FPA Centennial Lecture: Would the World Be Better Without the UN? A talk with Professor Thomas G. Weiss

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Event Details

Date:
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
11:00 PM - 1:00 AM 
Location:
The Harvard Club
35 W. 44th Street
New York, NY
Event type
Lecture / Panel  

Event Description

Please join the Foreign Policy Association in welcoming Thomas G. Weiss, Presidential Professor at The Graduate Center, CUNY (The City University of New York), and Director Emeritus of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies.  Professor Weiss will speak on the topic of his latest book, Would the World Be Better Without the UN? (2018).   

Registration for the lecutre will begin at 5:30 p.m., lecture will begin at 6:00 p.m.  The lecture will be followed by a reception. 

Please note that the Harvard Club requires jacket and tie for gentlemen and similar formal attire for women.

The Foreign Policy Association’s year-long Centennial Lecture Series, commenced in the spring of 2017, celebrating 100 years of commitment to fostering an educated public discourse on the most influential topics in U.S. foreign policy. The Foreign Policy Association’s Centennial Lecture Series features extraordinary speakers, who will take the long view and imagine the future in their respective disciplines. The importance of providing citizens with accessible, in-depth, non-partisan material is vital to future world peace and prosperity. In one of his final public addresses, President Franklin D. Roosevelt told the Foreign Policy Association that “In a democracy the Government functions with the consent of the whole people. The latter must be guided by the facts.” Now more than ever, this message continues to have resonance, and will remain the guiding principle and goal of the Foreign Policy Association.

 

Event Speakers

    • Thomas G. Weiss - Speaker
      Presidential Professor at The Graduate Center, CUNY

      Thomas G. Weiss (born 1946) is a distinguished scholar of international relations and global governance with special expertise in the politics of the United Nations. Since 1998 he has been Presidential Professor at The Graduate Center, CUNY (The City University of New York), and is Director Emeritus of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies.

      He is “one of the leading experts on the theory and practice of humanitarian intervention,” and is recognized as an authority on international organizations and the United Nations system. Weiss adheres to the constructivist school, and advocates a position for intergovernmental organizations that goes beyond the anarchy of inter-state relations. He initiated the UN Intellectual History Project in 1999 to trace the origins and the evolution of key ideas about international economic and social development nurtured under UN auspices. As a norm entrepreneur, Weiss introduced the idea of the “Third United Nations,” and directed the research team that popularized the concept of Responsibility to Protect. A firm believer in R2P, Weiss has shown in numerous works that a well-grounded interpretation of sovereignty does not preclude intervention in the face of mass atrocities. His oral history transcript is available on the UN Intellectual History Project website.

    • Thomas G. Weiss

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