Dag Hammarskjold Research Articles

The Blue Beret

The Blue Beret

Spiritual autobiographies as sources of the ecumenism: Dag Hammarskjöld’s case

An important genre of the theological area, spiritual autobiography is currently undergoing a rediscovery process, because of recent research on this topic. Written by important mystical personalities belonging to different Christian traditions (such as Saint Silouane the Athonite or Saint John of Kronstadt for the Orthodox area, Saint Teresa of Avila for the Catholic one and Dag Hammarskjold for the Lutheran one), spiritual autobiographies can constitute a valuable source for the understanding of their authors’ thinking and perception of fundamental topics such as ecumenism. Being aware of this aspect, we will start from a case study, namely that of Dag Hammarskjold, and we will try to see how this category of texts can be used in order to understand the attitude of the authors of spiritual autobiographies and their motivation in the ecumenical space. Contribution: The research helps the reader to see how the spiritual autobiographies can be a source of understanding the ecumenism of mystical vocations, using as example Dag Hammarskjold’s Markings .

En la frontera de lo inaudito

El artículo presenta la figura de Dag Hammarskjöld, segundo secretario general de las Naciones Unidas. Analiza su itinerario espiritual, delineado en su diario, en correlación con su vida política, y se centra en los años clave de su experiencia mística.

Book Reviews - Dag Hammarskjold, the United Nations and the Decolonisation of Africa; Australia and Africa: A New Friend from the South?; and Collective Amnesia

Book Reviews - Dag Hammarskjold, the United Nations and the Decolonisation of Africa; Australia and Africa: A New Friend from the South?; and Collective Amnesia

Chief Administrator or Political ‘Moderator’? Dumbarton Oaks, the Secretary-General and the Korean War

Seventy-five years after the creation of the United Nations at the Dumbarton Oaks conference, the secretary-general has become the de facto figurehead of the world organization and the office-holder is expected to take a proactive role in a whole range of global issues. Yet it remains unclear what powers the Allied planners intended for the secretary-general. By examining the discussions that took place on this issue before, during and after Dumbarton Oaks this article argues that despite the seemingly innocuous provisions relating to the secretary-general enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, the office-holder was never intended to simply be a chief administrator. What is more, the first Secretary-General, Trygve Lie, controversially sought to resolve a number of issues that came before the United Nations, most notably the Korean War. The second half of this article thus demonstrates that while Lie did test the parameters of his office to the limits during the Korean conflict, none of his actions exceeded the powers granted to the secretary-general. Moreover, Lie’s role during the Korean War set the tone for his successor, Dag Hammarskjold, who is usually seen as the most proactive secretary-general to date.

ON THE EVE OF BAPA+40 - SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION IN TODAY’S GEOPOLITICAL CONTEXT

The “South-South cooperation” concept is still not widely known or used, except in the framework of the United Nations. Yet, its inception goes back more than 60 years, when the idea was crystallized as a key building bloc of the national liberation and anti-colonial struggle of developing countries1. The struggle found its apogee in the UN and was marked by the Congo crisis that witnessed the deaths of Patrice Lumumba and Dag Hammarskjold. In March 2019, the United Nations will hold the 2nd High-level Conference on South-South cooperation, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to discuss the state and prospects of South-South cooperation (SSC) and chart a path for the future. The Conference will also mark the 40th anniversary of the 1978 UN Conference on Technical Co-operation among Developing Countries (TCDC), also held in Buenos Aires, which adopted the Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (thus the acronym for BAPA+40 or Buenos Aires Plan of Action + 40). BAPA+40 offers a new opportunity for the international community and, more importantly, the Global South to focus attention on South-South cooperation. This cooperation is important not only for development and national-sovereignty aspirations and needs of the developing countries and their peoples, but also for these countries’ greater role and influence in the world arena. Consequently, South-South cooperation holds a promise of the developing countries playing a key role in reforming and shaping the · When the editor of the Vestnik RUDN International Relations , published by Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), formerly Patrice Lumumba University, approached me with the suggestion to contribute an article on South-South cooperation for the journal’s special issue devoted to the 2019 UN High-level Conference on South-South Cooperation, he stressed the importance of including footnotes, and also suggested that I liven up the text with some recollections from my own academic and professional experience. I have obliged by providing ample footnotes parallel to the main body of the text, in the hope that this unorthodox, eclectic essay - partly historical, partly analytical and partly prescriptive - may serve as useful reference for those working on South- South cooperation, and also for researchers of this subject and the large student body from the Third World, especially Africa, studying at RUDN University, some of whom may in the future take part in a South-South cooperation undertaking. world order to respond to the shared needs and objectives of humankind. The essay approaches this question from a point of view widely shared in developing countries and is inspired by their decades-long collective struggle in the world arena.

