The United Nations University will organize the fourth six-week-long regular session of the UNU International Courses (UNU/IC) at its Centre in Tokyo, Japan, from 19 May to 27 June 2003. The UNU/IC programme is designed for postgraduate students and younger professionals (with a college or university degree) in various occupations in Japan and abroad who wish to pursue careers in international fields in public-service or private organizations, including the United Nations, multinational corporations and non-governmental organizations as well as national foreign service organizations. The courses are designed to provide analyses of global issues from both theoretical and empirical perspectives.

The UNU International Courses are taught in a cooperative fashion by a team of scholars and practitioners comprising both in-house and outside experts. One of the unique features of the UNU/IC is that many of the practitioners come from United Nations organizations. Another important characteristic of the UNU/IC is the direct access to teaching faculty and the support provided to course participants by the UNU in-house academic staff who serve as academic counselors. The UNU/IC also draw on the research projects undertaken at the UNU Centre in Tokyo and at various UNU Research and Training Centres and Programmes (RTC/Ps) located around the world. The courses, though advanced in nature, are open to graduate students and professionals in various occupations who do not necessarily have to be specialists in the field.

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The four courses to be offered in May and June 2003 are:

1. I. Armed Conflict and Peacekeeping;;

2. Environment and Sustainable Development;
3. Human Rights: Concepts and Issues; and
4. International Cooperation and Development.
   

There will be eighteen 90-minute sessions per course, i.e. three sessions per week over the six-week course period. The courses will involve considerable reading and study, but will be scheduled to allow students to have sufficient preparatory and review time for each session.

There will be three sessions on each day (10:00-11:30, 14:00-15:30 and 17:00-18:30) and no one course may take the entire three sessions of one day. The final schedule will be made available in May 2003.

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The expected learning outcomes for UNU/IC participants include:

• Deep, sophisticated understanding of the subject at a high level
• Sharpened analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Intellectual interaction with a wide cross-section of lecturers and fellow participants from around the world from diverse academic and professional backgrounds.
• Social interaction with fellow participants from diverse cultural backgrounds.

The learning environment and facilities prepared for the UNU/IC include:

• Complementary theoretical and practical perspectives, from academic experts and practitioners, respectively.
• Guest lectures by leading specialists and practitioners in Japan and overseas, including those in the UN system.
• Access to the library and other resources of the UNU.
• Close contact with UNU in-house specialists in small-group settings.
• Opportunity to sample life in one of the world's great metropolises.

The UNU/IC will be administered and coordinated by the UNU Centre. Each of the courses will be handled by a responsible UNU academic officer (or a team of UNU academic officers), who also will teach at least part of the course. In principle, each course will be taught by a combination of the academic staff of the UNU Centre and the RTC/Ps, adjunct professors and other scholars involved in related UNU research projects, and representatives of various UN agencies and other internationally oriented organizations, as well as prominent professors from universities in different parts of the world and professional experts in relevant fields.

The tuition fee per course is Japanese yen 100,000 - about US$900 at the current UN exchange rate - or Japanese yen 150,000 (about US$1,350) for two courses. Those participants from developing countries** who take two courses and who can demonstrate a need for financial assistance are invited to apply for a limited number of UNU fellowships. (Those who wish to apply for a UNU fellowship should click here to download UNU Fellowship Application forms. Hard copy is available upon request.)

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The UNU has located a low-cost hotel facility in Tokyo to accommodate course participants from outside Tokyo and Japan.

Participants who successfully complete at least one course will receive a UNU Certificate of Completion at the UNU/IC closing ceremony. Requirements include written assignments, regular class attendance as well as active participation in class discussions.

Application  [APPLICATIONS ARE CLOSED FOR THE 2003 SESSION]

Ms. Wilma James, Training Assistant, United Nations University Centre
5-53-70 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-8925, Japan
Tel: +81-3/3499-2811; Fax: +81-3/3499-2828; E-mail: james@hq.unu.edu

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The UNU International Courses Committee will review applications primarily based on the following criteria:

• Relevance and level of the applicant's educational and professional background;
• Linkage of the chosen courses with the applicant's future career plans;
• Demonstrated interest of the candidate in issues of global concern;
• Analytical capacity;
• Academic and professional performance; and
• English language skills.

