Focus Areas for Your Group!
Your Student Alliance group can choose one or more of our four focus areas, or develop its own area of focus pertinent to the goals and 2009 Advocacy Agenda of the UNA-USA. As the school year progresses your group might decide to add another focus area or to narrow one you already chose. Focus Area #1: Human Rights and International JusticeGet Informed!  The International Criminal Court (ICC) is the first ever permanent, treaty based, international criminal court established to promote the rule of law and ensure that the gravest international crimes do not go unpunished. The ICC is complementary to national criminal jurisdictions.
UNA-USA has a well-developed program on the ICC called The American Non-governmental Organization Coalition for the International Criminal Court (AMICC). AMICC is committed to achieving full U.S. support for the ICC through education, information, promotion and public opinion and the earliest possible U.S. ratification of the Court's Rome Statute. Students interested in international law or some aspects of human rights may be especially interested in this program.
The United Nations Human Rights Council is an intergovernmental body (and replacement of the UN Commission on Human Rights) tasked with investigating situations of ongoing human rights violations and making necessary recommendations to the General Assembly. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights offers a comprehensive list of human rights issues you can use to narrow your focus and get more information.
Leo Nevas Program on Human Rights is a UNA initiative that will engage all the organizations’s activities toward mobilizing existing and new resources to help the UN take a more effective role in human rights as well get the US involved more in the UN’s efforts. The program will update Global Classroom’s curriculum on human rights; recognize individuals who are advancing human rights with an annual award; and bring together human rights NGOs to collaborate with UN officials and permanent representatives to the UN on ways to improve the operations of the Human Rights Council and other UN related activities. The rights of women and children are areas in which U.S. efforts are hindered by a decision to remain outside widely-accepted international regimes, in this case, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). A total of 185 countries have ratified CEDAW, also known as the Treaty for the Rights of Women. Among UN member states only the United States and Somalia have failed to ratify the CRC.
Get Informed! Climate change is one of the world’s most pressing and far-reaching challenges. Any effective solution will require intensive diplomatic, economic, scientific, and technological cooperation among all members of the international community. The United Nations is uniquely positioned to provide the most effective platform for jointly addressing this threat. Under a UN framework, the international community has begun the process of drafting a new global climate agreement. The goal of these negotiations is the establishment by the end of 2009 of a widely-accepted comprehensive international agreement for preventing catastrophic climate change. In 1992, nations met in Rio de Janeiro to discuss the negative and dangerous effects of human interference in the climate system and how world governments could reduce and reverse harmful climate change. The "Rio Earth Summit"produced three conventions, the most important of which was The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC, which took effect in 1994, took several important steps towards neutralizing climate change. - It established official international recognition of the problem.
- It established a global goal of reducing greenhouse gas concentrations to "a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human induced) interference with the climate system."
- Most importantly, countries agreed to research their own greenhouse-gas output and develop national programs to reduce emissions.
 Since 1995, UNFCCC member states have met annually at the "Conference of Parties" (COP) to discuss progress on and changes to the treaty. In 1997, the participants at COP 3 established the Kyoto Protocol, a major amendment to the UNFCCC. The Kyoto Protocol instated binding and concrete plans for many nations to reduce their contributions to climate change, and has in many ways proven a success. Nonetheless, the failure of the United States, the world's second-largest polluter, to adopt the Protocol has curtailed its effectiveness. While the U.S. population constitutes just 4 percent of the world total, America produces 25 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
At the upcoming COP 15 conference in Copenhagen, world leaders look to correct the deficiencies in the Kyoto Protocol and expand the international effort to address climate change. To that end, preliminary negotiations are taking place across the world in the lead-up to December's COP 15. Major summits are taking place in Bonn, Bangkok, Barcelona, New York, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere. Coordinating the work of the UNFCCC and other UN agencies is the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), established in 1972 as the voice for the environment within the UN system. UNEP acts as a catalyst, advocate, educator and facilitator to promote the wise use and sustainable development of the global environment. To accomplish this, UNEP works with a wide range of partners, including United Nations entities, international organizations, national governments, non-governmental organizations, the private sector and civil society. For the upcoming Copenhagen negotiations, UNEP will coordinate the United Nations' position on climate change, ensuring that UN agencies share a unified, cogent message. "UNite to Combat Climate Change,"the UNEP's campaign in preparation for COP 15, began in October 2008. Campaign programs have included the Billion Tree Campaign and the Climate Neutral Network, an online resource by which environmentalists across the globe can share strategies and information.
Focus Area #3: Strengthening the United Nations
Get Informed!There is an opportunity now to strengthen the U.S.-UN relationship and reinvigorate U.S. leadership in the world. But it will require the U.S. acting as an engaged and constructive partner with other UN member states. U.S. leadership at the UN and in the world also depends on upholding our commitments, including by paying our dues to the UN’s regular budget, peacekeeping budget, and specialized agencies on time and in full, as well as fulfilling pledged commitments to UN voluntary programs.
Working cooperatively with other nations through the UN allows us to share the costs and risks of promoting fundamental American foreign policy goals, such as international stability, global prosperity, and respect for basic human freedoms.
In recent years, the Unit ed States increasingly has turned to the UN to help tackle complex international crises in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Haiti, Congo, and Darfur. Accordingly, the size and complexity of UN peacekeeping operations continues to undergo an historic expansion.
The United States must do more to help the UN manage its rapidly growing peacekeeping mandates, in addition to paying unpaid debts and ongoing assessments in full. Currently, the United Nations does not receive adequate contributions of troops and equipment from member states, and its capacity to effectively manage operations has not kept pace with the growth in peacekeeping mandates. The U.S. can and should play a central role in helping strengthen UN peacekeeping capabilities, not only in the areas of transport, logistical support and communication equipment, but also in direct participation in the military dimension of UN peace operations when appropriate.
When the U.S. short-changes the UN, it not only jeopardizes the effectiveness of the organization’s important work, it also undermines American leadership at the United Nations and within the international community.
Focus Area #4: Develop your own Topic based on UNA-USA's 2009 Advocacy AgendaInterested in an issue related to the UN that you don't see here? Please visit our Policy, Advocacy and Education pages and check out our 2009 Advocacy Agenda, and write to us at studentalliance@unausa.org with your ideas!
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