“A Force for Peace”: Expanding the Role of the UN Secretary-General Under Trygve Lie, 1946−1953

The UN Charter describes him or her merely as the “chief administrative officer of the organization,” yet today the Secretary-General is widely recognized as the UN's chief political representative. How did this transformation and expansion of the office from administrative to political take place? Existing scholarship tends to emphasize the contribution made by Dag Hammarskjold. This article challenges that story on two accounts: first, by pointing out the importance of institutional factors and not just the officeholder's personality; and second, by examining the contribution made by Trygve Lie, the UN's first Secretary-General. The article establishes a conceptual framework based on institutional theory to understand the role of the Secretary-General and analyzes Lie's contribution in the period 1946–1953.

Working Together for Peace: Synergies and Connectors for Implementing the 2015 UN Reviews

In 2015, on the occasion of its seventieth year of existence, the UN undertook a comprehensive assessment of its peace and security work through three reviews on peace operations, peacebuilding, and the implementation of the women, peace, and security agenda. These reviews aimed to strengthen the effectiveness, coherence, and relevance of the UN’s peace and security architecture to make it better “fit for purpose” and able to respond more effectively to today’s complex and interconnected crises. The latest report by IPI, developed in partnership with the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, aims to help member states and other stakeholders identify and analyze common themes, interlinkages, and synergies emerging from these reviews, particularly in four areas: (1) sustaining peace and prevention; (2) gender equality and women’s participation; (3) collaborative and strategic partnerships; and (4) people-centered approaches. The report also identifies and analyzes three areas in which the UN should act to operationalize the reviews’ policy recommendations: (1) integration and coherence; (2) financing; and (3) accountability, leadership, and governance. In order to leverage synergies and overcome silos in these areas, the report recommends that the UN: - Capitalize on existing connectors across its three thematic pillars at the level of member states, the UN Secretariat, and the field, with the peace building architecture serving as a bridge; - Activate new connectors recommended in the three reviews, including a centralized analysis and planning cell, a single peace operations account, and implementation of the 2030 Agenda; and - Build on precedents of member states coming together to work across structural divides, as well as the emerging consensus on sustaining peace and on systemic coherence and integration. This will require the UN to organize and present its work differently in the field and at headquarters, with bold integration within and across relevant UN pillars and entities. It will also require member states to change the way they engage with UN bodies and structures, including through better incentive structures, financial approaches, and instruments, as well as strong and visionary leadership from the next secretary-general.

United Nations Management —An Oxymoron?

