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Ban Ki-Moon at Paris Agreement, 2015
Ban Ki-moon at Paris Agreement closing ceremony Dec 12, 2015

Scope of the Project

The Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership, under the direction of Dr. Jean Krasno, a tenured lecturer at the City College of New York, has brought together in one collection all the most important papers of this UN Secretary-General for research and information to scholars, students, diplomats, and the general public and make them easily available as a digital primary resource.

Project Goals

It is important for the future benefit of the United Nations and multilateral cooperation to have a greater understanding of how Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon managed his leadership role within the constraints and opportunities of the office. As such, these papers serve as an important contribution to preserving the institutional memory of this global organization whose goal since its creation has been to seek international peace and security. By making these important papers digitally accessible worldwide, the project demonstrates and documents how international policy is formed, disseminated, and implemented.

Managing peace efforts in today's complex environment is a daunting task. Studying the "good offices" of the Secretary-General can play a pivotal role in determining whether mediated or negotiated settlements to dispute can prevent violence or deter further escalation of a conflict.  This collection of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's papers makes it possible for scholars and policy makers around the world to examine carefully how the role of this, at times controversial, peace maker has evolved.  

Some selected papers of previous Secretaries-General have appeared in printed publications.  However, this will be the first time such a project will undertake the task of placing these selected important papers on the Internet in a searchable digital format that includes internal memos and letters declassified by the UN for this project plus speeches, noon briefings, reports to the Security Council and General Assembly, etc., together in one collection.  Reading and selecting the most important papers that reflect the policy formation emanating from this high-level diplomat can only be done by scholars who have a deep understanding of the UN and the role of the Secretary-General.  Dr. Jean Krasno has conducted research and writing on the UN and has taught courses on the UN for over 20 years; Dr. Jacques Fomerand, who also reviewed and selected the most important documents, worked within the UN for some 25 years and now teaches international relations.  In addition, Dr. Krasno organized and published UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s papers, a project completed in 2012. 

The papers include many letters and internal memos never seen outside the United Nations or even outside the Executive Office of the Secretary-General. These include discussions among Security Council members as well as code-cables from the field reporting events as they unfolded on the ground. Through reading Ban Ki-moon’s letters to Member States, UN organizations, and non-governmental organizations, readers can gain a feel for his constant efforts to keep important issues center-stage, such as climate change, economic and social development, gender equity, disaster risk reduction, support for refugees and migrants, combating hunger, and holding leaders accountable for their actions. As Secretary-General, he used his “good offices” to establish a mediation process that sought peaceful solutions, either directly through personal intervention or by the efforts of a special envoy. The papers reveal the undertakings of this Secretary-General over his ten-year term, but also open a window into the inner workings of the United Nations, the only organization capable of addressing challenges and concerns that affect our planet on a global scale.   

Ban Ki-Moon at Paris Agreement, 2015
Photo with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Jean Krasno, 2016

About Director: Dr. Jean Krasno

Dr. Jean Krasno is a faculty member and Director of the MA Program in International Relations in the Department of Political Science at the City College of New York (CCNY). She is also a lecturer at Columbia University. She was a lecturer at Yale University from 1995 to 2017 and  Executive Director of the Academic Council on the United Nations System from 1998 to 2003 when the organization was housed at Yale. During that time, she conducted the Yale-UN Oral History Project with James Sutterlin, which is housed at the Dag Hammarskjöld Library. Dr. Krasno teaches courses on international law, international organization, peace making and negotiation, and nuclear security and non-proliferation.

Dr. Krasno was authorized by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to organize his papers for publication, a project housed within the Colin Powell Center at CCNY, now the Colin Powell School. The Annan Papers, a five-volume set, was published by Lynne Rienner Publishers in March 2012. She was asked by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to publish his papers and has a signed MOU with the UN’s Office of Legal Affairs; the project has been completed.

Dr. Krasno received her Ph.D. from the City University of New York Graduate Center in 1994, where she wrote her doctoral dissertation on the secret nuclear weapons program in Brazil. Some of her publications include The United Nations: Confronting the Challenges of a Global Society, editor, (2004), Lynne Rienner Publisher; Leveraging for Success in UN Peace Operations, editor with Don Daniel and Bradd Hayes, (2003) Greenwood/Praeger Publishers; The United Nations and Iraq: Defanging the Viper, co-authored with James Sutterlin (2003), Greenwood/Praeger Publishers; “Brazil” in Robert Chase, Emily Hill, and Paul Kennedy, The Pivotal States: A New Framework for U.S. Policy in the Developing World (1998), St. Martin’s Press; and Personality, Political Leadership and Decision Making: A Global Perspective, published by Praeger Publishers in 2015.  She has a new volume with co-author Elisabeth Szeli, Banning the Bomb: The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, Lynne Rienner Publishers 2021.

Acknowledgement

I would like to express my deep gratitude to the many people who assisted the Ban papers project by reading, selecting, and uploading the Ban Ki-moon papers to the JSTOR system.  These faculty members devoted many hours to these tasks: in alphabetical order: Jong Wan Baik, Jacques Fomerand, Kimberly Gamble-Payne, and Vlad Lupan. In addition, there were several students who worked tirelessly over four years, uploading the over 6,000 documents into JSTOR.  They are Dianna Solano, Fatima Sanoh, and Tahiya Toure. The Cohen Library’s Digital Scholarship Services contributed tremendously to the project and include the following: Vivian Chan, Digital Scholarship Manager, Ching-Jung Chen, Associate Professor/Digital Scholarship Librarian, Adriene Lara, Digital Scholarship Associate, Scott Koski, Digital Scholarship Manager, SuYin Liang, Digital Scholarship Assistant, and Hiroko Suda, Digital Collections Librarian.

- Jean Krasno