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Growing Skepticism of the UN

Posted: March 14th, 2017

By James Cockayne

James Cockayne, PhD, is an Australian strategist, international lawyer and writer. He currently runs the New York office of United Nations University, a thinktank in the UN system. He was previously Co-Director of the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation and a Principal Legal Officer in the Australian Attorney-General's Department. His most recent book is "Hidden Power: The Strategic Logic of Organized Crime."

The United Nations is at an important point in history, where growing skepticism of multilateral institutions and the current liberal international order led by the United States threatens to derail organizations like the UN. The Cipher Brief’s Kaitlin Lavinder spoke with James Cockayne, the head of the New York office of United Nations University, a think tank in the UN system, about the UN today and what its future could look like.

The Cipher Brief: What is the current state of the United Nations as an institution? Where has it succeeded and failed over the past few years?

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

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