Technical conferences as a technique of internationalism.

This paper looks at a genre of meetings that, while neither purely 'scientific' nor 'diplomatic', drew on elements from both professional spheres and gained prominence in the interwar decades and during the Second World War. It proposes to make sense of 'technical conferences' as a phenomenon that was made by and through scientific experts and politicians championing the organizing power of rationality, science and liberal internationalism. Against the background of swelling ranks of state-employed scientists, this paper documents the emergence of technical conferences as the forums where they got down to work. To make this case the paper traces the influence of a new way of thinking about the function and organization of conferences, originating in the time around the First World War, on one international organization in particular: the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), as a new hub of scientists and technicians.

Gap or prehistoric monster? A history of the humanitarian-development nexus at UNICEF.

Why has bridging the humanitarian-development divide been such a long-running endeavour, and why have so many frameworks to do so been proposed and picked apart over the years? Rather than contributing yet another 'mind the gap' approach, this paper seeks to articulate why such a lacuna emerged in the first place, and to explore how to exit a debate that has grown increasingly circular. To provide one possible answer to the questions above, the paper draws on the history of UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) in working across the 'humanitarian-development' nexus. Suggesting that the gap is more artefact than fact, derived from the institutionalisation of aid, the paper argues that focusing on the challenges and the concepts that inherently transcend humanitarian-development silos may enhance understanding of what it means-and what is needed-to operate at the intersection of humanitarian and development action on behalf of children.

Water and the death of ambition in global health, c.1970-1990.

Economic development and good health depended on access to clean water and sanitation. Therefore, because economic development and good health depended on access to clean water and sanitation, beginning in the early 1970s the World Bank, the World Health Organization (WHO), and others began a period of sustained interest in developing both for the billions without either. During the 1980s, two massive and wildly ambitious projects showed what was possible. The International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade and the Blue Nile Health Project aimed for nothing less than the total overhaul of the way water was developed. This was, according to the WHO, "development in the spirit of social justice."

Water and the death of ambition in global health, c. 1970-1990 / A água e o fim da ambição na saúde global, c. 1970-1990

Abstract Economic development and good health depended on access to clean water and sanitation. Therefore, because economic development and good health depended on access to clean water and sanitation, beginning in the early 1970s the World Bank, the World Health Organization (WHO), and others began a period of sustained interest in developing both for the billions without either. During the 1980s, two massive and wildly ambitious projects showed what was possible. The International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade and the Blue Nile Health Project aimed for nothing less than the total overhaul of the way water was developed. This was, according to the WHO, "development in the spirit of social justice."

Resumo Crescimento econômico e boa saúde dependem de acesso a saneamento e água limpa. Assim, o Banco Mundial, a Organização Mundial da Saúde (OMS) e outros órgãos, a partir do início da década de 1970, inauguraram um período de contínuo interesse no desenvolvimento de ambos para bilhões de pessoas desprovidas de tais necessidades. Durante a década de 1980, dois projetos monumentais e extremamente ambiciosos demonstraram o que era viável fazer. A International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade e o Blue Nile Health Project visavam à total reestruturação do modelo de desenvolvimento da água. Tratava-se, segundo a OMS, do "desenvolvimento do espírito de justiça social".

United Nations Charter, Chapter VII, Article 43: Now or Never.

For more than 75 years, the United Nations Charter has functioned without the benefit of Chapter VII, Article 43, which commits all United Nations member states "to make available to the Security Council, on its call, armed forces, assistance, facilities, including rights of passage necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security." The consequences imposed by this 1945 decision have had a dramatic negative impact on the United Nation's functional capacity as a global body for peace and security. This article summarizes the struggle to implement Article 43 over the decades from the onset of the Cold War, through diplomatic attempts during the post-Cold War era, to current and often controversial attempts to provide some semblance of conflict containment through peace enforcement missions. The rapid growth of globalization and the capability of many nations to provide democratic protections to their populations are again threatened by superpower hegemony and the development of novel unconventional global threats. The survival of the United Nations requires many long overdue organizational structure and governance power reforms, including implementation of a robust United Nations Standing Task Force under Article 43. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;13:655-662).

