Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper presents a framework for the analysis of doctrine development in the UN peacebuilding apparatus and applies it to the case of constabulary police (�formed police units�) in UN peace operations. After initial resistance from the UN Secretariat and years after their first deployment under the UN flag to Kosovo and East Timor, constabulary police have become a standard tool for missions tasked with interim public security provision. Even this breakthrough, however, did not secure the smooth development and adoption of more detailed conceptual guidance on their functions and operation alongside military contingents. This paper traces the process of developing such doctrine and presents preliminary hypotheses on the key factors that enabled and hindered this process of doctrine development.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The “Cardoso Report” related to the UN and its relationship with civil society was issued in 2004 within the still ongoing reform process of the United Nations (UN). Following a brief historical overview of the UN-Civil Society relationship, the present article aims at identifying some of the social sciences concepts developed at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century influence on the “Cardoso Report”. For instance, how key concepts such as representation, participation and legitimacy were used and reviewed by this report? Thus, the article discusses how the influence of the reviewed concepts contributes to a broader (if so) understanding of the repolitization of the international system and, hence, to a different perspective rather than the traditional intergovernmental character of the UN."

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights oversees violations of human rights across the world. However, as of now there is no organization that exists in the UN to protect the Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Transsexual community. Recently, there has been increased interest in international representation for alternative lifestyles, which led to the creation of the United Nations proposal of the Yogyakarta Principles in 2007: an international bill of rights for the LGBT community. These principles will be used as a legal doctrine to create a LGBT orientated human rights Non-Governmental Organization within the UN� with the goal of ending the sexual orientation-based inequality within the international sphere. This proposal for the creation of this NGO will discuss elements of game theory as a means for conflict resolution, and will discuss the complexities of dealing with the international response from different cultures of such a controversial issue.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: On March 20, 2003, Iraq was invaded by the United States and United Kingdom, in spite of unprecedented coordinated public protest around the world, without explicit Security Council authorization and yet ? in the name of enforcing a list of Security Council resolutions. Many argue the Security Council has been rendered irrelevant by the institutionalization of American hegemony in a doctrine of anticipatory self-defense that reverses fifty years of normative restraint on the use of force under the United Nations Charter. With the imminence of the Iraqi threat to the United States yet to be demonstrated, this paper argues, a Security Council resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq would have enhanced the procedural legitimacy of the Security Council at the expense of its perceived substantive fairness. Fairness has been theoretized by Thomas Franck as follows: when the procedural preference for order and stability runs counter to the substantive demand for change, fairness becomes ?the rubric under which this tension is managed discursively.? The paper further argues that in the diplomatic crisis over Iraq, a continuum between legal procedure (fairness as legitimacy) and legal substance (fairness as justice) has emerged as a possible platform on which political and moral disagreement can be discursively administered and suggests several ways in which the deliberative legitimacy of North-South dynamics at the Security Council can be enhanced within the framework of current UN reform proposals.

Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: The fiftieth session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women explored the continued efforts by national governments to increase the participation of women in various levels and processes of decision-making and power. True and Mintrom (2001) suggest that a majority of the world�s governments have now instituted mechanisms for mainstreaming gender into national policy. Some argue that in large part, this progress is due to women�s transnational advocacy efforts. However, to what extent have these advocacy efforts been diffused into the ongoing policy contestation around the emerging international regime for the global governance of information and communications technologies (Krasner, 1986, 1991; Cowhey, 1992; Cogburn, 2003; Braman, 2004)? This paper explores the participation of women in transnational policy networks and epistemic communities active in global policy formulation for information and communication technologies taking the first phase of the UN-Sponsored World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and its various preparatory processes as a case study. We examine three key questions: (1) to what degree did women participate in the WSIS processes?; (2) do women differ from men in their participation in transnational advocacy networks and epistemic communities active in WSIS; and finally (3) are the policy preferences of women in WSIS different from men? The paper uses a descriptive analysis of international survey data (N=322) and participant observation. Much to our surprise, we find that on each of these three questions, there are very few differences between the male and female delegates participating in the WSIS processes. The paper concludes with suggestions for a growing research agenda that may enhance the character of multi-stakeholder policy processes.