Our fifteen-year-old daughter and a friend have organized several bake sales to raise money for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). They trust that the $100 or so they take in each time will be put to good use, and I do not hesitate to reassure them. Unlike UNICEF, the UN Secretariat proper, headed by the Secretary-General, is financed only by assessed contributions from member states, and does not raise funds from teenagers. This is just as well since I could not give a similar assurance. Management problems at the Secretariat are stark and delivery is spotty, despite the good work its often brilliant, mostly dedicated, and sometimes heroic staff. Among the daunting challenges for Ban Ki-moon's successor, who will assume office on 1 January 2017, will be rebuilding the decrepit Secretariat: not the building--that has been done (1)--but what goes on inside. This essay, while not a comprehensive survey management challenges, will recount some recent scandals that have tarnished the organization and explore if these are random occurrences or, rather, systemic pathologies. The red thread running through the essay is the supposition that the choice the right Secretary-General is key to stanching future scandals and to reclaiming the UN's moral authority. The year 2016 offers a unique opportunity, with the General Assembly having asserted its role in the selection the Secretary-General by demanding a more transparent process. (2) Heretofore, the General nominally the appointing authority, simply confirmed the single choice offered by the Security Council. For the first time in the UN's history, all declared candidates appeared before the General Assembly in April and July this year to present their vision and to answer questions, including from civil society representatives, in public sessions. This refreshing departure from opacity might well produce an outcome previously unimaginable. At the time this article is written, the process is ongoing; by the time it is published, the results may be known. The previous eight Secretaries-General were chosen solely by the Security Council, which means in effect by the veto-wielding Permanent Five (P5). While some turned out winners (Dag Hammarskjold and Kofi Annan come to mind), the historical record is quite conclusive that the P5 prefer a weak and pliable, if respectable, Secretary-General over one with proven political leadership skills and strong managerial competence. Since it takes someone with a robust sense autonomy, decency, determination, and integrity to turn around the organization, the primary responsibility lies with the P5. However, regardless the P5's motives, the incoming Secretary-General could opt to treat her (hopefully) appointment as the pinnacle a successful career and use the position to leave a lasting legacy making the United Nations relevant again, respected and effective on its major normative mandates peace, development, human rights, and sustainable environmental stewardship. She or he should also appoint effective and powerful as well as empowered leaders to head the many departments, funds and programs, peace operations, and special political missions around the world. Systemic Pathologies A cascade revelations has recently focused the spotlight on egregious ethical and management glitches. In March 2016, the UN's Office Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) issued an audit of the management the trust fund in support the Office the President the General Assembly, which uncovered lapses, deficiencies, and due diligence failures. (3) The audit was requested by the Secretary-General after a former president the General Assembly was charged by the US attorney for the Southern District New York with tax evasion after corruptly receiving $1.3 million in bribes. The Secretary-General, but only after the former president had been arrested, convened a task force to review the functioning the Office the President the General Assembly. …

The International Civil Servant in Theory and Practice: Law, Morality, and Expertise

What is the place of international civil servants in international law? How much do they contribute to making the legal norms and institutions that govern states? To what extent does law sustain and constrain their authority? These important and difficult questions are raised, directly and indirectly, by several recent works that examine the life and legacy of Dag Hammarskjold, the second and arguably most influential Secretary-General of the United Nations. While serving in that capacity during the crucial years of 1953-1961, at the height of the Cold War and decolonization and perhaps the most formative period of UN history, Hammarskjold was intimately involved in the formulation of several legal innovations that have since become staples of UN activity, including preventive diplomacy and peacekeeping. Yet he has also been accused, both during his lifetime and more recently, of expanding the authority of his own office to the detriment of democratic government. Reflecting on these works, this review essay argues that the authority of international civil servants should be understood and analysed as operating through three distinct yet interconnected modalities of discourse and practice: legal, moral, and expert. By giving due attention to all three modalities, a more accurate picture may be formed of the conditions under which international civil servants are able to govern, and their relationship to international law. Moreover, a comprehensive account of the authority exercised by international civil servants must take account of how they respond to any tensions that may arise between their bases of authority, as well as their shifting relations with other ‘global governors.’

The International Civil Servant in Theory and Practice: Law, Morality, and Expertise

Reflecting upon the ambiguous relationship between international civil servants and international law in both theory and practice, this review essay examines several recent books that address the life and legacy of Dag Hammarskjold, the second Secretary-General of the United Nations. Drawing upon recent theoretical work regarding international organizations, the essay argues that the authority of international civil servants should be understood as operating through three distinct yet interconnected modalities of discourse and practice: legal, moral and expert. Moreover, a comprehensive account of the authority exercised by international civil servants must take account of how they respond to any tensions that arise between their bases of authority as well as of their shifting relations with other ‘global governors’. The essay considers the depiction of Hammarskjold by each of the books under review, highlighting the sometimes overlooked interconnections between the different sources of authority upon which he drew and suggesting some starting points for an alternative, integrated account of his thought and practice.

