UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSITY PUBLIC FORUM

Multilateralism and the United Nations System

A Presentation by Professor Robert W. Cox

The United Nations University will hold its next Public Forum on Tuesday, 27 February 1996, from 1:15 to 2:45 p.m. in the Dag Hammarskjöld Library Auditorium. The Forum's topic will be the UNU's programme on Multilateralism and the United Nations System. Robert W. Cox, professor at York University and coordinator of the programme, will be the guest speaker. Staff of the UN Secretariat, the Permanent Missions, and the UN press, as well as members of the academic community are invited to attend.

The programme on Multilateralism and the United Nations System (MUNS) was initiated by the United Nations University in 1990, and was concluded at a symposium recently held in Costa Rica. The programme's main objective is to stimulate a stream of ideas about problems of multilateralism and to create a network of scholars and practitioners from all over the world who are committed to pursuing the development of the study of multilateralism. Professor Cox's presentation will include an overview of the five-year research project and its major results.

The final symposium in the MUNS programme was designed as a synthesis of thinking about the two interacting aspects that have central to the programme's approach: global structural change and the potential for multilateralism. Multilateralism is given a broad meaning to encompass all those entities that may be or may become relevant in dealing with general issues or issues in specific sectors of policy, whether at the world level or at the level of a more limited grouping. These entities include states but also forces in civil society. The discussion was organized around four major themes: (1) Establishing conditions of security within which people can collectively pursue autonomously determined projects of society; (2) Defining and pursuing alternative economic development strategies that are consistent with people's goals and are compatible with the maintenance of the biosphere; (3) Advancing the protection of human rights and effective participation in decision making at local and national levels; and (4) Restructuring multilateralism from the standpoint of representation and accountability.

The UNU's public forum series is intended to make available the results of UNU research on issues of relevance to the United Nations system in an effort to stimulate discussion on policy alternatives.

Further information on the Multilateralism and the United Nations System programme may be obtained from:

United Nations University, Office at the United Nations, in New York

Tel: 212-963-6387; Fax: 212-371-9454; E-mail: unuona@igc.apc.org