Illuminating the Arts-Policy Nexus 

THE UN'S WORLD SUMMIT: WILL IT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE?

a panel discussion with

SHASHI THAROOR, Under Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, United Nations, and author of eight books, including, most recently, Bookless in Baghdad.

and


COLUM LYNCH, Prize-winning UN correspondent for The Washington Post.



Moderated by

MARTIN WALKER, World Policy Institute Senior Fellow, chief editor of United Press International, former Washington correspondent of the Guardian, author of seven non-fiction books and three novels, regular commentator on BBC and CNN.

In the Fall of 2003, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the world that the UN stands "at a fork in the road" and must either reform or risk irrelevance. For the past twenty-four months, Annan's own UN Panel and various other commissions, including one organized by the US Congress, have proposed a series of reforms in the security, human rights, Secretariat management and economic assistance fields. Now, following the World Summit, the question is: did real reform take place at the UN? Is there any serious prospect now of a consensus between the United States and the rest of the General Assembly on the key issues confronting the organization? Will the Security Council be restructured? Or has the UN lost an opportunity for real change? Where does the UN go from here?

Thursday, October 6, 2005, 6:00-7:30 p. m. Swayduck Auditorium, first floor, 65 Fifth Avenue (between East 13-14th sts.). Admission is $5.00.