The Myth of Sweden as a peace-power state and its religious motivations

Since the non-military dissolution of the political union with Norway in 1905, the myth of Sweden as a peace-power state, often with religious motivations, has been actual, and continuosly re-activated. In his ecumenical-political actions, Archbishop Nathan Soderblom was one of the most outstanding actors. Later, the political martyrdom of Count Folke Bernadotte, Dag Hammarskjold, Raoul Wallenberg, Olof Palme, and Anna Lindh, changed the outlines of the myth into an individualistic one, emphasising the strong Swedish individual, fighting for peace and justice, more than the national concept of Sweden as a peace-power state.

Executive Leadership in the Study of International Organization: A Framework for Analysis

What can the scholarship on global international organizations (IOs) tell us about the contributions of the executive head (EH) to organizational change? The empirics of IO studies frequently credit EHs with important changes, but these studies seldom consider EHs separate from the rest of the bureaucracy and thus make few theoretical claims about them. Consequently, it is difficult to assess whether this credit is warranted and why some heads are given more credit than others. This article argues that heads, such as World Bank President Robert McNamara and United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, were influential because they did not just channel state and bureaucratic demands but made political choices that contributed to organizational adaptation. To make this argument, it draws on sociological institutionalist and constructivist scholarship on IO and leadership to develop an analytical framework where IO adaptation is linked to the EH's performance of two tasks commonly associated with executive leadership: defining a strategic plan and mobilizing support to implement that plan. However, it adds that when environmental constraints are severe, the conventional “ follower-oriented ” mobilization strategies found in leadership studies are less viable. Instead, EHs can adopt an “ opposition-oriented ” one intended to prevent the opposition from mobilizing while incrementally implementing key reforms.

On international legal method

International Authority and the Responsibility to Protect seeks to show that the emergence of the responsibility to protect concept and its embrace by a very diverse range of actors is one sign of a significant shift in the representation of authority in the modern world. More specifically, the book argues that the responsibility to protect concept offers a framework for rationalising and con- solidating practices of international executive rule, many of which were de- veloped by Dag Hammarskjold, the second Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), in the early years of decolonisation. Since the late 1950s, the UN and other international actors have developed and systematised a body of practices aimed at 'the maintenance of order' and 'the protection of life' in the decolonised world, 1 including fact-finding, peacekeeping, the management of refugee camps, civilian administration, strategic forms of technical assistance and early warning mechanisms. My aim was to explore the ways in which those practices of governing and that form of authority had been represented. The book is also a wager that there is something to be gained—theoretic- ally, politically and empirically—by developing a primarily juridical (rather than historical, philosophical, economic or sociological) method as a basis for exploring such contemporary international developments. Juridical think- ing frames the problems that the book raises, shapes the archival choices made throughout its research and the construction of its narrative, structures its argument and provides its conceptual underpinnings. Of course, this begs the question of just what 'juridical thinking' is, where we might look for it, and to which historical figures and authors we might properly make reference in order to develop a legal analysis that is also critical, idiomatically recognisable and politically useful. I return to these questions below.

International authority, the responsibility to protect and the culture of the international executive

In her book, 'International Authority and the Responsibility to Protect,' Anne Orford compellingly demonstrates how the doctrine of responsibility to protect can be seen as providing a normative foundation for international authority already exercised through 'pre-existing practices of protection' on the part of the international executive. She does so through a close historical analysis of practice on the part of the UN, and particularly the work of Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold. In doing so, she positions Hammarskjold as the 'founding father' of international executive action, and treats the expansion of international authority justified by reference to protection largely as a result of the implementation of Hammarskjold’s vision for the development of international executive rule. Focusing on Hammarskjold in this way provides the basis for an illuminating and coherent narrative of the development of the responsibility to protect concept. However, it also obscures questions of the social and institutional context within which Hammarskjold’s ideas took effect. Quite evidently, it was not Hammarskjold alone, but a whole bureaucratic machinery which performed the ‘protracted process’ of consolidating international executive power by reference to the concept of protection. But this social history of the responsibility to protect is largely missing from Orford’s narrative. As a result, Orford’s account of the ‘pre-existing…practices of protection,’ which responsibility to protect emerged to justify, is only partial, and leaves critical questions – such as the nature of those exercising international authority – unanswered. In this piece I therefore argue that Orford’s consideration of the political philosophy and intellectual history of the responsibility to protect needs to be supplemented by greater attention to its sociology, through an analysis of how practices of international executive action to 'protect life' developed through the institutional life – or 'culture' – of international bodies. Such an analysis not only offers a more complete picture of the consolidation of international executive authority based on protection, but also provides a basis for understanding how the responsibility to protect concept might affect the future practices of international institutions exercising executive power.

