Tag: United Nations

Categories
Online Resource (Free)

New UN Organization for Women

The United Nations is amalgamating four of its organizations for women into a single entity called UN Women.

“UN Women merges and will build on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system which focus exclusively on gender equality and women’s empowerment:

UN Women — which will be operational by January 2011 — has been created by the General Assembly to…be a dynamic and strong champion for women and girls, providing them with a powerful voice at the global, regional and local levels. It will enhance, not replace, efforts by other parts of the UN system (such as UNICEF, UNDP, and UNFPA) that continue to have responsibility to work for gender equality and women’s empowerment in their areas of expertise.”

The UN Women website is currently up and has some limited content, i.e., press releases,  facts & figures, and “key documents,” but it is not clear whether the research and publications of the merged entities will migrate to the new site in due course.  In the meantime, the sites for the merged organizations remain operational and at present all their publications are accessible.

Categories
News Online Resource (Free) Website

Library Journal’s Notable Government Documents for 2009

Library Journal has published their annual selection on the most pertinent government documents of the past year.

Important issues included:

Digitization – “Google launched a collaborative project to scan every U.S. government document held by the libraries of the Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago. At the project’s end, the full text of an estimated one million to 1.5 million U.S. government publications will be available through Google Book Search and the HathiTrust Digital Library“- Library Journal

Hathi Trust Digital Library is  a digital repository for the nation’s great research libraries, bringing together the diverse collections of partner institutions. It was conceived as a collaboration of the thirteen universities of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation and the University of California system to establish a repository for these universities to archive and share their digitized collections.” – Hathitrust website.

Open government – The Obama administration created an Open Government Directive – “requiring executive agencies to make their activities transparent, to enhance the public’s role in policy making, and to collaborate more extensively with one another, with state and local governments, and with private institutions”

Some of the highlighted documents include:

Investigation of Failure of the SEC To Uncover Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme. public version. by H. David Kotz. U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.

Restorative Commons: Creating Health and Well-Being Through Urban Landscapes. ed. by Lindsay Campbell & Anne Wiesen. U.S. Forest Svc., Publications Distribution.

Climate in Peril: A Popular Guide to the Latest IPCC Reports. by Alex Kirby. UN Environment Programme.

Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. UN Human Rights Council

You can view the complete list here.

Categories
Online Resource (Free)

New databases from UN system organizations

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU)  is “the oldest international organization in the UN family….(providing leadership) for information and communication technology issues.”  The ITU has just launched its “History of ITU Portal” which contains ITU historical documents from radio, telegraph and telephone conferences.  Note, the process of digitization is currently underway and as of this date much of the proposed content has yet to be launched online.  Still, it’s worth noting for now and will be a terrific resource once the project is complete.   The site also provides a link to ITU statistics, which are freely available.

The FAO (Food & Agriculture Organization) has just launched a Gender and Land Rights Database which “puts the spotlight on one of the major stumbling blocks to rural development – widespread inequalities between men and women in their access to land….. (It)  offers up-to-date information on how men and women in 78 countries differ in their legal rights and access to land (and)  provides policymakers and other users with a better picture of the major social, economic, political and cultural factors which affect access to land and enforcement of women’s land rights.”

Categories
News Uncategorized

New Climate change report released – Copenhagen Diagnosis

The Copenhagen Diagnosis was released yesterday in advance of the December 7th United Nations-led climate change conference in Copenhagen —

This report is an update from the 2007 assessment of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

You can read the full report here

Read the Times Colonist story here

Categories
News

Women’s Rights: 4 Agencies into one at the UN

The United Nations has just announced that it will be consolidating  four disparate organizations devoted to women’s/gender issues into a single entity.

“The resolution means the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Division for the Advancement of Women, the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW) will be merged.”

The aim is for the new body to provide a more streamlined, coherent and “robust” promotion  of  “the well-being of women, ” gender equality and female empowerment around the world.

As yet the new organization lacks a formal “mission, structure, funding (or) oversight” but Secretary General  Ban Ki-moon has been tasked to provide these so that the body can be formed “as soon as possible.”

Categories
News Online Resource (Free)

New UN report concludes evidence of war crimes in Gaza Conflict

Read the  news story from the Vancouver Sun  here.

You can read the full advanced edited 575 page report here. The report was just released Tuesday Sept. 15 in advance of the its presentation to the UN Human Rights Council later this month.

Categories
News Online Resource (Free)

New UN Arab Human Development Report 2009

The 208 page report was released Tuesday and was sponsored by the UN Development Program.  The report written by more than 100 independent intellectuals and scholars from Arab countries discusses the challenges to human security in the Arab countries.

You can find the entire report here

Categories
News Online Resource (Free)

UN names Canada as major producer of “Party Drugs”

The United Nations has just released the 2009 World Drug Report and has named Canada, particularly the West Coast as  a major producer and exporter of ecstasy and methamphetamine. See the full report here.

Categories
Online Resource (Free)

New Treaty Database from the UN

The UN recently put up a database of Diplomatic Conferences which will provide the searcher with access to documents/background information on the negotiation of 12  international treaties.  The oldest conference contained in the database is the Law of the Sea, 1958 and the most recent is Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court, 1998.  Other conference topics include treaties between IGOs, consular relations and succession of states.  Note, this database is only available from the United Nations Diplomatic Conferences website – mysteriously, no links to it are available from the UN Treaties site…. 😉

Categories
Online Resource (Free)

Terrorism Legislation Database from the UN

The United Nations Office for Drug & Crime (UNODC) has just created a database containing “counter-terrorism conventions, national criminal laws and case laws relevant to terrorism. ”

From the site’s homepage:

“This site aims to provide comprehensive and accurate legal information on the steps taken by the international community and individual countries in the fight against international terrorism.

Stored data are accessible in full-text, and provide up-to-date information on counter-terrorism conventions, resolutions, and national criminal laws worldwide.

Model laws, legislative guides, and other legal tools can also be accessed to assist national authorities in setting up the structures and adopting the legislation necessarry to implement  the global legal framework against terrorism.”

Spam prevention powered by Akismet