Strengthening UN Capacity
This component of Coping with Crisis focuses on strengthening the UN’s institutional coherence and capacity in relation to core peace and security functions both at headquarters and in the field, as well as a range of broader policy issues. IPI is also developing a major subproject on the Security Council and the efficacy of its resolutions.
UN Secretariat reform
IPI is undertaking an analysis of reform of the UN Secretariat, its problems, pathologies, and prospects. The research puts the Secretariat in historical context by looking at these questions since 1945, examining how the institution has evolved in response to specific events, pressures, and personalities, and what this implies about its ability to deliver in core areas of conflict prevention and response. The aim is to provide a clear, empirical basis for debates about UN reform and to put forward concrete proposals relevant to new UN leadership. In particular, the research addresses four sets of issues:
- the nature of the Secretariat, including the organization of its multiple functions, and the role of Secretary-General as interpreted by past incumbents;
- ways in which the Secretary-General has organized and structured his core staff, particularly to support his diplomatic and good-offices roles;
- problems of staffing the UN and the idea of an ‘international civil service,’ including issues of geographic representation, professionalization of UN service, and challenges of recruitment and training;
- attempts at reform of the bureaucracy and the recurring pathologies of reform, including its relation to budget crises.
UN field capacities
At a time of intensified debate over UN effectiveness, questions about the management and organization of UN field presences remain comparatively unexamined. A recent evaluation of integrated missions addressed some of these issues, but there remains a need for more detailed analysis about the effective capabilities of the UN in the field in terms of real operational capacity and organization. IPI is conducting a pilot exercise that will map effective UN field capacities in conflict settings, aiming to suggest context-related organization and management models to improve UN field capacity.
Peacebuilding
IPI has a related agenda of work dealing with peacebuilding and fragile states conducted under its State Building Program, which works closely with Coping with Crisis. This work includes policy support to the UN’s new peacebuilding institutions, analysis of specific cases and issues, and examination of the architecture of international assistance in fragile and/or post-conflict states.
Terrorism
Coping with Crisis builds on earlier work on organized crime aspects of war economies and on the UN’s role in counterterrorism to bring the best international research on terrorism to bear on UN policy debates and to create informal mechanisms to support dialogue and policy development.
One strand of this work concentrates on providing targeted support to UN efforts to develop and implement a new comprehensive counterterrorism strategy, as well as to the work of the Secretary-General’s counterterrorism implementation task force (CTTF).
In another strand of our terrorism-related work we are collaborating with the Fourth Freedom Forum’s Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation in a one-year project evaluating the Security Council’s counterterrorism mechanism. The IPI-CGCTC project will culminate in a report to be released in late summer which hopes to provide some independent recommendations for UN Member States and the broader UN community to consider in the lead up to the Council’s discussions surrounding the future of CTED, which are expected to begin in the fall of 2007. As part of the project, IPI, on April 9, 2007, held a workshop on April 9 gathering a select group of key Member State experts, Secretariat officials and outside observers to provide input into the project and to informally discuss possible ways to improve the Council’s counterterrorism apparatus. Click here for the meeting report.
Global public health, biodevelopment, and biosecurity
It is increasingly recognized that all states and peoples are affected by the growing risk of pandemic infectious disease outbreaks as well as accidental or intentional release of pathogens. Debate among member states in preparation for the 2005 Summit revealed that governments have limited awareness of this vulnerability and that knowledge about different aspects of the threat (biological science, public-health policy, bio-terrorism, international political aspects) is diffused across the UN system and governments. IPI undertakes modest but sustained work in this area primarily to increase policy awareness of the issue and build bridges across policy/knowledge communities whose joint efforts will be necessary to develop a more effective prevention and response. Initial activities include small workshops and related fora that bring experts and scientists together with the UN, private sector, and other partners.
Non-proliferation
IPI’s work on this issue is modest and largely focused on using convening capacity to host informal discussions among experts and the UN on specific aspects of the non-proliferation issue. Because of the depth of expertise on these issues at other institutions, IPI’s work on these issues is done through partnership with leading institutions such as the Center for Non-proliferation Studies, and the Center on International Cooperation at New York University.
On 3-4 November 2006, in conjunction with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, IPI hosted a meeting of the Monterey Non-Proliferation Strategy Group, a small body of experts and practitioners that aims to identify the basis for forging consensus on creative but realistic approaches that address the key nuclear proliferation challenges. The meeting considered verification of, and compliance with, the nuclear nonproliferation regime with the aim of identifying a narrow set of items on which some convergence of views may be found. This meeting followed the April 2006 meeting at which the Group considered current concerns related to Article IV of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and related fissile material issues. Click here for the website of the Monterey Non-Proliferation Strategy Group including a report of this meeting.
Organized crime and non-state violence
Building on its earlier work on economic agendas in civil wars, IPI is undertaking a range of activities examining emerging forms of organized crime and non-state violence, and their connection to weak states and other threats to human and international security. This work aims to develop recommendations for enhancing multilateral responses including related inter-agency information sharing in fighting organized crime, and the impact of organized crime on peace operations. Additional work will include the role of international organizations in developing policy on the regulation of commercial security networks.
The UN Security Council and compliance
Member states devote considerable resources and political capital to bringing critical issues to the Security Council, and to the formulation of resolutions imposing demands on UN Member States and non-state actors. Yet there is surprisingly little analysis of compliance with these resolutions, once they are formulated. IPI is undertaking a strand of research on compliance with Security Council resolutions in order to improve understanding of the impact of Council resolutions in different contexts. Core initial work involves the development of a comprehensive database of resolutions and compliance organized around resolution content, circumstances in which a resolution is adopted, and the nature and quality of follow-up. The project will also incorporate case studies and use a mix of textual, contextual, and statistical methodologies.