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The law applicable to transboundary waters is a corpus juris that dates back to the 19th century. It originally focused on regulating the uses of transboundary watercourses for navigation and commercial transport. It was crafted primarily on the European and North American continents, and it has gradually become universally applicable, thereby taking a new shape. The regulation of transboundary waters was rooted in a strict dynamic of coexistence between sovereign entities: each acted as it saw fit with respect to “its” portion of the watercourse, which was treated at the same time as the image of the territory to which it is attached. The need for regulation only arose when uses affected the riparian states’ exercise of their “sovereign rights.” Since the 1990s, the law has tried to break away from this “classical” logic to make room for more community-based and even “ecosystem” notions based on aspects of joint management, and sometimes even pool of shared resources. A number of treaties have been negotiated and adopted by states bordering transboundary watercourses in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. They reflect, and sometimes even develop, some of the principles and rules enacted in broader forums, such as the United Nations (UN) or its Economic Commission for Europe, or the European Union. These efforts show the steps taken in the field of transboundary waters management, but they also reveal some of its limits, as they do not always comprehend all facets of water management and protection.

Katherine A. Kendall (1910–2010) served as Executive Director of the Council on Social Work Education and Secretary General of the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW). She was a major contributor to the development of social work education globally and to internationalizing social work curriculum in the United States.

Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice lists “international custom, as evidence of a general practice accepted as law” as the second source of law to be used by the Court. In other words, customary international law (CIL) requires state practice and opinio juris, the belief that the practice is legally required. A basic principle of international law is that sovereign states must consent to be bound by international legal requirements. Therefore, for a norm to become CIL, a widespread group of states must consistently follow the norm and indicate, either explicitly or implicitly, that they consent to the norm. Consistent action is important in two ways: consistent state practice following the norm indicates state consent to be bound by the norm and consistent objection to the norm indicates that the state does not consent to the norm. To avoid being bound by a rule of CIL, a state must persistently object to the rule during and after its formation. Changing CIL requires new state practice and evidence that opinio juris supports the new, not the old, state practice. Debates surrounding state practice include the number of states required to demonstrate “widespread” action, whether the states must be representative of the community of states, and how long consistent practice must occur before CIL is formed. Opinio juris is debated because it is subjective unless there is a specific, official statement that there is a belief that the practice is legally required. Once a state consents, implicitly or explicitly, to a CIL rule, it cannot withdraw that consent. States that gain independence after a CIL rule is established are bound by that rule if the former government was not a persistent objector. This is problematic, particularly for former colonies that were not able to object during the formation of existing CIL rules because they were not considered “sovereign states.” Scholars supporting this perspective argue that, prior to decolonization, CIL was used to control the colonies and, since their independence, it is used by the colonizers to maintain their power and perpetuate inequality.

UN peacekeeping serves as the foremost international tool for conflict intervention and peace management. Since the Cold War, these efforts have almost exclusively targeted conflicts within, rather than between, states. Where traditional peacekeeping missions sought to separate combatants and monitor peace processes across state borders, modern peacekeeping in civil wars involves a range of tasks from intervening directly in active conflicts to rebuilding political institutions and societies after the fighting ends. To accommodate this substantial change, peacekeeping operations have grown in number, size, and scope of mandate. The increasing presence and changing nature of peacekeeping has sparked great interest in understanding when and how peacekeeping is used and how effective it is in delivering and sustaining peace. Significant advances in peacekeeping data collection have allowed for a more rigorous investigation of the phenomenon, including differentiation in the objectives, tasks, and structure of a mission as well as disaggregation of the activities and impact of peacekeepers’ presence across time and space. Researchers are particularly interested in understanding the adaption of peacekeeping to the unique challenges of the civil war setting, such as intervention in active conflicts, the greater involvement and victimization of civilians, the reintegration of rebel fighters into society, and the establishment of durable political, economic, and social institutions after the fighting ends. Additional inquiries consider why the UN deploys peacekeeping to some wars and not others, how and why operations differ from one another, and how the presence of and variation across missions impacts conflict countries before and after the fighting has stopped.

