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31 May, 2011
Legitimacy and the Security Council
| Date: | Tuesday, 31st May 2011 |
| Time: | 1:15pm - 2:30 pm (EST) |
| Venue: | Conference Room 4, |
Changes in international politics since 1945 have forced the United Nations Security Council to adapt its operations, structure and procedures, trying to maintain its legitimacy in the eyes of Member States, while remaining loyal to the UN Charter. Does the Security Council need to reform to ensure its legitimacy, and what effect would reforms have on its status and influence? This panel considers issues of membership reform, Charter amendment, and changes in working methods as they contribute to and detract from the Council's legitimacy.
The seminar is part of the UNU Legitimacy Series, which provides a platform for critical discussions with academics and public intellectuals about issues of legitimacy as they arise in various aspects of the work of the United Nations.
Chairs:
- Jean-Marc Coicaud, Director, United Nations University Office in New York.
- Ian Hurd, Associate Professor at Northwestern University and visiting fellow at the Niehaus Center on Globalization and Governance at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
Speakers:
- Thomas Christiano, Professor of Philosophy and Law, University of Arizona
- Sam Daws, Director, Project on UN Governance and Reform, Centre for International Studies, Oxford University
Thomas Christiano is a Professor of Philosophy and Law at the University of Arizona and Co-Director of the Rogers Program in Law and Society at the University of Arizona. He is an editor of Politics, Philosophy and Economics, as well as the author of The Constitution of Equality: Democratic Authority and Its Limits (2008) and The Rule of the Many (1996). Professor Christiano has published many papers, mainly in moral and political philosophy, with emphases on democratic theory, distributive justice, and global justice. He is now engaged in projects on the foundations of equality as a principle of distributive justice and on the basis of international justice, the legitimacy of international institutions, and human rights. He is currently a Laurence S. Rockefeller Visiting Fellow at the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University where he is working on a project about democracy principles and the legitimacy of international institutions. 
Sam Daws directs a project on UN Governance and Reform at the Centre for International Studies of the University of Oxford. He is concurrently the managing director of 3D Strategy, a strategic communications company which provides advisory services to governments, international organizations and foundations. He also serves as the United Nations Foundation's Representative in the UK. He was previously Executive Director of the United Nations Association of the UK, and prior to that served as First Officer in the Executive Office of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in New York. He has served as a senior advisor on UN issues for nearly 25 years, based in New York, Geneva, Calcutta, and London. Sam has co-authored or edited six books on the United Nations, including "The Oxford Handbook on the UN" and "The Procedure of the UN Security Council". He is currently completing a third book for Oxford University Press, on the reform of the UN Security Council. He was a visiting fellow at Yale and Cambridge Universities, and has lectured at the UNU in Tokyo, the LSE, and Oxford University. Sam is an alumnus of the Prime Minister's Top Management Programme of the UK National School of Government, and of London Business School, CASS Business School and the UNU International Leadership Academy in Amman. He is currently on the Board of Directors of the Academic Council on the UN System.
Ian Hurd is Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and a visiting fellow at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. He has written widely on international organizations and international law, including the books International Organizations: Politics, Law, Practice (2011) and After Anarchy: Legitimacy and Power in the UN Security Council (2007) which won prizes from the International Studies Association and the Policy Sciences Society. His articles and essays have appeared in International Organization, Foreign Affairs, Global Governance and other journals. His current research is on the interaction between international law and international politics, with a focus on laws on war, torture, and humanitarian intervention.
Jean-Marc Coicaud is the Director of the United Nations University (UNU) Office at the United Nations Headquarters (New York). He was Senior Academic Officer and Director of Studies at the UNU Headquarters (Tokyo) from 1996 to 2003. From 1992 to 1996, he served in the Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary-General as a speechwriter for Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali. A former fellow at Harvard University (Center for International Affairs, Department of Philosophy and Harvard Law School, from 1986 to 1992), Coicaud has held appointments such as Cultural Attaché with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Legislative Aide with the European Parliament (Financial Committee). He has also been a Visiting Professor at the École Normale Supérieure-Ulm in Paris and has taught at the New School for Social Research (New York). In addition, he has been a Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace (Washington, D.C.), a Global Research Fellow at New York University School of Law and a Visiting Scholar at the School of Public Policy and Management of Tsinghua University (Beijing). Coicaud holds a Ph.D. in Political Science-Law from the Sorbonne and a Doctorat d'État in philosophy from the Institut d'Études Politiques of Paris. Jean-Marc Coicaud has published 14 books in the fields of comparative politics, political and legal theory, international relations and international law. They are available in English, French, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and Arabic, and include the following single-authored books: L'introuvable démocratie autoritaire (L'Harmattan, 1996), Légitimité et Politique (Presses Universitaires de France, 1997), Politics and Legitimacy: A Contribution to the Study of Political Right and Political Responsibility (Cambridge University Press, 2002), Beyond the National Interest (United States Institute of Peace Press, 2007), Kokuren no Genkai/Kokuren no Mirai (Future of the UN/Limits of the UN - Fujiwara Shoten, 2007), Mai Xiang Guo Ji Fa Zhi (Towards the International Rule of Law - Sanlian Shudian, 2008). His latest book, co-edited with Hilary Charlesworth, is Fault Lines of International Legitimacy (Cambridge University Press, 2009).
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