Tag: history

This wasn’t supposed to be one of my vacation reads, but being at my parents’ house, they had it out of the library, so I read it during the few days I’ve spent home in August. First of all, I am a huge fan of Kati Marton’s writing. I am also a huge fan of political biographies, so this book was definitely on my list for later reading. My only complaint is that if I’ve waited, I would have probably wanted to read it in its original language, and not in Hungarian (its Hungarian title is simply ‘Merkel’), but I…

Happy Sunday! I’ve been waiting to post about anything but the current situation, but somehow everything I read leads back to it, so now I am just going with the flow. It’s back to the office day in Hungary (for most of us anyway) tomorrow, that could really make me believe we’re out of the woods already, if I haven’t been following international news as well. To be honest, I could be believing a lot of things these days that are not true if I didn’t pay attention (so could you). But perhaps we will talk about this some other…

Recently I went on a trip to Prague, which was supposed to be a spring getaway for a long weekend, but turned out to be a winter one with lots of snow and cold. We’ve spent as much time outside walking around this beautiful city as we could, but the cold forced us to seek for some indoors activities as well. One of these were visiting the Museum of Communism.  Having grown up in Hungary I do have quite a vision of communism in Eastern Europe, so I didn’t really expect any great surprises there. The exhibition starts with the…

united-nations: Happy United Nations Day! Vaccinating children, feeding hungry families, assisting refugees, preventing crises before they happen, tackling climate change – at 72 years old, the UN continues to make a difference to the lives of everyone, everywhere. On Tuesday’s UN Day, find out more here: un.org/en/essential-un/

The United Nations Charter was ratified 71 years ago today. Learn more about the history of the UN and read the Charter in 6 languages clicking here!

Happy Sunday, everybody! Today, there is a referendum held in Hungary, where Hungarians are asked to answer with yes or no to the following question. “Do you want the European Union to be able to mandate the obligatory resettlement of non-Hungarian citizens into Hungary without the approval of Parliament?” Well,first of all, the EU can do that now, whether citizens of member states want it or not, simply based on the EU Treaty. So a “No” answer doesn’t make any sense. A “Yes” answer doesn’t make sense either, no-one really “wants” this, not even the EU, although the quotas are off the table…

Happy Sunday, everybody! As of today, I am off to vacation, so this is a pre-scheduled post. I had an unexpectedly busy week with lots of work to do and so little time remaining for other important things. Among the latter: taking the final exam of the International Law in Action: A Guide to the International Courts and Tribunals in The Hague course I participated in recently on Coursera. I managed to finish the course Saturday night. Midnight, to be exact, after a tiresome day of touristing around (with a real tourist) in Budapest, and, uhm, also a glass of wine….

Everything will be all right, when people, just people, stop thinking of the United Nations as a weird Picasso abstraction and see it as a drawing they made themselves. Dag Hammarskjöld /The second Secretary General of the United Nations serving between 1953-1961./ Note: People still think of the United Nations as a weird Picasso abstraction in 2015, perhaps not so much as 70 years before, but there is still a lot of work to be done… Here’s to the next 70 years!

un-library: Digital UN Charter collection online for United Nations Day The Dag Hammarskjöld Library is unveiling our digitized collection of over 30 different language editions of the UN Charters to celebrate United Nations Day. Since 1948, the 24th of October has been celebrated as United Nations Day. UN Day marks the anniversary of the entry into force in 1945 of the UN Charter. With the Charter’s ratification the United Nations officially came into being. Learn more about the UN Charter and UN Day UN Documentation Research Guide: Charter of the United Nations Research an Article of the United Nations Charter…

todaysdocument: Charter of the United Nations  From the series:  Treaties, Agreements, and Other International Acts for Which the United States is the Depositary Government, 1943 – 1984 On June 26, 1945, in San Francisco, the United Nations Charter was established. It was created at the end of World War II in an attempt to maintain international peace and security and to achieve cooperation among nations on economic, social and humanitarian problem. The required number of nations ratified the charter on October 24, 1945, which is now celebrated as United Nations Day.  History of the United Nations Charter (via UN.org) (The united-nations…