 Description:
After years of disengagement and disdain, now even some previously reticent voices are calling upon the United Nations as the only entity able to help stabilize Iraq. In the public’s perception, it seems that the Organization swings continuously from the absolutely indispensable to the utterly inadequate…. Surely the reality lies somewhere in between such extreme views.
The forerunner of the United Nations was the League of Nations, conceived
in 1919 at the end of WWI under the Treaty of Versailles. The League of
Nations ceased its existence after its failure to prevent WWII. The current
United Nations is part of an international architecture built after WWII,
and as that architecture changes, so must the institutions it helped bring
forth. The UN ? not a stand-alone entity but the representation of the
Member States that form it -- has not succeeded in reaching its goal for
world peace ? indeed many wars and even genocide have happened under its
watch. It would be fair to say that at best it has been imperfect, at times
even a failure. Still, it is all the world has and one can be critical
of its record of delivery but continue to feel a sense of commitment to
its ideals, and therefore work to improve and not destroy it.
 Objective:
To provide the students with an opportunity to transcend pre-set ideas about the United Nations and what it represents or can and cannot do ? and to think creatively of the new challenges facing the Organization today.
 Recommended Readings:
Readings:
* Ramesh Thakur. “The United Nations, Peace and Security”, Cambridge University Press, 2006
*James Dobbins, “The UN’s role in nation-building: from the Belgian Congo to Iraq”, in “The United Nations as Peacekeeper and Nation Builder: Continuity and Change - What Lies Ahead?”, Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publisher for UNITAR, 2005
* Nassrine Azimi and Chang Li Lin (editors), “The United Nations as Peacekeeper and Nation Builder: Continuity and Change - What Lies Ahead?”, Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publisher for UNITAR, 2005 and its Review
in The Military Law and the Law of War Review, Volumes 3-4, 2006
*? Nassrine Azimi, “Challenges of Post-conflict Reconstruction: What Have We Learned in the Past?”, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima peace Science Consortium, IDEC, 2005
International Herald Tribune articles:
* “Why the UN belongs in Iraq”, Zalmay Khalilzad, 20 July 2007
* “Do not neglect culture”, Nassrine Azimi, 9 May 2007
* “Close it down and start again”, Pehr. G. Gyllenhammar, 14 August 1996
Magazine article:
* “The UN: scrap it or mend it?”, Dan Plesch, The New Statesman (UK), 12 September 2005
Name:Nassrine AZIMI
Present Post and Title: Director, Hiroshima Office for Asia and the Pacific, United Nations Institute
for Training and Research
Final Education: MA in international relations; second MA in architecture and urban studies
Specialized Field: International Relations, UN studies, peacekeeping and post-conflict reconstruction,
multicultural relations
Recent Publications:
“The United Nations as Peacekeeper and Nation Builder: Continuity and change - what lies ahead?”, Nassrine Azimi and Chang Li Lin (editors), Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publisher for UNITAR, 2005
UNITAR Hiroshima Series in Post-Conflict Reconstruction: “Training and Human Capacity-Building in Post-Conflict Countries”, Edited by Nassrine Azimi and Takashi Takahatake, Geneva, United Nations
Publication, 2004
“Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Japan, Republic of Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor and Afghanistan”, Edited by Nassrine Azimi, Matt Fuller, Hiroko Nakayama, Geneva, United Nations Publication, 2003
“The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET): Debriefing and Lessons”, Nassrine Azimi and Chang Li Lin (editors), London:
Martinus Nijhoff, 2003
“The Reform Process of United Nations Peace Operations: Debriefing And Lessons”, Nassrine Azimi and Chang Li Lin (editors), London: Kluwer Law International,
2001
“The Nexus Between Peacekeeping and Peace-Building: Debriefing and Lessons”, Nassrine Azimi and Chang Li Lin (editors), London: Kluwer Law International, 2000
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| She was a free-lance journalist before starting to work with UNITAR in
Switzerland, where she became coordinator of the Institute’s environmental
work and then Deputy to the Executive Director. She was thereafter tasked
with opening and heading UNITAR’s Office in New York for five years, before
coming to Japan to open the first UN office in Hiroshima in 2003. |
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