Negotiating At The United Nations

This book offers a comprehensive practitioner's guide to negotiating at the United Nations. Although much of the content can be applied broadly, the guide focuses on navigating multilateral negotiations at the UN. The book is a tool to help new UN negotiators, explaining basic negotiation concepts and offering insight into the complexities of the UN system. It also offers a playbook for cooperation for negotiators at any level, exploring the dynamics of relationships and alliances, the art of chairing a negotiation, and the importance of balancing the power asymmetries present in any multilateral discussion. The book proposes improvements to the UN negotiation process and looks at the impact of information technologies on negotiation dynamics; it also shares stories from women UN delegates, illustrating what it means to be a female negotiator at the UN. This book is an exploration of the power of the individual in any negotiation, and of the responsibility all negotiators have in wielding that power to speak for a better world. This book will be of much interest to students of diplomacy, global governance, foreign policy, and International Relations, as well as practitioners and policymakers.

This book examines the important role of the chairmanship office in multilateral negotiations within the UN setting. Although chairmanship is a generic feature of international politics, negotiations, and decision-making, it has been scarcely researched. The neutrality and impartiality assumptions that have been long associated with the chair have veiled the chair’s potential in moulding negotiation outcomes. The authors seek to develop an analytical framework for the systematic study of the chairmanship office and its potential impact on multilateral negotiations. It elaborates on its origins, the parameters and conditions of chair’s effectiveness, and the performance of the chair’s functions. Focusing on the UN, this work seeks to go beyond existing accounts, offering further insights and extending the discussion beyond the Security Council. Without ignoring the pivotal importance of the Security Council, the book broadens the scope of analysis to other significant UN bodies and institutions including ad hoc Working Groups and several Conferences set up for specific international issues. Evaluating material from a wide range of sources and providing a deeper understanding of UN political dynamics, this work will appeal to scholars of the UN system, international organisations and global governance.

Why boardroom diplomacy fails

This publication explains the governance and decision-making fora and processes of the UN system. Section One explains the principal UN organs of intergovernmental decision making; the negotiating blocs of Member States at the UN; the various types of documentation; and the nature of UN decisions and the weight they carry internationally. This updated second edition includes information on new UN bodies and processes following on from the outcomes of the 2005 World Summit. Section Two provides practical knowledge, advice and guidance to non-governmental representatives who wish to engage with the UN system, ranging from accreditation to the preparatory process, to engaging in follow-up activities after a meeting.

Explains the governance and decision-making fora and processes of the UN system. Section One explains the principal UN organs of intergovernmental decision making; the negotiating blocs of Member States at the UN; the various types of documentation; and the nature of UN decisions and the weight they carry internationally. Section Two provides practical knowledge, advice and guidance to non-governmental representatives who wish to engage with the UN system, ranging from accreditation to the preparatory process, to engaging in follow-up activities after a meeting.

The United Nations is a vital part of the international order. Yet this book argues that the greatest contribution of the UN is not what it has achieved (improvements in health and economic development, for example) or avoided (global war, say, or the use of weapons of mass destruction). It is, instead, the process through which the UN has transformed the structure of international law to expand the range and depth of subjects covered by treaties. This handbook offers the first sustained analysis of the UN as a forum in which and an institution through which treaties are negotiated and implemented. Chapters are written by authors from different fields, including academics and practitioners; lawyers and specialists from other social sciences (international relations, history, and science); professionals with an established reputation in the field; younger researchers and diplomats involved in the negotiation of multilateral treaties; and scholars with a broader view on the issues involved. The volume thus provides unique insights into UN treaty-making. Through the thematic and technical parts, it also offers a lens through which to view challenges lying ahead and the possibilities and limitations of this understudied aspect of international law and relations.