UNU is committed to achieve geographical and gender balance and genuine diversity in all its research and teaching activities.

ARMED CONFLICT AND PEACEKEEPING

The end of the cold war has not brought peace to the world. Armed conflict and its tremendous costs in human, political and economic terms still stalk the globe. Since most of today's conflicts take place within state borders, it has also become more difficult to resolve them through traditional nonstate mechanisms. Nevertheless, the UN and various regional organizations have attempted with varying degrees of success to provide peace and security to conflict zones, both within and between states. Peacekeeping operations continue to be one of the most visible and important tasks of the United Nations. Their evolving application has tested the Organization's abilities and legitimacy over and over again. Moreover, the complex nature of conflicts has increasingly demanded more sustained, intrusive, and demanding peace operations that go much beyond the securing of cease-fire lines. The UN's and regional organizations' approach to peace operations now integrates a wide range of activities, from the prevention to the management of conflict, and to post-conflict rebuilding of society, infrastructure, legal and security institutions.

This course reviews and analyses the international community's evolving responses to the challenges of violent conflict in the post-cold war years. The course begins with an assessment of the roots of many of today's violent conflicts. This is followed by a discussion of attempts to settle and resolve conflicts with the help of internal and external parties. We will then examine opportunities for the prevention of violent conflict, experiences, shortcomings and challenges, in peacekeeping and peace support operations, and the international community's engagement in post-conflict peacebuilding activities. The course will be concluded with an assessment of the UN's recent efforts to evaluate and improve UN peace operations, and the feasibility and opportunities of implementing suggested reform proposals.

• Overview of Social, Political and Economic Conflict
• Sources and Causes of Conflict
• Theories of Intra- and Interstate Conflict
• Stages of Conflict
• Conflict Types and Actors

• Facilitation, Mediation, Negotiation, Arbitration
• From Settlement to Resolution
• Actors, Timing, Targets, Setting, Resources

• Early Warning Analysis
• Identification, Assessment of Preventive Measures
• Mainstreaming Conflict Prevention
• From Concept to Policy: Toward Applied Conflict Prevention

Week Four - Peacekeeping Operations and Peace Support Operations

• Evolution of Peacekeeping
• Successes and Failures
• Humanitarian Intervention
• Selective Involvement?!
• Regional Alternatives to UN Peacekeeping?
• Training for Peacekeeping

• Political, Economic, Social, Security Challenges
• Democratization and Peacebuilding
• Reconciliation and Rebuilding War-torn Societies
• Justice versus Pragmatism
• Internal versus External Assistance: Sustainability of Peacebuilding
• UN Protectorates: UNMIK and UNTAET

• Complex Crises, Complex Missions
• Brahimi Report on Reforming UN Peace Operations
• The Gap Between Mandates, Resources, and Political Will

The course will be taught by the staff of the UNU Peace and Governance Programme and selected guest lecturers.

ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Efforts to promote sustainable development received a major boost at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 with significant commitments to improve the lives of people living in poverty and to reverse the continuing degradation of the global environment. The World Summit has thus succeeded in generating a sense of urgency, commitments for action, and partnerships to achieve measurable results. Therefore, to improve understanding of the environment and how people can interact with it in sustainable ways, this course will cover the key topical and policy issues of environment and sustainable development. The course will deal with a wide range of interactions between people and environments, and various environmental problems. Participants will experience a cross-disciplinary approach to managing environmental problems.

The course will focus on issues related to both renewable and non-renewable natural resource use, and the special challenges associated with addressing these problems in developing countries. Case studies will be used to provide insights into the social, political and economic aspects of a range of issues including land degradation, deforestation, desertification, air and water pollution, human disease, biodiversity issues and coastal-zone management. The course will discuss the mitigation of major and cumulative environmental impacts, an understanding of which is necessary for decision-making about the environmental feasibility of development projects or policies. Analysis of global environmental issues, policies and governance at regional and global levels will be part of the curriculum.