Patterns of diplomatic peacemaking

Whereas the United Nations (UN) used the term “preventive diplomacy” officially for the first time in 1960 in a statement by Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, the broader idea of conflict prevent...

Commentary: Explicit Attention to Age and Gender Disparities Is Key to Understanding Adolescent Experiences and Outcomes

Journal of Research on AdolescenceVolume 23, Issue 1 p. 191-192 Commentary Commentary: Explicit Attention to Age and Gender Disparities Is Key to Understanding Adolescent Experiences and Outcomes Ann K. Blanc, Corresponding Author Ann K. Blanc Population CouncilRequests for reprints should be sent to Ann K. Blanc, Population Council, 1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, New York, NY 10017. E-mail: ablanc@popcouncil.orgSearch for more papers by this authorJudith Bruce, Judith Bruce Population CouncilSearch for more papers by this author Ann K. Blanc, Corresponding Author Ann K. Blanc Population CouncilRequests for reprints should be sent to Ann K. Blanc, Population Council, 1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, New York, NY 10017. E-mail: ablanc@popcouncil.orgSearch for more papers by this authorJudith Bruce, Judith Bruce Population CouncilSearch for more papers by this author First published: 14 February 2013 https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12011Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume23, Issue1Special Issue: Adolescents in the Majority WorldMarch 2013Pages 191-192 RelatedInformation

The Term of Office of the UN Secretary-General

Of the office of the Secretary-General (SG) a great deal has been written, but nothing sums up the position quite as well as the remark made by the first SG, Trygve Lie, to his successor, Dag Hammarskjold, on meeting him at New York’s Idlewild Airport on 9 April 1953, that Hammarskjold was about to inherit ‘the most impossible job in the world’. Called on to be politician, diplomat and administrator, the SG who speaks with the ostensible authority of the United Nations on matters great and small whilst at the same time working behind the scenes for the advancement of international peace and security. His – there has never been a female SG – is a continuous balancing act, serving the interests of multiple constituencies which did not elect him. Professor James Crawford reflects on the roles and challenges of the UN Secretary-General.

“In a Time of Peace Which Is No Peace”: Security and Development—Fifty Years After Dag Hammarskjöld