Crise econômica mundial: infância e adolescência na análise dos documentos do UNICEF / Crisis económica mundial: infancia y adolescencia en el análisis de los documentos de UNICEF / World economic crisis: childhood and adolescence in the analysis of UNICEF documents

RESUMO Este artigo investiga a produção histórica da infância e juventude de diversos países afetados pela crise econômica mundial que eclodiu em 2008, nos Estados Unidos. Foram utilizados documentos produzidos pelo UNICEF acerca das condições de vida garantidas à infância e adolescência, decorrentes das disputas ocasionadas e/ou agravadas pelo colapso financeiro mundial; foram analisados artigos internacionais que deram suporte e contribuíram nas análises dos dados documentais. Esta pesquisa foi feita por de meio de uma revisão histórica e de problematização das narrativas da literatura, com pesquisas voltadas aos países dos continentes: asiático, africano, europeu e americano. Encontraram-se fortes indicadores da precariedade em que está a política pública para a infância ao redor do mundo, principalmente em países com dificuldades socioeconômicas, além dos pertencentes ao leste europeu e nos EUA. Alerta-se acerca da necessidade de estudos sobre o impacto à infância brasileira da crise internacional e como o UNICEF tem abordado essas questões.

RESUMEN Este artículo propuso investigar la producción histórica de la niñez y la juventud de diversos países afectados por la crisis económica mundial que estalló en 2008 en los EEUU. Fueron utilizados documentos elaborados por la UNICEF sobre condiciones de vida garantizados a la infancia y adolescencia, como consecuencia de disputas influenciadas por el colapso financiero mundial; se analizaron artículos internacionales que sirvieron como soporte y contribución. Esta investigación fue realizada mediante una revisión histórica y de problematización de las narrativas de la literatura, dirigidas a la infancia en los continentes: asiático, africano, europeo, y americano. Se encontraron fuertes indicadores de inseguridad que afectan a la política publica de la infancia al rededor del mundo, principalmente en países con dificultades socioeconómicas, además de países de Europa oriental y los EEUU. Se alerta la necesidad de estudios sobre el impacto de la crisis internacional en la infancia brasileña y como la UNICEF viene ocupándose de ello.

ABSTRACT This article had as goal to investigate the historical production of childhood and youth in several countries affected by the global financial crisis that ecloded in 2008 at the United States. Various documents produced by UNICEF describing how the financial system collapse affected or aggravated the life conditions of children and adolescents were used, as well as other international articles that gave support to the documental data analysis. This research was done by means of a historical revision and problematization of literature narratives in the African, Asian, European and American continents. The search found strong indicators about the precariousness of public policies for children around the world, especially in countries with socioeconomic problems, and in Eastern Europe and the USA as well. Therefore, we alert to the need for studies about the impact of the international crisis in Brazilian children and how UNICEF is addressing these issues.

Conservation Compromises: The MAB and the Legacy of the International Biological Program, 1964-1974.

This article looks at the International Biological Program (IBP) as the predecessor of UNESCO's well-known and highly successful Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB). It argues that international conservation efforts of the 1970s, such as the MAB, must in fact be understood as a compound of two opposing attempts to reform international conservation in the 1960s. The scientific framework of the MAB has its origins in disputes between high-level conservationists affiliated with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) about what the IBP meant for the future of conservation. Their respective visions entailed different ecological philosophies as much as diverging sets of political ideologies regarding the global implementation of conservation. Within the IBP's Conservation Section, one group propagated a universal systems approach to conservation with a centralized, technocratic management of nature and society by an elite group of independent scientific experts. Within IUCN, a second group based their notion of environmental expert roles on a more descriptive and local ecology of resource mapping as practiced by UNESCO. When the IBP came to an end in 1974, both groups' ecological philosophies played into the scientific framework underlying the MAB's World Network or Biosphere Reserves. The article argues that it is impossible to understand the course of conservation within the MAB without studying the dynamics and discourses between the two underlying expert groups and their respective visions for reforming conservation.

A Review of Supplementary Medical Aspects of Post-Cold War UN Peacekeeping Operations: Trends, Lessons Learned, Courses of Action, and Recommendations.

Post-Cold War United Nations Peace Keeping Operations (UN PKOs) have been increasingly involved in dangerous areas with ill-defined boundaries, harsh and remote geographies, simmering internecine armed conflict, and disregard on the part of some local parties for peacekeepers' security and role. In the interest of force protection and optimizing operations, a key component of UN PKOs is healthcare and medical treatment. The expectation is that UN PKO medical support will adjust to the general intent and structure of UN PKOs. To do so requires effective policies and planning informed by a review of all medical aspects of UN PKO operations, including those considered supplementary, that is, less crucial but contributing nonetheless. Medical aspects considered paramount and key to UN PKOs have received relatively thorough treatment elsewhere. The intent of this article is to report on ancillary and supplemental medical aspects practical to post-Cold War UN PKO operations assembled through an iterative inquiry of open-source articles. Recommendations are made about possible courses of action in terms of addressing trends found in such medical aspects of PKOs and relevance of US/NATO/European Union models and research.

