What is the UN Intellectual History Project?
Although my work in the last fifteen years has revolved around humanitarian intervention, before that I worked on economic and social development in poor countries. I remain convinced that this part of the UN will ultimately be the its strongest legacy: the story of its effort to develop new ideas, to massage them, and try to turn them into principles and norms that can guide the behavior of states, institutions, and individuals. So my side-kicks Sir Richard Jolly and Dr. Louis Emmerij [senior research fellows at the RBIIS], who themselves were major players in the UN and are now retired, and I have embarked on this truly ambitions effort to document these important ideas. The UN Intellectual History project will result in fourteen books, and five have now been published. The volume that we’re working on at present is an oral history of many people involved–very powerful individuals with good ideas, who are very committed to social justice and economic development. The 75 interviews w