Week One

• Course overview - UNU's Actitivies in environment and sustainable development
• Targeting environmental ODA: Issues and tools
• Environment and trade

• Land Degradation and Sustainable Rural Livelihoods
• Natural Resources for Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction
• Biodiversity Issues

• Water Policy, Economics, Management and Demand
• Coastal and Marine Environments
• Global Warming and Climate Change
• Combating Desertification

• Inter-linkages among the Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs)
• Transnational Environmental Policies and Official Development Assistance
• International Environmental Governance

• Sustainable Industrial Development and Environmental Engineering
• Concept of Zero Emission - Material Cycles and Waste Management
• Environmental Monitoring - Environmental Behavior of Pollutants
• Strategic Environmental Assessment and Auditing

• Sustainable Urban Development - Cities and Sustainable Ecosystems
• Globalization and the Sustainability of Cities
• Review Session

The course will be taught by the staff of the UNU Environment and Sustainable Development Programme and external experts from the field of environmental research and studies.

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HUMAN RIGHTS: CONCEPTS AND ISSUES

The concept of human rights has been essential to the development of democratic systems and international institutions. It has also been, and continues to be, at the centre of much heated debate concerning its scope, its validity in different cultural contexts, or the legitimacy of its application to justify infringements on nation states' sovereignty. The course is intended to provide participants with the knowledge and awareness to address human rights issues from a proper historical, comparative and global perspective in order to develop feasible solutions to current problems related to human rights. The course will start with a thorough overview of the philosophical and legal basis of the concept of human rights, its historical development and its political implications, with strong emphasis on the different perceptions and definitions of human rights in different national, historical and cultural contexts. Based on this theoretical foundation, the course will review and evaluate the legal basis and political functions of human rights organizations. The general knowledge thus gained will then be applied and expanded by an analysis of past and current human rights practices, instruments and institutions with a focus on a number of central areas of human rights: women's and children's rights, refugee protection and human rights and development. Finally, the interlinkages between various human rights issues will be explored through a comparative regional analysis of human rights regimes.

Week One - Human Rights: Concepts and Norms

• Notions and concepts of human rights
• Human rights in historical and cultural contexts

• Historical development of international human rights instruments and organizations
• Institutional mechanisms within the UN system and evaluation of their effectiveness
• Roles of governments, non-governmental organizations, experts

• Norms, institutions and practices concerning women's and children's rights
• Linkages between international and national perspectives
• Case studies

• Legal and institutional framework to protect the rights of refugees
• Current issues, case studies

• Rights-based approaches to development: Conceptual framework
• Rights-based approaches in practice

• Regional human rights mechanism in operation: The African system
• Human Rights regime in Asia
• Comparative perspectives

• The course will be taught by in-house and external academics specializing in human rights issues as well as officials from human rights-related organizations.

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INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT

The course particularly looks at the cross-cutting issue of globalization and the challenge of development strategy in an era of globalization. It highlights the roles of different actors and the principles of best practice in international cooperation. Given the recent riots in Seattle, Washington and Genoa, the course gives emphasis to the issue of trade and development and the controversy surrounding the role of the World Trade Organization. The course will also concentrate on the challenges facing key actors in development assistance. This includes discussion of the effectiveness of the United Nations and Bretton Woods System as well as Japan's development cooperation agencies.

Week One - Development Theory, History and Policy

• Welcome, Introduction and Overview
• Development Theory and Practice
• The Evolution of International Cooperation

• lobalization and Growth
• Growth and Poverty Reduction
• Discussion: Globalization with a Human Face (Human Development Report 1999) and Attacking Poverty (World Development Report 2000/01)

• Culture and Development
• Gender
• Discussion: NGOs and Alternative Approaches

• What is Good Governance and Why is it Important?
• Governance and Development Assistance
• Discussion: Voice, Power and Accountability (Human Development Report 2002)

• Trade and Development: Theory and History
• Trade Policy for Developing Countries
• Discussion: The WTO and Global Governance

• Japan's Development Cooperation: Philosophy and History
• Panel: Future Challenges for Japan's International Cooperation
• Concluding Discussion: Development Challenges in an Era of Globalization

• This course will be taught by the United Nations University staff and selected guest lecturers from academic organizations around the world as well as officials from international organizations and Japan's development cooperation agencies.