players, the investigation in Darfur is still open. The prosecutor has pledged to follow the evidence where it leads. Presumably, this means up the chain of command to more senior officials of the Sudanese government.

So now that the ICC has opened the prosecutorial floodgates in Sudan, what does that mean for the long suffering people of Darfur? Specifically, how can the ICC help break Khartoum's opposition to the already authorized peacekeeping force for Darfur? The answers here depend on how key players of the international community choose to respond to these new developments. The ICC has just given the international community a point of political leverage over the Khartoum. If key international players back the ICC's work in Darfur, the investigations can help press Khartoum to break its opposition to peacekeepers.

With yesterday's announcement, the ICC showed the world that it can build a serious case against alleged war criminals in Darfur. This is precisely the right moment for all responsible nations to show Khartoum that they are unified behind the Court's work. With the threat of indictments hanging over the heads of the leadership in Khartoum, perhaps then they will come to realize that letting peacekeepers into Darfur is really an offer they cannot refuse.

Today the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) named a Sudanese minister and a militia commander as the first suspects he wants tried for war crimes.

The Security Council referred the Darfur issue, along with the names of 51 suspected perpetrators, to the ICC in March 2005, after a UN inquiry into whether genocide occurred in Darfur found the Government responsible for crimes under international law and strongly recommended referring the dossier to the Court.

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The United Nations Foundation (UN Foundation) and Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, released today "Confronting Climate Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable and Managing the Unavoidable," the final report of the Scientific Expert Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development. The report, prepared as input for the upcoming meeting of the UN's Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), outlines a roadmap for preventing unmanageable climate changes and adapting to the degree of change that can no longer be avoided.

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Diplomats from the U.S., Britain, China, Russia, Germany and France have agreed to start working on new resolution in order to pressure Iran to rein in its nuclear program.

The State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said the United States was willing to join in talks between the Europeans and Iran over the nuclear program, provided that Iran suspended its uranium enrichment activity.

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Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Special Representative, Alan Doss told the all-female peacekeeping unit in Liberia that "we know from police experience around the world that women officers are good at handling potentially violent situations."

"I am quite confident that with your help we can maintain a peaceful, stable and violence-free environment in Liberia," Mr. Doss told the unit made up 105 female officers with 20 male supporting staff - the first largely female Formed Police Unit to be deployed to a UN peacekeeping operation.

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Two weeks ago, several hundred Brazilian peacekeepers raided the gang-infested sea side slum of Cite Soleil, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (You can read about the offensive here and here.) So far, the raids have successfully rooted out some of the major organized criminal elements of Cite Soleil. In yet another sign of progress, UN Peacekeepers have transformed the headquarters of the most notorious gang leaders into a free medical clinic for the long suffering residents of the neighborhood.

More.

In The New York Times op-ed page, Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, writes that the week-old UN sanctions on Iran are beginning to have its intended effect.

"Top leaders of the Islamic Republic, from Ayatollah Khamenei to Mr. Rafsanjani, have made it clear that they consider sanctions a serious threat -- more serious, according to Mr. Rafsanjani, than the possibility of an invasion.

"In other words, what the unilateral and increasingly quixotic American embargo could not do in more than a decade, a limited United Nations resolution has accomplished in less than a month. And the resolution succeeded because few things frighten the mullahs more than the prospect of confronting a united front made up of the European Union, Russia, China and the United States. The resolution was a manifestation of just such a united front."

Milani also states that the powerful insiders like Ali Larjani, the top Iranian nuclear negotiator, are in damage-control mode right now. Incidentally, this includes a series of high-level repudiations of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad confrontational rhetoric about the Holocaust. But more to the point, the sanctions seem to have inspired the Iranian regime to contemplate what previously they had not. As Milani writes, the Ayatollah's foreign policy advisor stated forthrightly "that suspending Uranium enrichment is not a red line for the regime." So despite President Ahmadinejad's blustery proclamations to the contrary, the real power players behind Iranian foreign policy are willing to agree to some sort of compromise that includes suspension.

