author

 
Menu
Search
 
November 22, 2024
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access
Ramesh Thakur

Meta

Ramesh Thakur
Ramesh Thakur is Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University; adjunct professor, Institute for Ethics, Governance and Law, Griffith University, and editor-in-chief of Global Governance from Jan. 1, 2013. He began writing for The Japan Times in 1998 as Vice Rector of the United Nations University.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2005
U.N.'s 'Einstein' moment
The optimists had hoped for a "San Francisco moment" in New York, as decisive and momentous as the signing of the U.N. Charter 60 years earlier in the city by the bay. Critics might well conclude that instead the United Nations had an Einstein moment, recalling his definition of madness as doing something...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 11, 2005
Aussies adjust the moorings
BRISBANE, Australia -- While the historical origins and cultural roots of Australia lie in Europe, its primary strategic alliance is with the United States, its pri- mary security focus is on Southeast Asia, and its major trading partners are in Northeast Asia.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 22, 2005
Asian chance after Annan
The term of Kofi Annan as U.N. secretary general (SG) expires Dec. 31, 2006. Countries and individuals have begun to position themselves to succeed him. If Asians are to have a credible chance of filling what should rightfully be their turn at the job, their discussions and negotiations in the next six...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 30, 2005
Balancing security and rights
On July 23, Jean Charles de Menezes, a young Brazilian legally living and working in Britain, was killed at Stockwell Underground Station in a tragic case of mistaken identity. Police have confirmed he had no links whatsoever to terrorism. But he had come out of a house under surveillance by antiterrorist...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 4, 2005
Security and human health
Human security remains a contested concept among scholars. Yet it is attractive to policymakers because it provides a template for practical action. On public health, for example, human security implies policies for correcting state shortcomings in protecting people against the most commonly prevalent...
COMMENTARY / World
May 29, 2005
Peer review of human rights
The spread of human rights norms and conventions, and the extension and diffusion of international humanitarian law, were among the truly great achievements of the last century. The United Nations was at the center of that effort.
COMMENTARY / World
May 10, 2005
Design for sustaining peace
DILI, East Timor -- The United Nations has not been notably successful in moving from initial stabilization, infrastruc- ture reconstruction and re-establishment of local governance institutions to the more demanding goal of leaving behind self-sustaining structures of state that can implement rapid...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 29, 2005
Enhancing U.N. legitimacy
Many commentators have noted that the timing and intensity of the recent surge in anti-Japan protests in China may be due in part to Tokyo's push for permanent membership of the U.N. Security Council. At the same time, during a highly successful and very visible visit to India, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 10, 2005
Intervention based on rules
According to the U.N. High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, "The maintenance of world peace and security depends importantly on there be-- ing a common global understanding, and acceptance, of when the application of force is both legal and legitimate."
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 22, 2005
The U.N.'s 'underachievers'
Carol Bellamy, the outgoing head of the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), has bemoaned the lack of women in top U.N. posts. The organization that preaches gender equality to national governments needs some "affirmative action" to put women in senior positions, she said, adding that other organizations such...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 13, 2005
The deep end of Indian state democracy
PATNA, India -- In the early 1990s, a British travel writer described Patna, capital of the northwestern Indian state of Bihar, as the capital of hell on earth. There is indeed something rotten in the state of Bihar and things have only gotten worse. People live in a Hobbesian world, where life is nasty,...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 12, 2005
Freedom, when it suits U.S.
No one who watched the exhilaration and exuberance of Iraqis facing down the threat of bullets in order to cast their ballots can fail to have been moved. And for those who were actually in Iraq to witness this firsthand, battle-hardened and cynical journalists included, it must have been bliss indeed...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 30, 2005
Looking up after bleak year
Two years ago, the World Economic Forum launched a Global Governance Initiative that brought together a group of experts from around the world to map the state of the world on peace and security, education, environment, health, human rights, and hunger and poverty. The initiative provides an assessment,...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 4, 2004
Knives out for Kofi Annan
One would think that the cheerleaders for waging war on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, on the thoroughly discredited grounds that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, would have retreated into a period of quiet introspection. In fact, it is as difficult to find any trace of embarrassment, humility or...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 3, 2004
How one council can speak for the world
There is almost universal agreement that the U.N. Security Council has become increasingly unrepresentative over the past 59 years. Its five perma- nent members are a self-appointed oligarchy who wrote their own exalted status into the U.N. Charter. International stratification is never rigid, and states...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 17, 2004
Did Kosovo illuminate Iraq?
One of the curious features of the Iraq war last year was the serious split across the Atlantic. And what seemed to puzzle as much as infuriate Americans was why the major European powers, having signed on to war without U.N. authorization in 1999 against Slobodan Milosevic, "the butcher of Belgrade,"...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 10, 2004
Choosing how to intervene
From Iraq to Darfur, the topic of international intervention to protect people from the brutality of their own governments remains a deeply divisive one for the international community. Western countries are likely to be the subjects not objects of intervention, and their worldview is colored by this...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 29, 2004
A refitted Security Council
Everyone acknowledges the need for U.N. Security Council reform in theory. Unfortunately, they cannot agree on an one particular reform package. Once people see the details of a concrete proposal, losers and opponents always seem to outnumber winners and supporters. The urgency for reform is now extreme....
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 16, 2004
Challenging Canberra's march to war
On Aug. 8, a group of 43 former top Australian officials -- department heads in foreign affairs and defense, military chiefs, ambassadors -- published an open letter calling for "truth in government." This was without precedent in Australia, although it follows earlier British and American examples....
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 19, 2004
Going global with civic virtues
How do we instill civic virtue in the global marketplace to civilize and tame it so that we arrive at the place where the market serves the people instead of where people are served up to the market? Around half of the world's 100 largest economies are private companies. This gives the private sector...
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’
SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER