Council's Agenda Research Articles

The Role of Presidential Advisory Systems in US Foreign Policy-Making: The Case of the National Security Council and Vietnam, 1953-1961

The historiography of Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidency has undergone substantial shifts over the past two decades. While historians still debate Eisenhower's overall effectiveness, few accept the traditional assessment that he was a weak president. In The Role of Presidential Advisory Systems in US Foreign Policy-Making, Pasi Tuunainen definitely accepts the revisionist contention that Eisenhower was an effective president who utilized a carefully orchestrated advisory system to facilitate decision making. He arrives at this conclusion after using the development of Eisenhower's policies toward Vietnam as a case study for evaluating the effectiveness of the National Security Council (NSC) in presidential decision making. His study fills a definite void in the Eisenhower historiography and should be consulted by anyone studying either the NSC or American involvement in Vietnam in the 1950s. Tuunainen uses the multiple advocacy model as formulated by Alexander L. George to test the effectiveness of the NSC in providing advice to the Eisenhower administration concerning Vietnam. He traces the development and evolution of Eisenhower's Vietnam policies by carefully examining the discussions and debates in the NSC and its subordinate structures such as the Planning Board and the Operations Coordinating Board. He reveals that the situation in Vietnam was discussed in 20 percent of the NSC meetings from 1953 to 1961 and at times, especially in 1954 and 1955, was consistently one of the most important issues on the council's agenda. He argues that Eisenhower viewed those meetings as important, encouraged free-flowing ideas, debate, and discussion, and received careful, if sometimes flawed, advice.

Canada and the United Nations Security Council, 1999–2000 – a reassessment

During its recent 1999–2000 term on the UN Security Council, Canada performed as a major power and made a distinct impact both on procedural and substantive issues. Canada's activities on the Council stressed three principal themes, which had been articulated during the campaign for a Council seat: improving the Council's transparency and accountability; restoring the Council's leadership and credibility in international security operations; and promoting human security. Concerning transparency, Canada was able to get the Council to schedule more open meetings and to hold broader thematic debates, as well as expand consultations with non‐members and NGOs. Regarding leadership and credibility, under Canada's energetic leadership of the Angolan sanctions committee, sanctions against the Angolan rebels were significantly tightened, thereby helping to bring the long Angolan civil war to an end and improving UN sanctions regimes at large. With respect to human security, by scheduling frequent thematic debates, Canada managed to establish the concept as part of the prevailing discourse of the Security Council and to incorporate specific Chapter VII language for the protection of civilians into new peacekeeping mandates. Not all Canadian initiatives succeeded, e.g., attempts to get the civil wars in Chechnya and Sudan on the Council agenda failed to get the necessary support from other members. The challenge now facing Canada as non‐member of the Council is to maintain some of the momentum that was achieved during its two‐year term.

East Timor and the new humanitarian interventionism

The fate of East Timor provides a barometer for how far the normative structure of international society has been transformed since the end of the Cold War. In 1975, the East Timorese were abandoned by a Western bloc that placed accommodating the Indonesian invasion of the island before the protection of human rights. Twenty-five years later, it was the protection of the civilian population on the island that loomed large in the calculations of these same states. Australia, which had sacrificed the rights of the people of East Timor on the altar of good relations with Indonesia, found itself leading an intervention force that challenged the old certainties of its ‘Jakarta first’ policy. The article charts the interplay of domestic and international factors that made this normative transformation possible. The authors examine the political and economic factors that led to the agreement in May 1999 between Portugal, Indonesia and the UN to hold a referendum on the future political status of East Timor. A key question is whether the international community should have done more to assure the security of the ballot process. The authors argue that while more could have been done by Australia, the United States and officials in the UN Secretariat to place this issue on the Security Council's agenda, it is highly unlikely that the international community would have proved capable of mobilizing the political will necessary to coerce Indonesia into accepting a peacekeeping force. The second part of the article looks at how the outbreak of the violence in early September 1999 fundamentally changed these political assumptions. The authors argue that it became politically possible to employ coercion against Indonesian sovereignty in a context in which the Habibie government was viewed as having failed to exercise sovereignty with responsibility. By focusing on the economic and military sanctions employed by Western states, the pressures exerted by the international financial institutions and the intense diplomatic activity at the UN and in Jakarta, the authors show how Indonesian political and military leaders were prevailed upon to accept an international force. At the same time, Australian reporting of the atrocities and how this prompted the Howard government to an intervention that challenged traditional conceptionsof Australia's vital interests, is considered. The conclusion reflects on how thiscase supports the claim that traditional notions of sovereignty are increasinglyconstrained by norms of humanitarian responsibility.

