UNGGD/DiplomacyActivitythree

The UN and Diplomacy Up Close Activity Three (Required Activity)

The purpose of this week’s reading is to explore a first-hand account of experience as a UN official and/or diplomat. Please select and read one account from the list below (some of you may have already commenced your reading in module three).

Alternatively, students may select a memoir of their choosing, as long as it meets the following criteria: a non-fiction, first-person account of the experiences of a UN or other intergovernmental organisation official (eg. EU, AU or similar) or diplomat. If you are at all unsure if your preferred choice meets these criteria, please check with the subject tutor.

Journal Articles

Michael Barnett, ‘The UN Security Council, Indifference, and Genocide in Rwanda’, Cultural Anthropology 12 (4), 1997, 551-578.

Available at: http://home.gwu.edu/~barnett/articles/1997_indifference_ca.pdf

Brian Barder, ‘Diplomacy, Ethics and the National Interest: What are Diplomats For?’ The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 5, 2010, pp. 289-297.

Available at: http://www.barder.com/wp-content/uploads/HJD-53_289-2984.pdf

Books

Many of the below titles are available in local libraries as well as university libraries, or new or secondhand copies can be purchased easily on the internet. A number are also available as e-books.

Kofi Annan with Nader Mousavizadeh, Interventions: A Life in War and Peace (New York: Penguin Press, 2012).

Kenneth Cain, Heidi Postlewait and Andrew Thomson, Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A True Story from Hell on Earth (New York: Hyperion, 2004).

Phillip Corwin, Dubious Mandate: A Memoir of the UN in Bosnia, Summer 1995 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999).

Roméo Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (New York: Caroll and Graf, 2005).

Philip Flood, Dancing with Warriors: A Diplomatic Memoir (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2013).

Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Unvanquished: A U.S.-U.N. Saga (New York: Random House, 1999).

Christopher Hill, Outpost: Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004).

Jamsheed Marker, East Timor: A Memoir of the Negotiations for Independence (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2003).

Richard Granville McDonald, Watching a Nation Die: With the UN in Somalia (E-book: Echo Books, 2012).

Robert Merrillees, Diplomatic Digs (E-book: Echo Books, 2012).

Widyono, Benny, Dancing in Shadows: Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge, and the United Nations in Cambodia (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008).

This completes the required activities for Module Eleven. You may now choose to proceed to Module Twelve, or to complete one or more of the Extension Activities. Remember, while this week’s assessment task is listed as an extension activity, you will need to choose 4 assessment tasks across the 12 modules to complete the ‘online participation’ component of the assessment.