It should be noted that the current sanctions regime is actually rather limited in scope. Still, though the Security Council only agreed to a "light" sanctions package, the Council's unified front seems to be having a demonstrable effect on the debate within Iran. The sanctions, though not terribly robust, are beginning show its outsized political utility.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says that he is "deeply concerned" that Iran has not met the Security Council deadline to suspend uranium enrichment.

"I urge again that the Iranian Government fully comply with the Security Council as soon as possible" to engage in continued negotiation "with the international community so that we will be able to address and peacefully resolve this issue," he told reporters in Vienna, Austria, where he is on an official visit.

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In March 2005, the Security Council granted the International Criminal Court jurisdiction to investigate suspected war crimes in Darfur. According to a just-released notice to the press, the results of the investigation will soon be revealed. The ICC announced today that early next week, Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno O'Campo will release evidence that connects named individuals to suspected cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

More.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged Iran's government to full comply with the SG and answer to the international community concerning their pursuit for nuclear technology.

Last December the 15-member Council imposed sanctions on Tehran, maintaining that Iran's nuclear programme was aimed at weapons production, a claim the Government consistently denies.

"Again, taking this opportunity, I would strongly urge the Iranian authorities to comply, first of all fully with the Security Council resolution, and continue to negotiate with the international community."

But Iran's leaders say they plan to press ahead:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said today that Iran had a right to pursue nuclear technology and "will continue our work to reach our right in the shortest possible time," according to the ISNA news agency. Speaking in Siahkal in northern Iran, Mr. Ahmadinejad said,

"Obtaining this technology is very important for our country's development and honour."

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In a report to the Security Council on Tuesday, the Secretary General outlined two possible peacekeeping options for eastern Chad, where the spillover from the conflict in Darfur is threatening the lives of refugees and civilians caught in the crossfire.

From Edith Lederer of the Associated Press:

"Ban proposed two possible military options for Chad - a 6,000-strong force backed by 20 helicopters and an observation aircraft and a 10,900-strong force backed by 11 helicopters and two observation aircraft. He also proposed that some 800 Chadian police be loaned to a U.N. peacekeeping operation to help protect a dozen refugee camps and key towns where Chadians have fled, along with 260 international police."

Ban did not request outright that the Security Council approve such a mission. But if the Council does decide to send peacekeepers to Chad, one would have to worry about over-taxing UN peacekeeping. As was written in the most recent installment of the UNF Insights essay series, the demand for peacekeeping is outpacing the availability of resources to implement Security Council dictates. Without the requisite financial and logistical support from member states, the United Nations would be hard-pressed to find peacekeepers to form a new force in Chad.

Working with Sudan's Government, UN agencies and NGOs have organized a workshop aimed at preventing sexual exploitation.

"[The UN mission in the country] said today's workshop, which is being held in Juba, southern Sudan, aims to share information about the UN's zero-tolerance policy on sexual exploitation, while assessing achievements and identifying gaps in preventing the crime, especially against children in the region. It will also set up a joint reporting and assessment mechanism." More

Watch this BBC coverage of the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

(And of course, don't forget to check out the IPCC Facts website.)

Last Tuesday, during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing (video) on the "The Future of the United Nations Under Ban Ki-moon," a question was asked that reflects the conventional wisdom on the crisis in Darfur:

This conflict, I think, highlights the profound shortcomings of the United Nations, and I suspect we might be further down the road of acting decisively, if it were not for the restrictions we allow the Security Council to impose upon us. And I think that ... in the United Nations, we're sort of guaranteed the lowest common denominator approach to genocide.

The response posited by former Senator Tim Wirth flipped the issue on its head and framed it in a way that should be of interest to those promoting a framework for responding quickly to the genocide.

[This] goes right to the question of duty to protect and goes right to what the responsibilities of other nations are to the genocide going on in a sovereign nation. And we haven't figured that problem out. We don't know what the answer to that is. I think to say that that's a part of the profound shortcoming of the UN is to say it's our own shortcoming. We're the ones who have not been able, with the Chinese and the other members of the Security Council and others, to really figure out when this veto power exists and when the sovereign responsibility of a country stops and other nations can come in. There's nothing stopping us from independently going into Darfur; we could certainly do that. We've chosen not to do so, but there's nothing stopping us or others from doing it. We've all been delinquent on this subject.

