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IO/UNS Newsletter [12/08/22]

Aurelian Mohan - Wednesday, December 7, 2022
 Events   IO/UNS Newsletter 
December 8, 2022

Dear IO/UNS Community, 

The end of semester is approaching! In this context, it is important not only to look for future opportunities, but also to assess our past endeavors.

Please join the End of Year IO/UNS & UNA Social taking place on December 13, from 6 pm to 9pm in Publique. During this traditional event we will play UN-related games and award prizes to IO/UNS Specializers. Please fill this form in order to nominate your fellow IO/UNS Specializers (or yourself) for special awards such as the Next Secretary General or UN Reformer.

Moreover, join us for the How States Use the UN General Assembly to Create International Obligations event, today, Wednesday, Dec 7, from 1 pm to 2 pm. Moreover, we invite you to access the IO/UNS newsletter from Oct 15 in order to evaluate all IO/UNS course offerings from Spring 2023.

In this newsletter, you will find: 

  • News from the UN
  • Event Recap: The UK's Racialized Immigration Policies
  • What We're Listening To: 
  • IO/UNS Student Spotlight
  • Events at SIPA and Beyond
  • Internship Opportunities

**Please note this message is clipped. You can open the message in a new browser to see full event and internship listings.

Daniel, Asha & Aurelian
IO/UNS Specialization Team

In UN news:

  • Richard Gowan, the U.N. director at the International Crisis Group, assesses that The UN and Multilateralism made it through 2022 in pretty good shape. He observes that "While a more inclusive and effective Security Council would be very nice to have, an imperfect but partially functional Security Council can still save a lot of lives. ...Muddling through is a messy business, but it is also an essential diplomatic virtue."

  • More than one in five people employed – almost 23 per cent - have experienced violence and harassment in the workplace, whether physical, psychological or sexual, according to the first ever joint analysis of data worldwide carried out by the UN International Labour Organization (ILO), the independent global charity Lloyd’s Register Foundation (LRF) and analytics and polling company, Gallup. Globally, 17.9 per cent of employed men and women said they had experienced psychological violence and harassment at some point in their working life, and 8.5 per cent had faced physical violence and harassment. More men than women report having experienced this. For more information, access this article.

  • The World Health Organization (WHO) published a report on Friday, December 2nd, aimed at helping stakeholders worldwide end the growing scourge of violence online against children. The report recommends implementing school-based educational programmes, promoting interaction among youth, and engaging parents. It also underscores the importance of training young people in assertiveness, empathy, problem-solving, emotion management and seeking help, among other skills. Read more here.

  • The legacy of the transatlantic slave trade “reverberates to this day”, just as modern-day enslavement is growing, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said on Thursday, December 1st. The UN chief also urged action to identify and recommit to eradicating all forms of contemporary slavery, from people trafficking to sexual exploitation, child labour, forced marriage and the use of children in armed conflict. Citing the latest Global Estimates of Modern Slavery on forced labour and forced marriage, Mr. Guterres said that 50 million people were enslaved during the course of last year. Read more here.

  • The UN chief marked the World AIDS Day on Thursday, December 1st, with a call to action to end the inequalities which are blocking progress towards stopping the pandemic, and eradicating the virus. “The world has promised to end AIDS by 2030”, said Secretary-General António Guterres in his official message, but “we are off track.” Read more here.

  • After an inauspicious beginning, 2022 has been a year of low-key but sometimes surprisingly successful muddling through for multilateralism. To date, the Security Council has not ground to a halt. Despite constant and toxic bickering over Ukraine, council members have managed to continue renewing the mandates for U.N. peace efforts and sanctions in trouble spots such as Afghanistan and Haiti. Negotiations have frequently been hard. But the council has maintained a reasonable basic level of functionality. Read more here.