With the advent of multidimensional peacekeeping, in considering the changing nature of conflicts in the post–Cold War period, the role of local actors has become crucial to the execution of the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mandate. Just as peacekeeping does not have space in the UN charter, local actors do not have a clearly defined space in the UN-led conflict resolution process. However, they have gained recognition, especially in policy work, and slowly in the academic discourse, as academics and practitioners have begun to find ways of making peacekeeping and peacebuilding more effective in the 21st century. Therefore the construction and perception of local actors by international arbitrators play an important and strategic role in creating and shaping space for the former to actively establish peace where violent conflict is imminent. Local actors have independently occupied spaces during and after the conflict, and although they bring a comparative advantage, especially as gatekeepers to local communities, they have largely been kept on the periphery.

“Peacekeeping economy” designates the political economy of a peacekeeping operation. It broadly encompasses economic activity that either would not occur, or would occur at a much lower scale and pay rate, without the international peacekeeping (or peacebuilding) presence. Peacekeeping economies are, to a significant degree, inextricable from peacekeeping missions: While they are not under the purview or direct control of the mission, the formal and informal economic activity that they include is important to peacekeeping missions’ ability to function in the host society. Of course, behind this simple formulation is a significantly more complex phenomenon. Moreover, the peacekeeping economy is not just an interesting empirical reality. It is also a useful analytical framework for examining and better understanding how peacekeeping is designed, regulated, and done; its socioeconomic, gendered, and racialized dimensions; and its (intended and unintended) consequences.

For centuries, women have been struggling for the recognition of their rights. Women’s rights are still being dismissed by United Nations (UN) human rights bodies and even governments, despite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex. It was not until the 1993 UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, Austria that states began to recognize women’s rights as human rights. However, this institutional change cannot solely be credited to the UN, but more importantly to the work of international women’s organizations. According to the social movement theory, these organizations have been permeating intergovernmental structures and, with the help of their constituents and experienced leaders, framing women’s rights as human rights in different ways throughout time. It is through mobilizing resources and seizing political opportunities that women’s rights activists rationalize how discrimination and exclusion resulted from gendered traditions, and that societal change is crucial in accepting women’s rights as fully human. But seeing as there are still oppositions to the issue of women’s rights as human rights, further research still needs to be conducted. Some possible venues for research include how well women’s rights as human rights travel across different institutions, violence against women, how and in what way women’s rights enhance human rights, and the changes that have taken place in mainstream human rights and specialized women’s rights institutions since the late 1980s as well as their impact.

A humanitarian crisis is the main focus of the United Nations’ (the UN’s) primary organizations and its special agencies since its foundation in 1945. The UN refers to a humanitarian crisis as an event or series of events that represents a critical threat to the health, safety, security, or well-being of a community or other large group of people. The nature of a humanitarian crisis is complex, signifying the importance of the collaboration and coordination among the UN and its multilateral partner agencies in the crisis management process. The UN takes the approach of “disaster risk management” that aims to enhance (a) resilience, the ability of people, societies, and countries to recover from negative shocks; and (b) prosperity, derived from successfully managing positive shocks that create opportunities for development. The UN’s emergency measures aim to ensure a transition from relief to rehabilitation and development. The UN suggests a humanitarian coordination model. In particular, the UN established guiding principles for the international community’s response to humanitarian crises that were built based on the General Assembly resolution 46/182. The resolution provides the foundation for the establishment of the Office of the Emergency Relief Coordinator and the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, which facilitates interagency analysis and makes major decisions in humanitarian emergency responses. The resolution also identifies a range of other organizations and entities that could contribute to an international humanitarian crisis management system. The UN’s multilateral partners in humanitarian crisis response include (a) the UN’s special agencies including the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Food Program (WFP), World Health Organization (WHO), International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA); (b) civil society and government of affected countries; (c) both national and international Red Cross and Red Crescent societies; (d) domestic and international nongovernmental organizations; and (e) international governmental organizations.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962), wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, pursued her own work investigating social conditions and the programs designed to address them. She served as the U.S. representative to the General Assembly of the newly formed United Nations.

Dame Eileen Younghusband (1902–1981) was an international educator and scholar who influenced the development of social work around the world. She helped transform the International Association of Schools of Social Work from a predominantly Western organization into a worldwide, United Nations-linked body to establish schools of social work in developing countries.