In memory of Giovanni Berlinguer. The Man, the Scientist, the Politician.

On this occasion I am very grateful to the Academic Authorities for having asked me to illustrate the life of Giovanni Berlinguer as a Researcher, a Professor and a Doctor of Public Health. I will try to fulfill this duty, perhaps with some reservations, because I find it almost impossible to think of Giovanni as a researcher and a professor separately from his complex personality and his role as a politician and a brilliant and prolific writer. This is because Giovanni was an inextricable combination of all these roles, which cannot be described separately.

"A Cold Spring Harbor in Europe." EURATOM, UNESCO and the Foundation of EMBO.

This article explores the problem of the foundation of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), by reconstructing a broader institutional framework, which includes other international actors--EURATOM, UNESCO and the International Laboratory of Genetics and Biophysics (ILGB) in Naples--and a relevant, but still neglected figure, the Italian geneticist Adriano Buzzati-Traverso (1913-1983). The article considers the tension between centralized and federal models of organization in the field of life sciences not just as an EMBO internal controversy, but rather as a structural issue of European scientific cooperation in fundamental biology in the early 1960s. Along with EMBO, the article analyzes in particular the EURATOM Biology Division Program and the constitution of UNESCO International Cell Research Organization (ICRO). Adriano Buzzati-Traverso, as founder of ILGB and scientific consultant of EURATOM and UNESCO, played a crucial role in the complex negotiation which ultimately led to the foundation of EMBO. A synchronic treatment of ILGB, EURATOM, UNESCO-ICRO and EMBO opens a window on the early 1960s institutional configuration of molecular biology in Europe, showing how it basically incorporated the "Cold Spring Harbor" decentralized model rather than reproducing the "CERN" centralized model.

[Penicillin production in Chile between 1944 and 1954]. / Producción de Penicilina en Chile entre 1944 y 1954.

Penicillin production in Chile was a pioneering development; however there is not much information to learn about it. The Chilean Institute for Bacteriology (Instituto Bacteriológico de Chile) produced penicillin between 1944 and 1973. The stage starting in 1953 is better known since there was an agreement with United Nations. Our research focused on building a story about production between 1944 and 1954 based on archival information and the national and international historic context. Our results place Chile amongst the pioneer countries in the successful industrialization of the drug. Our conclusions are that this was a proper industrial production as opposite to a pilot plant - a name commonly used to call the early factory. We explain the production plant trajectory by making relations between technological change and governance. Finally, we believe the later expansion of the plant, in the context of the agreement with the United Nations, took place under unpromising governance conditions, which called for passive innovation and technology management.

[Not Available]. / A diez años de la Declaración Universal de la UNESCO sobre Bioética y Derechos Humanos: sus méritos y su future.

During the last October, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of The Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights of UNESCO. This Declaration was particularly important for bioethics discourse. The result of a meticulous preparation process in which there were controversies and debates, showing new paths to follow. All of this has led the author to make a first analysis of their achievements and future goals.

On the tenth anniversary of the "Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights".

In 2005 the representatives of 191 states meeting for the General Conference of UNESCO unanimously approved the "Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights". The Declaration is the only instrument of its kind: it was the first document adopted by a global organisation that addressed the whole range of issues with which bioethics is concerned and that is a legal instrument. Many of the principles affirmed in the Declaration had already been amply absorbed into the discipline of bioethics. All of them can be traced to the dignity and equality of every individual. The most evident novelty is to be found less in the content of the principles than in the balancing of individual and societal perspectives. Also in evidence are several compromises that were adopted in order to promote dialogue and mutual understanding.

Quickening nature’s pulse: atomic agriculture at the International Atomic Energy Agency

Mutation breeders in the 1960s seemed poised to use atomic energy to speed up mutation rates in plants in order to develop new crop varieties, for the benefit of all people. Although skepticism had slowed this work in the United States, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nurtured the scientific field, its community of experts, and an imagined version of the future that put humans in control of their destiny. The IAEA acted as a center of dissemination and support for experts and ideas even when they had fallen from favor elsewhere. Through the lens of the IAEA, plant breeding bore the appearance of a socially progressive, ultra-modern science destined to alleviate population pressures. Administrators at the IAEA also were desperate for success stories, hoping to highlight mutation plant breeding as a potential solution to the world’s ills. The community of mutation plant breeders gained a lifeline from the consistent clarion call from the Vienna-based agency to use atomic energy to understand the natural world and quicken its pulse with radioisotopes (AU)

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