This question has been falsely framed in the public sphere. The debate is not over whether and when the world should act. The answers to those questions in the case of Darfur -- "yes" and "now" -- were decided long ago by almost every responsible nation. The world is engaged in a more primary and far more complex debate: at what point is national sovereignty trumped by our responsibility to protect? Violating a state's sovereignty is no small matter. And the UN doing so would set a precedent that nearly every nation is wary of setting. But, clearly, in some instances, it is the world's moral obligation and in every nation's security interest to do so.

This debate is not nearly finished, but it has already illuminated a basic misconception about the United Nations. Lee Feinstein, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, put it succinctly in his recent report, "Darfur and Beyond: What is Needed to Prevent Mass Atrocities" when he said, "Criticism of the United Nations is a form of self-criticism." The UN is the world's platform for international cooperation. Criticism of its shortcomings is criticism of the world's inability to engage and to gain consensus. Only when member states exert the political will necessary to develop a truly robust framework around the "responsibility to protect" can the world expect to see an adequate response to genocide.

Ten days ago, the peacekeeping force attached to the United Nations Mission in Haiti began incursions into gang infested neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince, with orders to arrest leaders of the organized criminal groups that terrorize the impoverished Cite-Soleil neighborhood. As the AP reports, it would seem that this campaign has shown some early signs of success. Peacekeepers on Monday arrested one Johnny Pierre Louis, a gang leader wanted in connection to the reprisal murders of two other gang members who had agreed to participate in a UN sponsored disarmament program. The program, administered by MINUSTAH (as the UN's Haiti mission is known), promises economic aid and job training in return for gang members relinquishing their arms.

Though Louis was arrested, the shadowy top leader of the criminal network rooted in Cite-Soleil, who is known only as "Evans," is still on the loose. However, according to a rather detailed article about the raids (from Jacqueline Charles of McClatchy newspapers) UN peacekeepers now control about 20% of Cite Soleil, including the school house that served as Evans' headquarters. Evans is apparently on the run and has contacted Haitian authorities promising to turn over his guns.

These early tactical successes bode well for MINUSTAH's decision to take more robust and assertive action against organized crime in Haiti's slums. Of course, no one should be sanguine about the prospects for a swift turnabout in the quality of life in Cite-Soleil. Still, early returns would show that MINUSTAH's forceful posture is paying off for the embattled residents of Haiti's poorest district.

A new United Nations-backed study says that one third of today's Iraqi population lives in poverty with more than 5 per cent living in extreme poverty.

"Prepared by the Iraqi Central Organization for Statistics and Information Technology with the support of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the statistics show that a high percentage of people in Iraq live under various levels of poverty and human deprivation despite the country's huge economic and natural resources." More

The Government of Sudan has apparently refused to issue visas to a team of human rights investigators, dispatched to Darfur by the new Human Rights Council. The Council voted unanimously to send the team to Darfur and they were expected to start their work this week. But because they have not been given entry visas by the Sudanese government they are currently in a holding pattern in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Yesterday afternoon, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed his displeasure with Khartoum's behavior, saying “He [Bashir] said he would issue visas to the fact-finding mission. He said he would have no problem, and I am very much disappointed by the decision of the Sudanese government."

Unfortunately, there is precious little that Ban can do to force Khartoum to relent and issue the visas. Besides lodging strongly-worded complaints, there is little in the way of punitive measures available to the Secretary General that could help prod Khartoum into changing its behavior. Ultimately, this responsibility belongs to the Security Council. And so far, it would seem that member states are unwilling to apply the kind of pressure necessary to push a reluctant government in Sudan to yield to the demands of the international community.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) launched an interactive website today on the right to food, providing information for policy-makers, legal practitioners, civil society members, UN staff, academics and the general public.

"Through the web site, users can increase their awareness of the human right to food, access resources for capacity-building at national and international levels, and find guidance, methods and instruments to assist in implementation of the right to food at the country level." More

The Bush administration will allow approximately 7,000 Iraqi refugees into the United States over the next year, a huge increase: according to the Associated Press, the U.S. has only allowed 463 refugees from Iraq into the country since the war began.

