Program Summary

The United Nations has yet to successfully update its political and organizational machinery to respond to the contemporary threats to peace and security. A succession of humanitarian crises in the 1990s revealed the international community's ineffectuality in preventing or halting gross atrocities and abuses.

These tragedies also made clear that the worst situations can only be stopped by the use of force. A number of projects in this program have focused on military intervention for humanitarian purposes. In this area, the foundation has sought to catalyze a "pre-debate"—clearing away some of the political underbrush so that when the next major crisis arises, the international debate focuses on what is needed on the ground, with a minimum of posturing by governments.

Projects under the United Nations, Peace, and Security program:

Humanitarian Intervention Discussed at 2000 and 2001 Annual Conferences on the United Nations

Regional Response to Internal War

Laying a Durable Foundation for Post-Conflict Societies.
Thirty-Seventh United Nations of the Next Decade Conference (June 2002)

Publications:

Leadership of Post-Conflict Operations
April 25-27, 2003

A group of policy experts, high-level UN officials, and former special representatives of the secretary-general focus on broad-based and pragmatic policy recommendations aimed at strengthening the leadership of post-conflict reconstruction operations.