Eyes on the Prize: The Quest for Nonpermanent Seats on the UN Security Council

With the era of euphoria spawned by Operation Desert Storm and the sense of empowerment it lent to the UN Security Council as of 1991 pretty well dispelled, excitement at the UN centers on small, often institutional events, barely discernible to the outside world. Although debate in the UN General Assembly rarely proves rousing, cer tain activities within its ambit do galvanize member states, none more so than elections to some critical nonuniversal UN bodies. These bodies in clude the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Ques tions (a fount of UN micromanagement by mostly unqualified delegates) and, of course, the UN Security Council.1 In spite of widespread complaints that the council's composition is un representative and in spite of the seemingly endless maneuvering among member states on its reform, membership in the council is seen at the UN in the late 1990s as more of a prize than ever. This view owes much to the increasingly active council agenda since the end of the Cold War. It also owes much to growing awareness of the council's role, through the UN Charter's Chapter VII provisions, in authorizing the use of coercive mea sures internationally (whatever may be thought of the council's perfor mance in recent years in exercising, or rather not exercising, these pow ers). Potential candidates for nonpermanent seats seem undiscouraged by the apparent stranglehold exerted on council business by its five perma nent members. They are undiscouraged by the special relationship the Permanent Five share with the Secretariat, although it often leaves other members in the dark. And they are undiscouraged by the daunting work load imposed by the council's formal agendas. They view with relative equanimity even the need to staff the many Sanctions Committees estab lished to monitor and decide on exemptions to sanctions instituted by the council in recent years. On the contrary, jockeying for seats is intense. Jockeying is nowhere more intense than within the Western European and Other Group (WEOG), which comprises members of the European Union (EU), Nor way, a number of small European nations (Liechtenstein, Malta, Andorra,

Council Holds Dues To This Year's Level, Acts On Other Matters

At its meeting last month in New Orleans, the American Chemical Society Council acted on a number of matters, including setting membership dues for next year, selecting candidates for president-elect, and raising meeting.registration fees for students. However, the absence of petitions to amend society governance documents—a frequent item on the council's agenda—helped hold the length of the meeting to less than three and a half hours. On the matter of membership dues, the council voted to retain 1997 dues at the same $99 level as this year (C&EN, April 1, page 6), even though the bylaw formula for adjusting dues for inflation would have increased dues $3.00 next year to $102. However, in view of a strong budgetary performance in 1995, with an increase of $15.8 million in unrestricted net assets, the Society Committee on Budget & Finance recommended no increase in dues—a motion carried unanimously by the council. The committee cautioned that future years ...

Five Petitions Top Council Agenda at Chicago Meeting

RETURN TO ISSUEPREVACS NewsNEXTFive Petitions Top Council Agenda at Chicago MeetingCite this: Chem. Eng. News 1993, 71, 29, 38–50Publication Date (Print):July 19, 1993Publication History Published online11 November 2010Published inissue 19 July 1993https://doi.org/10.1021/cen-v071n029.p038Copyright © 1993 AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETYArticle Views57Altmetric-Citations-LEARN ABOUT THESE METRICSArticle Views are the COUNTER-compliant sum of full text article downloads since November 2008 (both PDF and HTML) across all institutions and individuals. These metrics are regularly updated to reflect usage leading up to the last few days.Citations are the number of other articles citing this article, calculated by Crossref and updated daily. Find more information about Crossref citation counts.The Altmetric Attention Score is a quantitative measure of the attention that a research article has received online. Clicking on the donut icon will load a page at altmetric.com with additional details about the score and the social media presence for the given article. Find more information on the Altmetric Attention Score and how the score is calculated. Share Add toView InAdd Full Text with ReferenceAdd Description ExportRISCitationCitation and abstractCitation and referencesMore Options Share onFacebookTwitterWechatLinked InReddit PDF (3 MB) Get e-Alerts