It is when we all play safe that we create a world of the utmost insecurity. --Dag Hammarskjold On 5 June 1958, the UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold was awarded an honorary doctorate by Cambridge University. In his address, with reference to the work of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber programmatically entitled Walls of Distrust, he stated, meet in a time of peace which is no peace, in a time of technical achievement which threatens its own masters with destruction. We meet in a time when the ideas evoked in our minds by the term 'humanity' have switched to a turbulent political reality from the hopeful dreams of our predecessors. (1) Since then, the arms race has continued and nuclear weapons remain a threat. The volume of international transfers of major conventional weapons is on the rise, 24 percent higher between 2006 and 2010 than for the preceding five years. (2) We produce ever more sophisticated and efficient weapons for mass violence and destruction, which absorb massive investments into the further promotion of technology that serves the purpose to protect through posing a threat. Military-industrial elites nurture a global economics of killing. (3) While it is suggested that military encounters and the number of victims might in overall trends have decreased throughout human history, (4) the language of power has not changed. We remain captives of a mindset that bases a pseudosecurity on the ability to create insecurity, danger, and destruction. Dominant thinking in our age of modernity is guided by an obsession with technological-industrial innovation considered to protect by being able to destroy. Our knowledge and the applied instruments are at best a double-edged sword. Hammarskjold reminds us of this when stating in his Cambridge speech that, through these achievements, doors that were locked have been broken open, to new prosperity or to new holocausts. Warning words about how the of social organization, and how the growth of moral maturity in the emerging mass civilizations, has lagged behind the technical and scientific progress, have been repeated so often as to sound hackneyed and to make us forget that, they are true. ... Deep-rooted conflicts which have run their course all through history and seemed to reach a new culmination before and during the Second World War continue. And destructive forces which have always been with us make themselves felt in new foams. They represent, now as before, the greatest challenge man has to face. (5) But ever more sophisticated armament does not help us to come effectively to terms with the real challenges humanity faces. All arms in the world can be directed to the melting ice caps in the Arctic circles and the melting nonetheless continues unabated. There is no weaponry that can protect us from the effects of climate change or compel nature to halt the environmental degradation that threatens the survival of not only the human species as a result of man-made forces. Ultimately, the most devastating and far-reaching weapon of mass destruction is our so-called modern civilization with its reproduction patterns in the industrialized world and its way of life, which is nowadays a habitual privilege among elites across the globe. Our notion of development is a root cause of a track eliminating forms and varieties of life and bringing us every day closer to extinction. Human and collective security is, in our current world, less threatened by conventional arms than by the effects of an excessively opulent consumerism among the relatively privileged who share the latest communication gadgets and designer brands to be purchased in airport shopping malls from Adelaide to Addis Ababa, from Bangkok to Buenos Aires, and from Copenhagen to Chicago, as the ABC of global jet-set trends could randomly read. This way of life is the flip side to mass poverty, hunger, and destitution. …

UN Security Council and Deficit of Collective Security

On 23rd May 1995, National Spiritual Assemblies of the Baha’is of Australia, New Zealand, British Isles, Canada, Central America, Egypt, Sudan, Germany, Austria, India, Pakistan, Burma, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Switzerland, South America and United States approached Mr. Dag Hammarskjold Secretary-General United Nations United Nations New York, N.Y. in its capacity of an international nongovernmental organization submitted recommendations for revision of the Charter of United Nations and the Statute of the International Court of Justice. These suggestions were based on the basis of equality, most important of suggestions contained the reform in United Nations security council; they talked about scraping permanent seat and that every member be elected by due procedure without any repetition. Albeit, it was never looked at and all related efforts went in vain. On 31st August 1965, UN took steps to further reform United Nation Security Council, as it expanded its erstwhile membership from 11 to 15 members, with super majority required from for action being increased from 7 to 9 votes. The amendment to Article 23 enlarged the membership of the Security Council from eleven to fifteen. The amended Article 27 provides that decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members (formerly seven) and on all other matters by an affirmative vote of nine members (formerly seven), including the concurring votes of the five permanent members of the Security Council. This was the last sincere effort to reform UN Security Council, the only significant development came in the form of 2758 resolution, through which PRC was recognized as legitimate government of China. This led to withdrew of recognition of ROC as legitimate Government of China automatically. Three decades have passed since the admission of PRC into Security Council; no further progress has been made till date in respect to reforming of the Council. Further dynamics of 20th century have been completely changed, and now it becomes futile to continue with post world war arrangement. World’s third largest economy, Japan have been barred of the Council due to its animosity with China, whole of South America is unrepresented, great continent of Africa remains unrepresented in permanent members, Germany also has progressed 10 folds after the fall of Soviet Union, India on the other hand has gained diplomatic clout as well as economic gains which is unparalleled in 21st century. If the conditions remain same then, Security Council will lose its objective as key players holding the future world will be out of the world’s most reliable domain. I would like to cite the example of G20, or the group of 20 most advanced nations; this is the only group which has delivered most and has been successful since its inception, unlike other Gs. This has been a result of collective effort, as today reality has changed from a bipolar world to a multi-polar world. Accountability cannot be created unless there is no Authority.