"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Wednesday with U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres to outline the expanded U.S. program. The 7,000 would be resettled from nations outside Iraq where they have fled. The U.S. proposal also includes plans to offer special treatment for Iraqis still in the country whose cooperation with the U.S. government puts them at risk from sectarian reprisal." More

Since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its report concluding (with 90% certainty) that human activity causes global warming, skeptics have come out in droves to undermine this conclusion. Some of these empirically-challenged pundits come from the Exxon-Mobilfunded American Enterprise Institute. Still others can be found in the pages of rightwing magazines like the National Review and similar refuges of fantasy.

For those of us in the reality-based community, the United Nations Foundation has set up a new website, IPCC Facts, that helps distill the IPCC report in language accessible to non-scientists like myself. With its "myths" page, the site is a particularly useful resource for those with the unfortunate task of having to debate climate change with the flat-earth people. Check it out.

In the Washington Post today Colum Lynch reports on the developing world's disquiet with some of Secretary Ban's early moves to re-organize UN bureaucracy. Apparently, some member states worry that Ban is too "pro-American," and are suspicious about whom or what is motivating him.

Pakistan's Munir Akram - Chairman of the Third World bloc G-77, and arguably one of the more effective Permanent Representatives in Turtle Bay - gives voice to some of these concerns. "There is always suspicion no matter what the U.S. does because it is such an overwhelmingly powerful player. I think that's a natural function of being a big power, of being the biggest power."

Akram may be engaging in pure speculation here, but his point should not be dismissed for it harkens to the climate of mistrust that has torpedoed previous reform efforts. In the year following the September 2005 World Summit - which outlined a broad program of structural reform - a distrustful and polarized atmosphere at Turtle Bay stymied progress on reform. The developing world largely rejected a reform package for fear that it would diminish their influence at the United Nations. If these efforts are to be re-energized, tensions between the developed and developing world must be cooled so that the give-and-take of reform negotiations can proceed toward a more fruitful outcome.

According to this article, it would seem Ban has a tough road ahead. The scars from last year's reform debates still seem fresh.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has launched a $62 million drive to help the million-plus people who have been forced to flee their homes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Ron Redmond, UNHCR spokesperson, told reporters in Geneva that the agency is "seeking $47 million to support the return and reintegration this year of some 98,500 Congolese refugees to their homeland. It is also asking donors for a further $15 million to provide protection and assistance during the same period for an estimated 1.1 million internally displaced people (IDP) in the African nation." More

At today's Congressional hearing, American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow John Bolton aired the radical proposal of eliminating the current dues-based system of United Nations funding and replacing it with voluntary, a la carte financing of UN operations. This has been a recurring theme in Bolton's speeches and testimonies for well over a year. And now that he is no longer the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, he seems to be pushing this extremist position with renewed zeal.

Before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Bolton testified: "A system of voluntary contributions will allow UN members to judge the effectiveness of the various parts of the UN system, and demand results. Non-responsive programs and funds can be defunded, effective agencies and personnel can be rewarded and augmented, and, most importantly, the crippling mentality of 'entitlement' that pervades the main UN organization will be stripped away."

Let's be clear: Bolton's proposal is both deleterious to American interests and dangerous to the millions of people around the globe that depend on the United Nations for their sustenance and security.

Certain UN organs, like the World Food Program and UNICEF are funded through voluntary contributions by member states. But a system of voluntary funding for UN operations and peacekeeping (which by treaty are funded through membership dues) would mean the end of the United Nations as we know it. If member countries could pick and choose what UN programs and peacekeeping operations they would like to fund, and which they would like to starve, nearly every aspect of UN operations would become politicized. Translators would be in direct competition for funds with UN peacekeepers in Sudan. Worse, UN organs would have to devote time and resources to fundraising, not fulfilling their mandate. Just imagine the head of a peacekeeping mission in Haiti or Lebanon spending his or her time panhandling member states rather than devoting his or her full energies at the task they were given.

