News Release

International commissions and the power of ideas

Book Announcement

United Nations University

New Book:

International Commissions and the Power of Ideas Edited By Ramesh Thakur, Andrew F. Cooper, and John English Published by United Nations University Press

International Commissions provide a catalyst for turning ideas into policy initiatives.

The Brandt, Bruntland, Kosovo, the Commission on Global Governance, and the International Commission on Global Governance all provide a means for turning good ideas into action plans. However as an expression of the power of ideas they remain under-analyzed.

A new book published by United Nations University Press and set to be launched in June, International Commissions and the Power of Ideas, looks at the role of international commissions as providing an inter connected process shaping the mind – and the architectural body –of global governance. On the one hand the book looks at commissions in a generalized context and the impact that they have and the part they play in creating initiatives, and on the other provides detailed analysis of the character and record, style and substance of individual commissions.

The book is edited by Ramesh Thakur, Senior vice rector, United nations University, Tokyo, Japan and Assistant Secretary-general United Nations; Andrew F. Cooper, Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Waterloo, and Associate Director of the Centre for International Governance Innovation; and John English, Executive Director of the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Waterloo, Canada.

Contributors to the volume are:

  • Andrew F. Cooper is Associate Director of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Waterloo
  • John English is Executive Director of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and Professor of History at the University of Waterloo.
  • Jean-Phillipe Therien is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Montreal
  • Heather A. Smith is an Associate Professor and Chair, International Studies Programme, University of Northern British Columbia
  • W. Andy Knight is Professor of International Relations and McCalla Research Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta
  • Marianne Hanson is Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Director of the Rotary Centre for International Studies in peace and conflict resolution at the University of Queensland
  • Sanjeev Khagram is a faculty member at the JFK School of Government at Harvard University
  • Richard J. Goldstone is presently teaching in New York (NYU and Fordham Law Schools) and is a member of the Independent Inquiry Committee investigating allegations concerning the Iraq Oil for Food Programme
  • Nicole Fritz is a lecturer in international and constitutional law at the University of Witwatersrand's School of Law
  • Ramesh Thakur is the Senior Vice-Rector of the United Nations University (UNU) and Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations
  • Jennifer Welsh is University Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Oxford
  • Carolin Thielking is a doctoral candidate in International Relations at the University of Oxford.
  • S. Neil MacFarlane is Lester B. Pearson Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford
  • Jorge Heine is ambassador of Chile to India
  • Elizabeth Riddell-Dixon is a Professor of international relations at the University of Western Ontario
  • Jon Pedersen is currently Deputy Managing Director of Fafo Institute for Applied International Studies in Oslo, Norway
  • Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala serves as a Commissioner on the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission
  • Edward C. Luck is Director of the Center on International Organization and Professor of Practice in International and Public Affairs at Columbia University
  • Geoffrey Wiseman currently teaches diplomacy and international security in the School of International Relations at the University of Southern California

    Table of Contents:

  • International Commissions and the Mind of Global Governance
  • An Overview
  • The Brandt Commission
  • The End of an Era in North-South Politics
  • The Palme Commission
  • New Thinking about Security
  • The World Commission on Environment and Development
  • Ideas and Institutions Intersect
  • Equivocating on the Future of World Order
  • The Commission on Global Governance
  • Regulating the Possession and Use of Nuclear Weapons
  • Ideas, Commissions and Agency in International Security Politics
  • the Case of the Canberra Commission
  • Beyond Temples and Tombs
  • Towards Effective Governance for Sustainable Development Through The World Commission on Dams
  • Fair Assessment
  • The Independent International Commission on Kosovo
  • Intervention, Sovereignty and the Responsibility to Protect
  • Assessing the Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty
  • Humanitarian Intervention and the Principle of Non-intervention in the Americas
  • Ideas, Institutions and the Evolution of Women's Human Rights
  • Ideas, Think Tanks, Commissions and Global Politics
  • International Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction
  • UN Reform Commissions
  • Is Anyone Listening?

    Publication date: June 2005
    Page count: 350
    Paperback
    ISBN: 928081110X
    List price: US$45.00

    For more information see: http://www.unu.edu/unupress/2005/internationalcommissions.html

    Contact: Scott McQuade, Publisher
    Tel: 81-3499-2811
    e-mail: sales@hq.unu.edu

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