United Nations Archives - Public Seminar

Education

Schools Are for Children, Not Soldiers

Global scholasticide is getting worse

December 3, 2024 • by Charles Bradley

The fact that you can read this article makes it likely that you, like 7.2 billion people worldwide who completed primary education, remember spending much of your childhood at school. Learning is, by definition, challenging, and those of us reminiscing about childhood may also remember the stresses of grappling with math ...

Europe & Central Asia

Part 6: A New Treaty?

Revelations of the War in Ukraine: An anti-war activist’s personal and political reckoning

October 10, 2022 • by James Carroll

In this unprecedented context, a laserlike focus on banning the bomb can be a politically viable process, surpassing the failed efforts of bygone years, and even leading to the broader mitigation of “militarism” toward which peace movements have striven without success....

Europe & Central Asia

Part 5: After Ukraine

Revelations of the War in Ukraine: An anti-war activist’s personal and political reckoning

October 3, 2022 • by James Carroll

The Ukraine war has revealed, that is, that the single stoutest pillar of the current strategic “balance” is off kilter—a dangerously leaning tower, as it were, of peace....

Politics

The U.S. and UK Are a Wrecking Ball Crew Against the Pillars of Internationalism

They have undermined the sovereignty of nations and mutilated international law

July 13, 2020 • by Vijay Prashad

Ambassador Kelly Craft, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, spoke at the same meeting. She praised the charter and called upon the member states of the UN to bring its values into the world. However, Ambassador Craft said, “On far too many occasions, we have seen nations that are parties ...

The U.S. and UK Are a Wrecking Ball Crew Against the Pillars of Internationalism

Feature

Kashmir’s Silent Suffering

New Anguish in the Midst of an Old Struggle

August 28, 2019 • by Bizaa Zeynab Ali

In the meanwhile, Kashmir has been placed on a Genocide Watch and the UN has publicly called out India’s “Draconian Blackout” as a “collective punishment” for the people of Kashmir. with numerous people being killed and more than 4,000 people, mostly young men, being arrested and held without recourse under the Public Safety Act (PSA), a controversial law ...

Feature

Celebrating Human Rights

The 70th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

November 26, 2018 • by Yvonne M. Vissing

Human rights are under attack – not just in the U.S. but worldwide. We see rights violations as white supremacists attack synagogues and send bombs to people whose political positions they wish to silence. We see them as the government continues to separate children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border. We see them in racially-provoked police-public ...

Feature

Borders and the Politics of Mourning

September 28, 2016 • by Alexandra Délano Alonso and Benjamin Nienass

In early 2014, the artist Anton Christian placed a shattered wooden boat in front of the impressive baroque Cathedral of St. Jakob in the heart of the Austrian city of Innsbruck. Christian had found the boat on the shores of the Adriatic Sea and brought it to Innsbruck to evoke ...

Uncategorized

A Tribute to Economist Bernard Maris (Sept. 23, 1946 – Jan. 7, 2015)

January 16, 2015 • by Karim Errouaki

I was shocked to learn that Bernard Maris had been murdered at a meeting of the editors of Charlie Hebdo in Paris on January 7, 2015. He died at his desk, killed by the fanaticism that he regularly denounced.

Bernard Maris was an economist and a member of the governing board ...

A Tribute to Economist Bernard Maris (Sept. 23, 1946 – Jan. 7, 2015)

Uncategorized

Human Trafficking

A psychoanalytic and socio-historical view

October 27, 2014 • by Adrienne Harris

I am going to think and write about human trafficking through a perspective both psychoanalytic and socio-historical. In fact, part of my quest and my thinking about this matter is to find the right disciplinary mix to speak from and to. This essay is situated in a problem. ...

Race

Black Faces, Red Skins and White Celebrations

November 4, 2013 • by Esther Kreider-Verhalle

In the country where I grew up, the Netherlands, Saint Nicholas’ yearly visit is a hugely popular celebration, rich in rituals and designed to make children happy. Three years ago, the celebration came to New York, where I now live. It seemed only logical to expose my half-Dutch children to ...