Further, the greatest asset the United Nations brings its work--its unique stamp of legitimacy-- would no doubt be undermined should member states simply pick and choose the specific UN functions they financially support. For example, if the UN investigation into the assassination of Rafik Harriri were supported by countries that advocate regime change in Syria, the investigation and nascent independent criminal tribunal, would loose all credibility.

From an American perspective, perhaps the greatest danger a la carte UN funding poses is its potential to diminish American influence at the United Nations. The United States is currently the single largest contributor to the UN budget. And for these contributions, the United States carries great clout and influence in Turtle Bay. More so than any other member state, the United States is able to steer the agenda at the United Nations and help set its priorities. Should UN funding become de-centralized, the United States would loose this influence. It would not be stretch to imagine that some of America's detractors would seek to hijack UN organs and use the United Nations to attack American interests and policies.

Fortunately, the only place that a la carte UN funding seems to be gaining traction is the American Enterprise Institute. On Capitol Hill or at the United Nations the idea is rightly rejected for the danger it poses.

Right now, the House Foreign Affairs Committee is holding an open hearing on "The Future of the United Nations under Ban Ki-Moon" with Tim Wirth, former Senator and current President of the UN Foundation, John Bolton, the former U.S. Perm Rep to the UN, and George Mitchell, former Senator Majority Leader.

Watch it live.

Ghanim Alnajjar, an independent UN human rights expert, called for the release of three journalists arrested in Somalia and expressed concern over the closing of radio and television stations.

"Threats to journalists and media outlets constitute serious violations of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," Alnajjar said. More

Tomorrow the House Committee on Foreign Affairs is holding an open hearing, The Future of the United Nations under Ban Ki-Moon.

Details after the jump.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007
10:00 AM
Room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building

The Honorable Timothy E. Wirth
President, United Nations Foundation
Former United States Senator, Colorado

The Honorable George Mitchell
Former United States Senate Majority Leader
Former Co-Chair, United States Institute for Peace Task Force on the United Nations

The Honorable John Bolton
Former United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations

A live webcast of the event will be available here.

Marc Lacey's Sunday New York Times piece describing UN peacekeepers' recent incursions into the gang-infested Cite-Soleil neighborhood of Port-au-Prince sheds some light into the difficult task blue-helmets face in Haiti. There are 8,000 mostly Jordanian and Brazilian blue-helmets in Haiti. And as the Times piece explains, they are starting to stake a more aggressive posture against organized criminal groups that terrorize urban slums and threaten the democratically-elected Preval government. Heavily armed UN troops are acting as a constabulary force, going block-by-block to apprehend crime bosses in order to make life more tolerable for the residents of Port-au-Prince.

Because Haiti is so close to American shores, it stands as a sharp example of how peacekeepers can take on a role that would otherwise fall to American soldiers.

Perhaps more so than other peacekeeping operations, success or failure in Haiti will have a direct impact on life in the United States. A collapse in Haiti could prompt refugees flooding American shores, as happened in the early 1990s. And reverberations from state collapse in Haiti would have a profound effect on the large Haitian diaspora communities in major American cities, which would no doubt shoulder the cost of absorbing new refugees.

In an episode recalled in James Traub's book The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the UN in the Era of American World Power, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told then-Secretary General Annan in late 2004, "There are six thousand Brazilian troops in Haiti. If they weren't, there would be six thousand marines." The General Accountability Office backed this view with a detailed study comparing Haiti's UN mission to a hypothetical American deployment there. The study found the UN mission in Haiti achieves its objectives while being eight-times less expensive than a comparable deployment of US marines.

Indeed, the important and cost-effective work of UN peacekeeping in Haiti underscores how crucial it is for the United States to pay its peacekeeping obligations in full. As congress debates the White House budget request (which short-changes peacekeeping) members would be wise to draw the connection between the budget they pass and the crucial burden-sharing role UN peacekeeping plays in places like Haiti.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named four new top officials to his cabinet last week.

"Mr. Ban named a United States diplomat as chief political officer, a Chinese veteran of international organizations to head economic and social affairs, a Japanese international civil servant to manage public information and an Egyptian diplomat to oversee General Assembly management." More

Angela King, 68, died this week from of complications from breast cancer. King, a Jamaican diplomat, was a leading advocate for women in the United Nations and was the first special advisor to the Secretary-General on women's advancement.