The UK's Racialized Immigration Policies

Last Tuesday, November 29th, IO/UNS and EPD were privileged to host a talk by Dr. Helidah Ogude-Chambert from The New School and the World Bank, on the United Kingdom’s gendered and racialized immigration policies. From the starting point of the UK's decision to send single young male asylum seekers to Rwanda, Dr. Ogude-Chambert outlined the racism inherent in the UK’s recent immigration policies and the depiction of migrants in the British media. She also highlighted the hypocrisy in the rhetoric surrounding the policy and its general infeasibility. In Dr. Ogude-Chambert's discussion with SIPA Professor Daniel Naujoks, participants learned about the near impossible means for migrants from certain countries to legally apply for asylum in the UK as well as the power and implications of politics.

You can access the recording of the event here and photos of the event here.

#LetThemPlay: Children belong on the playing field, not the battlefield

We are inviting you to watch and listen to the #LetThemPlay initiative. Every year, thousands of boys and girls are robbed of their right to simply be children. Whether involved in active fighting, abducted, deprived of an education, or enduring the horrors of warfare on a daily basis, children are being dragged into wars they don’t belong to while entailing great physical and emotional risks. Let Them Play: A child’s place is on a football field, not a battlefield is an initiative of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict to raise global awareness during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 on the need to stop the use and abuse of children in armed conflict and to support boys and girls living in conflict areas to regain their right to be children. Watch the entire video here.

IO/UNS Student Spotlight

We are proud of the critical views and relevant experiences of our IO/UNS specializers. To give each other a platform and a better appreciation of our goals and ideas, we are looking for volunteers to shed a spotlight on in our weekly newsletter communications and post on our Twitter account (@UNatColumbia). We hope these spotlights will help foster an even better understanding of our IO/UNS community and to share your inspirations for pursuing an education in multilateralism and global governance. We know that each of you has something to offer. Don't be shy and please fill out our questionnaire here - we'd love to shine a light on you!
Events at SIPA & Beyond


Today, Wed, Dec 7, 2022, 1 PM – 2 PM 
How States Use the UN General Assembly to Create International Obligations
407 IAB & online

RSVP | EVENT INFO


Fri, Dec 9, 2022, 6 PM – 8 PM 
HRHP End of Semester Celebration

Publique Cafe

RSVP | EVENT INFO


Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 6 PM – 8 PM ET
End of the Year IO/UNS and UNA Social
Publique

RSVP | EVENT INFO
TODAY, Wednesday, 7 December 2022, 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
407 IAB
How States Use the UN General Assembly to Create International Obligations

Resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly are often framed in normative language. Yet, they acquire legal significance only to the extent that states find it desirable or convenient. In her talk on her new book, Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on International Law: How States Use the UN General Assembly to Create International Obligations (Cambridge University Press 2022), Professor Rossana Deplano, who directs the Centre for European Law and Internationalisation at Leicester Law School, sheds light on the processes through which UN General Assembly resolutions acquire legal significance through state practice. She shows how states attribute legal significance to resolutions in three different contexts: at the time of adoption, within domestic law and in international practice. The insights are quintessential to understand the making and politics of public international law. 

In conversation with Professor Yasmine Ergas, Director of SIPA's Gender and Public Policy specialization and Professor Daniel Naujoks, Director of SIPA's International Organization and UN Studies specialization.

The speaker will attend virtually. Columbia students, faculty and staff may attend in person; others please join us virtually. Please see the different registration options.

December 9 2022, 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM ET
Low Library: Faculty Room
Sustainable Development Workshop Briefings & Poster Session

The Workshop in Sustainable Development allows undergraduate students to bridge the theoretical knowledge they have gained through their coursework in the natural and social sciences with a real-world, client-based project. Students will share project results with the university community at this event before final presentations with their clients. Following the Workshop presentations, there will be a poster session where students in SDEV 4101 Qualitative Research Methods for Sustainable Development will present their final projects. Workshop projects this semester include:

A Cost-Benefit Analysis for the Restoration of the Graniteville Wetlands

An Exploration of Distributed Renewable Energy (DRE) in Agricultural Value Chains

Incentivizing Policy for Green Roofs for New York City

Pathway to Electrification: Aligning Columbia Transportation with Plan 2030

Click here to register.
December 9 2022, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM ET
Publique Cafe
HRHP End of Semester Celebration

Join the Human Rights and Humanitarian Policy concentration to celebrate the conclusion of the Fall 2022 semester! Commemorate the end of the academic year and enjoy complimentary beverages and hors d'oeuvres.