AIDS:2008

Ad Libitum1 December 1987AIDS:2008AARON GLATT, M.D.AARON GLATT, M.D.Search for more papers by this authorAuthor, Article, and Disclosure Informationhttps://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-107-6-947_3 SectionsAboutPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail Excerpt"Sir, the doors are sealed. The decontamination quarantine systems are at full strength. All systems go."The President heaved a deep sigh of relief. What a trying time it had been for him personally and for the country these last few years. Preventing the spread of the virus had been the only topic on the World Council agenda in the last five years. Why didn't they realize back in the 80s the full extent of the problem? AIDS wasn't just going to go away peacefully and easily. And now, in 2008, the only hope rested in their current plan.Who... This content is PDF only. To continue reading please click on the PDF icon. Author, Article, and Disclosure InformationAuthors: AARON GLATT, M.D.Affiliations: Brooklyn, New York PreviousarticleNextarticle Advertisement FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Metrics 1 December 1987Volume 107, Issue 6Page: 947-947KeywordsAIDSDecontaminationQuarantines ePublished: 1 December 2008 Issue Published: 1 December 1987 PDF downloadLoading ...

Section Involvement at the National Level

The American Society of Civil Engineers emphasizes that its strength is founded on member involvement at the local level. To foster an information exchange, the Society provides an opportunity at National Conventions for a meeting between current National and Section Officers. This meeting is known as the Council of Presidents. The Council agenda includes a report of accomplishment by the National President and a statement of goals by the National President‐Elect. A timely emphasis area subject is also presented by a National Committee. The Council also affords an opportunity for Section Presidents to attend a National Convention. Sections are urged to consider the importance of this program when planning the annual Section Travel Budget.

'79 AAAS Meeting Moved from Chicago to Houston

'79 AAAS Meeting Moved from Chicago to Houston

Anti-Jensen Petition Makes Council Agenda

Anti-Jensen Petition Makes Council Agenda

Anti-Jensen Petition Makes Council Agenda

Anti-Jensen Petition Makes Council Agenda

The United Nations, the Superpowers, and Proliferation

Although nuclear weapons are likely to spread to small and medium powers, the main problem for inter national security will be the effect of proliferation on the avoidance of nuclear war between the superpowers. It is therefore from their vantage point that this essay assesses the role of international organizations in a nuclear-armed world. A new class of disputes caused by violations of IAEA safe guards and permissible withdrawals from the NPT is destined to be placed on the Security Council agenda. These disputes, moreover, may provide the superpowers with the opportunity to cement their common interests in controlling the effects of proliferation. Further periodic Soviet-American confrontations of nuclear-crisis proportions are to be expected, albeit in a new political context complicated by proliferation. The UN can help resolve these, as it has past crises, by pro viding an organ of last resort, registering, implementing particular provisions of these agreements, and above all cap italizing on them to advance new resources for the promotion of international security. All of these roles could be better played if the UN established an International Nuclear Security Planning Group, to devise, plan for, and supervise the execution of measures which command great support— and superpower agreement. Anything more radical, un fortunately, would require a significant upsurge of insecurity which could only result from a boundary event such as the first use of nuclear weapons.