In a statement, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon lauded King's life and accomplishments, noting that she was a "champion of the equality of women and men, and women's enjoyment of their human rights" and that "she will be mourned with profound affection and respect by many friends and allies around the world."

King enjoyed a 38-year career at the UN, with a focus on ending discrimination against women. In 1997, former SG Kofi Annan appointed her to a new post as a special advisor on gender issues to help ensure to implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action.

For more, go to the International Herald Tribune and the Jamaica Gleaner News.

Gallup released the latest installment in a long-runinng series of polls that take the temperature of Americans' attitude toward the United Nations. On the basic question of job performance, the United Nations has yet to recover from the sharp drop it experienced in the run up to the Iraq war, when a large majority of Americans thought the UN was acting against American interests and trying to prevent the war. Still, as the poll showes, most Americans want the United Nations to have a robust role in setting global policies.

You can view the entire poll here.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has filed a legal brief with the Iraqi High Tribunal arguing that international law prohibits the death sentence on former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan on grounds of breach of due process.

A statement issued by Arbour's office said, "The High Commissioner argues that the Court's imposition of the death sentence on Taha Yassin Ramadan would violate Iraq's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights." More

As mentioned yesterday, Special Envoys of the United Nations and African Union will travel to Sudan next week to meet with Government officials and Darfur rebels. Today, acting United States ambassador to the United Nations Alejandro Wolff helped ramp up the pressure on Sudan by announcing that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will address the Council based on the envoys' recommendations.

In this State Department release, Wolff conveys a "general sense of frustration" from the Security Council.

"'We have been dealing with this for many, many months,' Wolff said after the closed-door Security Council meeting. 'We continue to find ourselves stymied by questions and stalling tactics on the part of Sudan government.'"

Wolff seems to be sounding the right notes by chastising Khartoum for using delaying tactics to stymie the expressed will of the Security Council. Still, the central dynamic that is preventing the deployment of peacekeepers remains. So far, Khartoum has yet to be convinced that a robust peacekeeping force in its western region is something to which it cannot afford not to accede. The kind of political pressure from key member states that could help overcome Khartoum's defiance is apparently lacking. Only when member states are willing to expend real diplomatic capitol commensurate with their current rhetorical admonishments will peacekeepers have a chance to set foot in Darfur.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has announced that approximately $85 million will be used to fund programs in 15 countries for under-funded emergencies.

"While each of these allocations represents but a fraction of the overall requirements in the individual emergencies, as a whole they help us pursue principled humanitarian action in which those who require aid the most are identified based strictly on need and assisted accordingly," said Margareta Wahlstrom, Acting United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator. More

Lee Feinstein is senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the author of a new report published by the Council on Foreign Relations, titled, Darfur and Beyond: What Is Needed to Prevent Atrocities.

Ban Ki-moon won Washington's support for the job of Secretary General on the strength of his campaign pledge to "reform" the United Nations.

More than a year ago the United Nations adopted the "responsibility to protect." The General Assembly's endorsement of this revolutionary principle removes blind reverence for national sovereignty as an excuse to look the other way when innocents are being wiped out. In elevating this principle, the nations of the world said that they prioritize the right of people to live over the right of states to do as they please. The question now is whether this pledge was humanitarian hypocrisy, or did they have something serious in mind?

The most important "reform" Ban can undertake is to convert these three inspiring words into a program of action. The goal, as Ban himself said, should be to "operationalize" the responsibility to protect by building up the UN's capacity to respond early and effectively at the first sign of concern.

The place to start is by building a more nimble and capable peacekeeping capacity at the United Nations. Despite steady improvement since the 1990s, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations still lacks the capacity to deploy troops when it counts.

The absence of a rapid response capability is a problem that dates back to the UN's founding. But the time may be right to address this deficiency head on. Building on President Bush's proposal in the State of the Union for a voluntary international reserve of civilians, Ban should push for the establishment of an international strategic reserve of troops that could be designated by states to be available for peacekeeping missions authorized by the Security Council. Nations would train troops to international standards. Earmarked troops would exercise with one another. States would be compensated for their efforts, and would receive a premium if they gave formal approval for their forces, which would remain under each state's national command, to be deployed to a UN mission.