Click here to register.
December 13 2022, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM ET
Pulique
End of the Year IO/UNS and UNA Social

Join the International Organization and United Nations Studies Specialization and SIPA's UN Association as we celebrate the end of the year! Now, it may be more important than ever to pause and take a moment to appreciate all of our accomplishments and everything we've overcome, as individuals and as a collective. We look forward to spend the evening with some fun activities! Please fill this form in order to nominate your fellow IO/UNS Specializers for special awards such as the Next Secretary General or UN Reformer.

Click here to register.
Internship Opportunities
UN INTERN - Earth Observation for Water Management, Space Applications
Application Deadline: 10 December 2022
Location: Vienna, Austria
Language: English

The Office for Outer Space Affairs OOSA-Space Applications Section internship is for two (2) months with an opportunity for extension up to a total of six (6) months, pending on the needs of the office and the availability of the intern. The envisaged starting date is in February 2023.

The internship is UNPAID and full-time. Interns work five days per week (40 hours) under the supervision of a staff member in the department or office to which they are assigned or remotely, if travel restrictions due to COVID-19 don’t allow the intern to travel to Vienna.

Apply Here

Executive Office of the Secretary-General - Interns
Application Deadline: 11 April 2023

The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) is seeking  motivated interns to support the work of the Executive Office of the Secretary-General. The interns can take up assignments with any team in the Office, including the Strategic Planning and Monitoring Unit; the Political, Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Human Rights Unit; the Rule of Law Unit; the Sustainable Development Unit; the Policy Advisor’s Office; or other units.

Interns report to full-time professional staff and focus on one of the three tracks set out under Responsibilities.

Apply Here

UN INTERN - Management and Programme Analysis
Application Deadline: 13 May 2023
This internship is in the Analytics and Project Management Section of the Business Transformation and Accountability Division of the Department of Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance (DMPSC).

The DMSPC/BTAD Analytics and Project Management team develops dashboards and other online platforms to support monitoring and reporting on performance; promotes business innovation and new ways of working, taking a long-term view of how the UN’s business model is aligned with evolving mandates, changing operational environments, as well as changes in the workplace and society-at-large; coordinates portfolio of transformational projects, ensuring projects are designed, communicated and implemented according to best practices in change and project management.

The internship is for a period of four months with an opportunity for extension up to six months, depending on the needs of the department. The internship is UNPAID and full-time. Interns work up to five days a week (35 hours) under the supervision of a staff member in the office to which they are assigned.

Apply Here

Department of Economic and Social Affairs - Social Sciences Interns
Application Deadline: 05 May 2023

The Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) / Division for Inclusive Social Development (DISD) internship is for two months with the opportunity for extension up to a total of six months, depending on the needs of the Division.

For more information about the Division, please visit here.

The internship is UNPAID and full time. Interns work five days per week (35 hours) under the supervision of a staff member in the department or office to which they are assigned.

Apply Here
Department of Economic and Social Affairs - Economic Affairs Interns
Application Deadline: 04 June 2023

The internship with the Inter-organizational and Inter-institutional Support Branch (IISB) of the Office of Intergovernmental Support and Coordination for Sustainable Development (OISC) of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA) is for two months, with an opportunity for extension, pending on the needs of the Department.

The internship is UNPAID and full time.

Interns work five days per week (35 hours) under the supervision of a staff member in IISB to which they are assigned.

Apply Here

Follow the IO/UNS Specialization on
CampusGroups, Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp.

Feel free to reach out to us:
Daniel Naujoks, IO/UNS Director, daniel.naujoks@columbia.edu
You can book office hours here.

Asha Jhanay Richards, Program Assistant, ajr2264@columbia.edu
Aurelian D. Mohan, Program Assistant, aurelian.d.mohan@columbia.edu