Flagship 2 and University of Copenhagen
Flagship 2 and HUM:Global at the University of Copenhagen have taken the initiative to launch a global outreach project called META-UN to collaborate with the United Nations (UN) system. The project is to create ties between the UN system and 4EU+ researchers from social sciences, the humanities and law who work with the UN and global governance. META-UN will collaborate with the Geneva Science-Policy Interface and involve both senior and junior researchers as well as students.
META-UN is designed to establish a science-policy exchange with the UN and comprises three distinct themes:
The history and historical heritage of the UN
Contemporary challenges for global governance
Challenges to UN decision-making and international law.
The themes are highly pertinent to the UN and will involve different officials, agencies and institutions in the UN system. META-UN will include discussions about reforming UN decision-making and international law such as UN 2.0 – Our Common Agenda, Work with the Youth and UN Futures Lab.
The overall aim of META-UN is to offer a much-needed space for meta-reflections on the UN itself.
META-UN will organise scientific and educational activities in collaboration with the UN in Geneva and provide a hub for meta-reflections about the UN for the 4EU+ Alliance and potential external partners. Events will involve the most prominent scientific experts on the UN, junior researchers, students, relevant staff as well as UN agencies and institutions. The project will integrate education and research in a way that facilitates dissemination of scientific results, educational exercises and innovation as a result of the direct dialogue and exchanges with the UN.
Together with relevant UN partners, META-UN’s Scientific Committee will plan and organise conferences, public events and research seminars, PhD summer schools, educational student trips, student internships among other formats. This broad range of activities will be financed from a variety of sources.
The UN has existed, expanded and adapted across nearly eight decades and plays a key role as a universal arena and agent of conflict resolution and cooperation. Accessibility to its deliberations and decisions, communication of its purpose and achievements, and preservation of its track record and procedures are at the heart of the UN’s legitimacy. Without the historical knowledge and information, its critics – and there are many – could more easily delegitimise it as irrelevant or even dangerous.
The initiatives envisaged under this theme are geared towards a more enduring and comprehensive interphase between students and leading scholars of the UN’s history, the staff working with the archives, museum and institutional memory of UN Geneva and the organisation itself. The aim is to teach, research, unfold, exhibit and circulate new, rich and engaging interpretations of the UN’s history – for its internal consumption and reflection and for a wider world in dire need of education.
Partners: The United Nations Library & Archives Geneva (and New York) and The History of International Organizations Network (HION, tbc).
The world faces momentous challenges, including climate change, environmental sustainability, economic development, the rapid nature of technical advances and security. The scale and complexity of the challenges have led to conversations among scientists about the emergence of a polycrisis caused by the intertwined nature of multiple independent crises with dramatic unforeseen consequences as a result. With such daunting prospects for the near future, the UN offers a crucial promise and hope for humanity to get organised in a way that makes it possible to deal with the crises and turn the planet into a place for future prosperity, sustainability and peace.
This theme will bring together researchers and students from social sciences, the humanities and law to engage in a broad interdisciplinary dialogue that can provide new and innovative answers to what policies that are needed to address the polycrisis and how we can prepare the UN for the future.
Partners: Key UN institutions and agencies.
Over the decades, the UN has prompted an ever-closer collaboration among states while also fostering the development of international law and a peaceful settlement of disputes. To some extent, the adoption of the sustainable development goals in 2015 represented a watershed moment as a new strategy was defined to address the most urgent crises facing the world. Nevertheless, key institutional and legal shortcomings have become evident, casting doubts on the legitimacy and efficacy of the UN.
This theme will focus on possible institutional reforms of the UN and its role in the development of international law. The plan is to have an open debate involving academics, students, UN officers and experts from the civil society to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the UN system. Participants will pay special attention to the UN’s history and its current challenges to design reform strategies that could help the organisation promoting international legal regimes and legal techniques that can properly address the needs of current and future generations.
Partners: The legal service of the UN, legal experts of UN institutions and agencies and the International Court of Justice.
META-UN is led by a Scientific Committee:
Co-Chair – Flagship 2 Coordinator and Associate Professor Morten Rasmussen, University of Copenhagen
Co-Chair – Assistant Professor Haakon A. Ikonomou, Head of HUM:global, University of Copenhagen
Professor Giovanna Adinolfi, University of Milan
Professor Sandrine Kott, University of Geneva
Professor Louise Dalingwater, Sorbonne University
Professor Anton Stefan Zimmermann, Heidelberg University
Professor Jan Kuklík, Charles University
Professor Agata de Laforcade, Paris-Panthéon-Assas University
Professor Dorota Heidrich, University of Warsaw