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The Emerging Principle of the Responsibility to Protect: An Asian Perspective

In the aftermath of the Second World War and the horrors of the Holocaust, during which war crimes were committed on an unprecedented scale, the international community came together to declare ‘never again’ and set up the United Nations. Governments agreed that they would cooperate to prevent the commission of genocide and punish the perpetrators.

The Role of UNHCR and Afghan Refugees in Pakistan

The protection and shelter of millions of Afghans on Pakistan soil for over three decades has amplified the image of UNHCR as a humanitarian institution, which has worked along with the government of Pakistan to manage the burden of the largest caseload of refugees in the world. The office is credited with having carried out the largest repatriation of Afghans (approximately 3.6 million) to their home country since 2002. This operation has greatly enhanced the credibility and esteem of the UNHCR both within Pakistan and Afghanistan.

UN’s Role in South Asia: The Case of Nepal

Nepal has conducted a slew of political experiments since 2006. By inviting the Maoists into the mainstream and collectively deciding to dump the Constitution of 1990, there was hope that a new era of peace and stability would begin with the end of the decade-long armed insurgency. The Constituent Assembly (CA) elections of 2008 saw the emergence of the Maoists as the largest party—which was a totally unexpected and surprising outcome for the international community.

Scaling the Nuclear Abolition Mountain: Is the United Nations up to the Task?

Strong motivation is the most important factor in getting you to the top.

Edmund Hillary (on scaling Mt Everest)

Some have compared the goal of a nuclear weapons free world to scaling an incredibly high mountain—and the mountain is covered in cloud making the peak invisible. Thus, they argue, all we can do is take small steps up the lower slope—hoping for better conditions in the future that might make it possible to climb higher.

India’s PKOs: A Historic Perspective and the Way Forward

As a founding member, India has been a firm supporter of the principles and purposes of the United Nations. Enshrined as its central aim, the UN Charter states that the United Nations: ‘maintains international peace and security and to that end, takes corrective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to peace, and the suppression of acts of aggression.’ 1 Towards supporting and furthering world peace, India has participated in some of the world's most difficult peacekeeping missions over 61 years.

The Protection of Civilians and the United Nations

The world has changed significantly since the founding of the United Nations and so have its conflicts. During the mid-twentieth century, the pre-eminent challenge for multilateral cooperation was the awesome prospect of a Third World War. Today, in the aftermath of the Cold War, we see a more elaborated focus on the prevention of conflict and the protection of communities and peoples—both as a sovereign responsibility of the modern nation-state as well as a central focus of the United Nations peace engagements.

Universality, Multilateralism and Many-Lateralism

Does the changing nature of the international order in the 21st century influence the nature and forms of multilateralism? And if yes, how does it impact the United Nations, an institution at the apex of the multilateral process, but which in some crucial respects still reflects the international order of the mid-twentieth century? This is the question that this paper attempts to explore.

Reforming the United Nations

Any organisation established in the aftermath of the Second World War obviously cannot fulfil its functions, in a world that has changed so dramatically, without adapting itself to the contemporary realities of international politics and economics.

When the United Nations Charter was promulgated on 26 June 1945, it reflected the immediate post-war situation and most importantly the international political balance of power that existed in 1945.

Towards a World Community: Thoughts on India and the Idea of United Nations Reform

The title of this article is derived from a famous speech made by Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, at the United Nations in December 1956. Over the previous decade, Nehru, together with his sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, and Mahatma Gandhi, had been working to build the UN into a form of global government. They termed their vision One World, and it had democracy and human rights as its basis.

India and the United Nations

To paraphrase the mantra of realism—international politics, like all politics, is a struggle for normative ascendancy: the establishment and maintenance of the dominant normative architecture of international order created and maintained by the interplay of power and ideas. As China, India and Brazil emerge as important growth centres in the world economy, the age of the West and its disrespect for the role, relevance and voice of the rest of the world is passing.