Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines Ralph Bunche's mediatory role in the early years of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Drawing from the modalities and strategies used to usher in a period of relative peace and stability in the Middle East, this paper will seek to assess the notions of continuity and change in Middle Eastern crisis management. In particular, attempts will be made to evaluate the conditions that led to the success of those negotiations and to investigate the extent to which the Rhodes Peace process is relevant to the contemporary process.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: My paper, Ralph Bunche and Peacekeeping, will aim to contrast the conditions in which peacekeeping was primarily deployed in Ralph Bunche's day and those that pertain today. Significant differences include a majority of contemporary peacekeeping operations addressing civil wars, sometimes interlocking civil wars constituting regional conflict formations, peacekeeping operations often including several civilian components and run by a civilian, and peacekeeping operations acting as virtual trusteeships in challenging circumstances. While Bunche had experience of all of these to some degree, he might have expected the norm to remain primarily military peacekeeping of interposition led by military officers between warring states having reached a cease-fire.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Ralph Bunche and the Question of International Trusteeship, 1936-1946 This paper will examine the formative stage of Ralph Bunche's ideas about Africa and the issue of international supervision of colonial dependencies from the time of the publication of his book A World View of Race in 1936 to the time of his appointment at the United Nations in 1946. In his early professional career, Bunche played a part in an international debate that had consequences for American civil rights as well as principles of European colonial administration.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Since 1996, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been the battleground for wars within wars, where networks of conflict interact together to produce different patterns of local resource extraction and different patterns of local and regional violence, resulting in one of the most devastating humanitarian disasters of our day. Since 1999, a modest UN peacekeeping force, MONUC, has been deployed at the request of the region, but has been roundly criticized as too small and ineffective, especially in the face of rising violence in eastern Congo. Forty years earlier, in response to a request by the new Congolese government and the outbreak of civil conflict at independence, the UN launched one of its largest, most complex peacekeeping operations, ONUC. Ralph Bunche was one of the principal intellectual architects of this first intervention and intimately involved in its implementation. This paper will examine the legacy of Bunche and the UN and its impact in the current wars in the DRC.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: It was as a peace maker that Ralph Bunche won the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1950. He continued as the UN's leading peacekeeper
almost until his death in 1971. He considered himself a troubleshooter.
His role as a main architect of UN peacekeeping beginning in 1947 and
his authorship of the UN 's peacekeeping manual were of continuing
importance. Now, when the UN is rethinking itself in the prevalent
circumstances, seems a good time to reexamine Ralph Bunche's role as
peacekeeper and to consider the relevance of his contributions to the
needs of today and of times to come.