International Civil Aviation Organization

CouncilThe 23d meeting of the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) opened in Montreal on September 28, 1954. Questions of air navigation occupied the most prominent place on the Council's agenda, which approved and communicated to ICAO members the proposals of the Air Navigation Commission for action on the recommendations of the Special Middle East Communications Meeting and of the fourth session of the Meteorological Division. Amendments were made to the regional supplementary procedures, to the Caribbean-South American-South Atlantic aeromobile frequency plan and to the rules of the air and air traffic control plan for the South American-South Atlantic region. In addition, the Council elected the membership of the Finance Committee and Committee on Joint Support of Air Navigation Services for the subsequent twelve months, gave preliminary consideration to the action to be taken on the resolution of the eighth session of the ICAO Assembly concerning the number and length of sessions and working methods of the Council, Air Navigation Commission and Air Transport Committee, decided to convene the fourth session of the Facilitation Division in the Philippines in the autumn of 1955, decided to convene a meeting of medical experts on hearing and visual requirements at Paris in April 1955 and decided, in principle, that ICAO should proceed to construct, in conjunction with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and on land leased to UNESCO by the French government, accommodations to meet the space requirements of its Paris office.

Economic and Social Council

This issue covers the remainder of the work of the thirteenth session of the Economic and Social Council. The Council met in Geneva from July 30 to September 21, 1951.Organization of the Council: During the thirteenth session great importance was attached to the necessity of insuring that business reached the Council in a well-prepared state and that Members had adequate time to study it. An effort was made to spread the work-load over the year in a pattern which would best facilitate the operations of all the international organizations concerned. Although the Ad Hoc Committee on the Organization and Operation of the Council and its Commissions had suggested three annual sessions of the Council, the majority of members were agreed that the existing arrangement of two regular annual sessions was sufficient — with the qualification that, henceforth, the second session should not be closed before the opening of the annual session of the General Assembly, but should be resumed towards the end of the session. The resumed ECOSOC session would decide how questions referred to the Council by the General Assembly should be handled and plan the basic program of work for the following year. As far as possible, major economic items would be considered in the first regular session of the year, with the bulk of the major social and human rights questions falling in the second regular session. The Council's agenda procedure was modified so that each year the Council would plan its basic work program and calendar of conferences for the following year; moreover, at each regular session, the Council would in the future settle the detailed provisional agenda for the following session — with appropriate provisions for the insertion of urgent items at a later date.

Economic and Social Council

The eleventh session of the Economic and Social Council opened in Geneva on July 9 and was expected to continue until mid-August. Among the recurring items on the Council's agenda were eleven reports from its subsidiary bodies and nine reports from the specialized agencies. Other topics which ECOSOC was to consider included the problems of economic development and social progress of the Italian colonies, the maintenance of full employment, technical assistance for economic development including methods of financing economic development, forced labor and trade union rights, higher education in the trust territories in Africa, and the problem of refugees and stateless persons. In the procedural field, the Council was to discuss the organization of the Economic and Employment Commission and its two subcommissions, consultative arrangements with non-governmental organizations and the calendar of conferences for 1951; elect new members to eight of its functional commissions: and confirm the membership of its commissions.

Economic and Social Council

The seventh session of the Economic and Social Council was held in Geneva from July 19 to August 29, 1948, with the President of the Council, Charles Malik of Lebanon, presiding. The Council originally had an agenda of some 50 items before it for consideration, but following the report of the Council's Agenda Committee eleven of these topics were postponed until the eighth session. To deal with its work the Council created three committees of the whole, on economic and social matters and on human rights, and two committees of smaller membership, on procedures and organization and on matters relating to coordination.

Economic and Social Council

The sixth session of the Economic and Social Council convened at Lake Success on February 2, 1948, to deal with record work load of some forty agenda items. With the adoption of the Council's agenda on February 2, five new items were added to the list of those which the Council would consider. The Council remained in session until March 11. Immediately upon the opening of the session, the Council turned to the election of its president and two vice presidents to succeed Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar (India), Jan Papánek (Czechoslovakia) and Herman Santa Cruz (Chile). The Council unanimously selected the representative of Lebanon (Malik) as its new president. The Council elected Mr. Santa Cruz as first vice president and named Mr. Kaminsky (Byelorussian SSR) as its second vice president