Globalization is the key social, economic, political, and cultural process of our time with widespread impact and implications. From early migration and sharing of cultures over years of movement to the instantaneous sharing of information over the internet with the click of a button, globalization has influenced every aspect of our lives and our histories. This entry defines globalization, provides a brief history of its dynamic processes, summarizes its complex and contradictory correlates and consequences, and offers, from a social work point of view, a balanced assessment of this powerful multidimensional process that is sweeping the contemporary world. Concluding with a discussion of the implications for social workers.

This article presents an overview of definitions of international social work, relevant theories, the history of the field, and current practice roles. Definitional debates and critiques of international social work are discussed, as the term international social work has been a contested one. Scholars have defined international social work variously as a specialized area of practice, as the integrated global profession, as the exchange of people and ideas across borders, and as a more general perspective or worldview. The concluding section highlights some of the current challenges facing the field: developing relevant career tracks in international social work, strengthening representation of the profession at the global level, specifying the universal elements of social work, and continuing to clarify the concept of international social work.

Kesharichand Dashrathsa Gangrade (1926–2019) is known for his indigenous writings and application of Gandhian principles in social work practices in India. He developed the concept of Gandhian social work—an amalgamation of Gandhian ideology and values of social work practice. He had an immense exposure to the sociocultural dynamics of different societies and working with vulnerable groups and marginalized communities. Gangrade brought all his wisdom, from experiments to experiences in community organization practices, in his 30 books. He was also an educational administrator par excellence. Imbibing Gandhian virtues in his practices and belief in simplicity and trusteeship as life principles, he learned, loved, and lured values of life with Gandhian ethics. Along with academics, he worked with Mahatma Gandhi’s close associate Jai Prakash Narayan through promoting nongovernmental and community-based organizations for rural development.

Social development is a broad and somewhat elusive concept connoting the well-being of people, community, and society. The United Nations has assumed a key role of promoting social development globally, with historical efforts focused on advancing human rights, social and economic equality, and inclusion. Social development strategies are classified as enterprise, communitarian, and statist based on their ideological orientations. An institutional approach to social development offers a pragmatic synthesis of these strategies with a balanced integration of bottom-up and top-down methods. The centrality of social development for international social work practice is accentuated in the Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development. Current trends emphasize the complementary integration of market-oriented, community-based, and government supports to advance social development.

The profession of social work has a long and rich history of participating in and influencing the work of the United Nations and its affiliate agencies, almost since the inception of the institution. This history includes not only the work of social work or social welfare organizations as accredited nongovernmental organizations, but also of individual social workers who were trailblazers in the field of international work. The founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945 played a key role in establishing what has come to be a formal relationship between civil society and the United Nations. Article 71 of the United Nations Charter cemented this relationship by allowing the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to make consultative arrangements with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) (United Nations, 2003). The number of NGOs at the founding conference numbered 1,200; at present there are 3,900 NGOs that have consultative status with ECOSOC (Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2014). Three of the leading social work organizations that have consultative status with the United Nations are: International Association of Schools of Social Work (received consultative status in 1947), International Federation of Social Workers—(received consultative status in 1959), and International Council on Social Welfare (received consultative status in 1972).

Genocides have persisted around the world for centuries, yet the debate persists about what intentions and subsequent actions constitute an actual genocide. As a result, some crimes against humanity, targeted rape campaigns, and widespread displacement of marginalized groups of people around the globe have not been formally recognized as a genocide by world powers while others have. The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide set out to provide clarity about what constituted a genocide and the corresponding expected behaviors of nations that bear witness to it. Still, even with this United Nations document in place, there remains some debate about genocides. The United States, a superpower on the world stage, did not sign on to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide until 1988 due to a belief that its participation was not necessary as a civilized world leader that had its own checks and balances. More genocides have taken place since the enactment of this 1948 legislation. Genocides that have taken place pre- and post-1948 affirm the need for nations around the world to agree to a set of behaviors that protect targeted groups of people from mass destruction and prescribe punishment for those who perpetrate such atrocities. Although it may seem that identifying genocidal behaviors toward a group of people would be clear and convincing based on witnesses and/or deaths of targeted members, history has shown this not to be the case time and time again. Perpetrators tend to deny such behaviors or claim innocence in the name of self-defense. Regardless of any acknowledgment of wrongdoing, genocides are the world’s greatest crime against humanity.

