IPI Support to 2005 World Summit Follow-Up
The September 2005 World Summit [see Outcome Document], while falling short of most observers’ expectations, produced significant agreements on several reform items. However, in many cases such as the Human Rights Council, the Peacebuilding Commission, and a Comprehensive Anti-Terrorism Convention and Strategy, the Summit only produced agreement “in principle” and left it to the General Assembly to hash out difficult details in the summit’s follow-up phase.
Against this background, IPI once again convened a number of informal, off-the-record meetings aimed at providing fora conducive to overcoming differences. In order to facilitate agreement on outstanding questions related to the creation of a new Human Rights Council, and, in cooperation with the University of Winnipeg, IPI organized a meeting with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights as well as representatives of Member States, the UN Secretariat, and the NGO community.
Shortly after the General Assembly reached agreement on the institutional framework for a new Peacebuilding Commission, IPI convened what was de facto the first-ever meeting of the new body, albeit unofficial and off-the-record. This meeting allowed Member States to have an early and informal exchange on broader strategies and next steps. [see meeting report]
In order to support the new Peacebuilding architecture, IPI worked closely alongside the Office of the Secretary-General in generating a peacebuilding-capacity review, a comprehensive inventory of the broader UN system’s capacity in the area of peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction [see capacity review report and capacity review data].
IPI also maintains an ongoing terrorism project, aimed at facilitating the implementation of terrorism-related commitments of the summit outcome document and supporting the Secretary-General’s newly created Counterterrorism Task Force. IPI hosted a 2-day retreat for the Task Force and we subsequently organized several expert workshops gathering its key members and leading scholars from all continents to inform the Secretary-General’s comprehensive strategy to prevent terrorism, which will guide the UN’s own actions in this field – [see the UN Secretary General’s Uniting Against Terror report]. IPI also hosted a number of meetings with selected Member States to provide an informal forum to discuss efforts to finalize a Comprehensive Anti-Terrorism Convention as well as an inter-governmental counterterrorism strategy.
Finally, IPI is conducting research on the UN Secretariat since 1945, including its problems, pathologies, and prospects, thus placing recent efforts at Secretariat and management reform into a broader perspective. The aim is to put forward concrete proposals in the period of transition to a new Secretary-General [see The UN Secretariat: A Brief History for more information].