In adopting the responsibility to protect last year, the United Nations accepted the principle that mass atrocities which take place in one state are the concern of all states. The new secretary-general should begin to bridge the gap between these words and the institution's deeds by taking the General Assembly's endorsement of the responsibility to protect as a mandate and a mission statement.

The long-term goal is to avoid the stark options of "Doing Nothing" and "Sending in the Marines." That requires establishing a pattern of international response at the first signs of concern. The place to start is with concrete steps to build capacity -- diplomatic, economic, legal, and military -- in support of the principle of humanitarian protection. Adoption of the responsibility to protect has begun to remove the classical excuses for doing nothing in the face of mass atrocities. What is needed now is the capacity and political will to back it up.

The Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Darfur, along with an African Union (AU) envoy, will travel to Sudan next week in an attempt to revive the stalled peace process.

"Jan Eliasson and the AU's Salim Ahmed Salim will travel on Monday to the capital, Khartoum, and to Darfur itself for talks with the Government and with representatives of those rebel groups that did not sign the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) in May last year." More

Writing in The Hill's Congress Blog, Representative Tom Lantos, Chair of the House Committee on International Relations, expresses disappointment that the new White House budget request shortchanges the United Nations.

"We face a $130 million shortfall in the account used to pay U.S. dues to the United Nations. For the first time since the historic agreement brokered by Senators Joe Biden and Jesse Helms to pay off old U.S. debt the United Nations, we will once again be in arrears."

Lantos then couches his criticisms of the budget in National Security terms. You can view his entire post here. It is well worth a read.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday that it is poor countries that will suffer the most from global warming.

In a message to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Governing Council in Nairobi, Ban said, "The world has reached a critical stage in its efforts to exercise responsible environmental stewardship...It is also becoming increasingly clear, in North and South alike, that there is an inextricable, mutually dependent relationship between environmental sustainability and economic development." More

The new issue of UNF Insights is now available online (pdf). But first, some trivia:

How many UN peacekeepers are deployed around the world?

In which country are the largest number of peacekeepers deployed?

What country is the largest contributor of peacekeepers around the world?

There are about 6,600 troops in Haiti, from which two countries do the bulk of these peacekeepers hail?

How does the United Nations pay for peacekeeping operations around the globe?

How much does the United Nations Peacekeeping reimburse a troop contributing country per soldier, per month?

In August, the Security Council voted for three new peacekeeping missions. In which countries would these new missions be deployed?

For the answers, read the new UNF Insights. The issue investigates the role of UN peacekeeping operations around the globe and finds that after some setbacks in the 1990's peacekeeping is now building a successful track-record in some of the world's hottest conflict zones. It also finds that because of these successes (and because much of the western world's militaries are committed in Iraq and Afghanistan) UN peacekeeping is increasingly in demand. The question, therefore, is whether or not member states will meet their financial obligations to peacekeeping so as to sustain peacekeeping's recent successes.

For more on why member countries would be wise to fully support UN peacekeeping, read the report in full.

On the eve of the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, The Guardian revealed that the American Enterprise Institute was offering $10,000 to scientists to publish studies critical of the panel's findings. This is curious, because as The Guardian reported AEI receives large donations from energy companies who would rather you remain skeptical about the human causes of climate change.

Much ink has already been spilled chronicling the intellectual decline of the American Enterprise Institute. Today, the Washington Post adds to the chorus with a story that includes a precious quote from a self-respecting climate change researcher who would not be paid to play with AEI.

"At least two academics -- Texas A&M University atmospheric sciences professor Gerald North and Texas A&M climate researcher Steven Schroeder -- turned down AEI's offer because they feared their work would be politicized.

"Schroeder, who has worked with Green in the past and has questioned some aspects of traditional climate modeling, said in an interview that he did not think AEI would have skewed his results. But he added that he worried his contribution might have been published alongside "off-the-wall ideas" questioning the existence of global warming.