In its formulation of foreign policy, the United States takes account of many priorities and factors, including national security concerns, economic interests, and alliance relationships. An additional factor with significance that has risen and fallen over time is human rights, or more specifically violations of human rights. The extent to which the United States should consider such abuses or seek to moderate them has been and continues to be the subject of considerable debate.

Moringe ole Parkipuny addressed the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations (UNWGIP) in 1989 and, for the first time, opened up discussion of the idea that certain groups of hunter-gathers and pastoralists in Africa merited the status of indigenous peoples. Local activists and international organizations took up the cause in the following decades. Several international conferences resulted in new forms of activism, the reformulation of local identities, and a growing body of scholarship addressing African indigeneity. As NGOs built solidarity among relatively scattered groups of pastoralists and hunter-gatherers, often skeptical state governments initially resisted what they saw as demands for recognition of status and claims to “special rights.” Disagreements between state interests and newly organized indigenous groups were expressed at the United Nations during the process of adopting the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP); but as the idea of indigeneity evolved through such discussions, African governments gradually came on board. International activism and work done by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights play significant roles in convincing African states to accept the concept of “indigenous peoples.” The issue of developing a definition of “indigenous peoples” appropriate for Africa remains unsettled and continues to present challenges. Mobilization among marginalized groups on the African continent itself, however, has presented NGOs, activists, states, and courts with the opportunity, through well-publicized struggles and several landmark legal cases, to refine the category to better fit with African contexts.

The literature on dignity in international politics can be analytically evaluated based on three key themes: (a) historical, conceptual, and political underpinnings; (b) international law and global governance; and (c) the global political economy. Although discussions of human dignity within these three themes draw on varied disciplines (philosophy, political theory, political science, law, and history), they demonstrate a shared purpose in investigating the nature of human dignity and its implications to understanding individuals and political orders amid increasing global interdependence. Human rights scholarship has been a firmly established research agenda in international relations (IR) since the end of the Cold War, but the notion of human dignity has yet to gain traction as a key research topic on its own beyond its peripheral association with the human rights literature. Dignity may be a highly contested concept, but its mere invocation in policy and scholarly debates attracts so much moral appeal and intellectual curiosity. If the core normative task of IR research pertains to the improvement of the human condition (and its relationship to global humanity and the ecosystem), then human dignity should feature as a core object of analytic inquiry in the future.

Negotiated at the United Nations and in force since 1967, the Outer Space Treaty has been ratified by over 100 countries and is the most important and foundational source of space law. The treaty, whose full title is “Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies,” governs all of humankind’s activities in outer space, including activities on other celestial bodies and many activities on Earth related to outer space. All space exploration and human spaceflight, planetary sciences, and commercial uses of space—such as the global telecommunications industry and the use of space technologies such as position, navigation, and timing (PNT), take place against the backdrop of the general regulatory framework established in the Outer Space Treaty. A treaty is an international legal instrument which balances rights and obligations between states, and exists as a kind of mutual contract of shared understandings, rights, and responsibilities between them. Negotiated and drafted during the Cold War era of heightened political tensions, the Outer Space Treaty is largely the product of efforts by the United States and the USSR to agree on certain minimum standards and obligations to govern their competition in “conquering” space. Additionally, the Outer Space Treaty is similar to other treaties, including treaties governing the high seas, international airspace, and the Antarctic, all of which govern the behavior of states outside of their national borders. The treaty is brief in nature and only contains 17 articles, and is not comprehensive in addressing and regulating every possible scenario. The negotiating states knew that the Outer Space Treaty could only establish certain foundational concepts such as freedom of access, state responsibility and liability, non-weaponization of space, the treatment of astronauts in distress, and the prohibition of non-appropriation of celestial bodies. Subsequent treaties were to refine these concepts, and national space legislation was to incorporate the treaty’s rights and obligations at the national level. While the treaty is the cornerstone in the regulation of activities in outer space, today the emergence of new issues that were not contemplated at the time of its creation, such as small satellites and megaconstellations, satellite servicing missions, the problem of space debris and the possibility of space debris removal, and the use of lunar and asteroid resources, all stretch the coherence and continuing adequacy of the treaty, and may occasion the need for new governance frameworks.