Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa

The UN General Assembly Advances the Global Agenda

Presiding over the sixty-first session of the General Assembly, I quickly learned that an effective president needs to be able to juggle many issues and remain in close contact with key negotiating groups and regional constituencies.

Sixty-first General Assembly: Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary)

At the sixty-first session of the General Assembly, the Fifth Committee ensured that the United Nations would continue to function in the 2007-2009 biennium and finance its activities, by determining the contribution of each Member State to the Organization's regular and peacekeeping budgets.

Heraldo Muñoz

A Special Partnership With the UN: A Latin American Perspective

Latin America is the region in the developing world where democracy is now almost universal. Its roots, however, are weak. Latin America has a population of approximately 550 million people, of which about 44 per cent live under the poverty line and 18 per cent are affected by extreme poverty.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

The Secretary-General's Agenda: Indispensable For Sustainable Development

Global sustainable development and security are deeply interconnected, a fact that is increasingly recognized by world leaders. Sustainable development signifies the challenge of combining economic development with environmental sustainability.

Thomas Matussek

A Special Partnership with the UN: A European Perspective

When Ban Ki-moon was appointed eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations on 13 October 2006, he declared: The world's people will not be fully served unless peace, development and human rights -- the three pillars of the UN -- are advanced together with equal vigour.

Sixty-first General Assembly: Sixth Committee (Legal)

The Sixth Committee, which deals with international legal matters confronting the 192 Member States of the United Nations, has helped give birth to judicial bodies like the International Criminal Court. Following the recommendations of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document, the objective of strengthening the rule of law was at the top of the Committee's agenda in 2006.

Sixty-first General Assembly: First Committee (Disarmament and International Security)

The First Committee, one of the main bodies of the General Assembly, enforces disarmament and the non-proliferation of weapons. In 2006, it made huge strides in international security when it adopted resolutions condemning surplus weapons stockpiles and agreeing on deeper international cooperation in the tracing of black market arms.

Natalie J. Goldring

The Secretary-General's Agenda: Progress On Disarmament Required For Global Security

It is an honour to suggest agenda items and top priorities in international security for Ban Ki-moon's first term in office as Secretary-General of the United Nations. However, it is also a daunting prospect, given his special expertise in foreign affairs and international security policy.

Melissa Gorelick

Sixty-first General Assembly

General Assembly President Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, in her closing statement to the sixty-first session, told Member States that when we are united in partnership and overcome mistrust, we can achieve much more for each other, noting that the adoption of the long-awaited resolution on strengthening the UN Economic and Social Council was a good example.

Mark Gibney

The Ethical Challenge of International Human Rights Nongovernmental Organizations

Ethics in Action is an intelligent, provocative and important contribution to the fields of human rights and ethics. The book emerged from a series of meetings-apparently rather dynamic meetings-over the course of several years, which brought together academics and those working for various international non-governmental organizations (INGOs).

Sixty-first General Assembly: Second Committee (Economic and Financial)

The Second Committee continued to tackle the enormous dilemmas of economic inequality, poverty and environmental degradation. Many developing countries expressed their frustrations at the lack of progress on the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Round of multilateral negotiations, aimed at increasing economic growth by lowering trade barriers worldwide.

Kaveh L. Afrasiabi

The Chronicle Interview: 'We are more advanced in peacekeeping than in peacebuilding efforts'

Today's peacekeeping is reaching unprecedented levels. There are, as we speak, roughly 100,000 personnel -- military, police, civilian -- in 18 missions around the world.