"'We worried our work could be misused even if we produced a reasonable report,' Schroeder said. 'While any human endeavor can be criticized, the IPCC system greatly exceeds the cooperation, openness and scientific rigorousness of the process applied to any other problem area that has significant effects on society.'"

So there you have it: even a scientist with whom AEI personnel have collaborated in the past refused to join AEI's crusade because he considers the IPCC process a paragon of scientific rigor. I'm no climate change expert, but consider me skeptical when AEI issues its next set of public policy prescriptions on climate change.

Following the release of the IPCC report on global warming, top UN officials called for international action to reverse environmental damage.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, "Protecting the global environment is largely beyond the capacity of individual countries...This assault on the global environment risks undermining the many advances human society has made in recent decades. It is undercutting our fight against poverty. It could even come to jeopardize international peace and security."

General Assembly President Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa also noted, "We need clear objectives and strong ecological governance at the global level, a concept that continues to elude us...Without radical change, we will all ultimately find ourselves in a situation of generalized precariousness." More

As mentioned earlier on this blog, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - a body composed of hundreds of scientists from around the world - released its much awaited report on the causes and consequences of global warming.

Today's report is the group's fourth report on global warming since the United Nations established the IPCC in 1988. However, the newest report is the first assessment in which the group has stated with near full confidence (they say "90% certainty") that human activities are the main cause of global warming. From now on, when one hears the term "overwhelming scientific evidence" in a discussion about human activities and global warming, this report will be the point of reference.

Of course, the idea that humans cause global warming should be of little surprise to most people. But there are still some outfits that would like you to believe otherwise. Politically, the report is groundbreaking precisely because it should put to rest, once and for all, unhelpful debates over whether or not humans cause global warming. (Think: Galileo's scientific confirmation of Copernicus' theories about the earth and the sun.)

On the United Nations Foundation website, Richard Moss, director of the Climate Change program at the United Nations Foundation, discusses the significance of the just-released IPCC report. From 2000-2006, Moss directed the interagency US Climate Change Science Program Office, which was established to coordinate President Bush's Climate Change Research Initiative. Earlier in his career, Moss worked with the IPCC, editing and authoring several reports. He is, briefly stated, one of the country's foremost experts on climate change and public policy. You can listen to his podcast below.

Podcast:
Climate expert Richard Moss on the new UN IPCC Report

The much anticipated report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is now available. Click here for the report's 20 page summary for policy-makers.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited the United Nations war crimes court in The Hague yesterday, calling for action by Security Council members to bring Bosnian Serb fugitives to trial.

"I know that there is a sense of frustration for not being able to complete what they are mandated to do because of non-cooperation, non-availability of those people indicted...I take this opportunity to urge again to those responsible perpetrators...to appear before the court for trial, for the interest and the benefit for themselves as well as for the benefit of international peace and security." More

A trial testing the effectiveness of microbicides in preventing HIV in women has been stopped, according to UN agencies. The trial was halted because of a higher number of infections among women taking the microbicide cellulose sulfate compared with those in the placebo group.

In a recently released statement, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) and Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) said, "This is a disappointing and unexpected setback in the search for a safe and effective microbicide that can be used by women to protect themselves against HIV infection."

The statement also noted that while there is no present explanation for the higher rate of HIV transmission, "the need to continue research to find a user-controlled means of preventing HIV infection in women is urgent." More

Jessica Ogden, a Senior HIV/AIDS Specialist at the International Center for Research on Women, says that while this cessation is a setback, "it is vital that the search for new HIV prevention options continue...Women need to have an option that is practical and practicable in the context of their everyday lives, and microbicide science holds out much hope in this regard."

For more information on women and HIV/AIDS, go to the International Center for Research on Women.

For more information on microbicides, check out the Global Campaign for Microbicides, the Alliance for Microbicide Development, and the Global Microbicides Project.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki met in Nairobi this week; their conversation focused on the conflict in Sudan and problems involving Somali refugees.

"Mr. Ban and Mr. Kibaki also discussed the partnership between the UN and Kenya, which is home to one of the Organization's larger duty stations, during their morning meeting, UN spokesperson Michele Montas told reporters in New York." More