It describes the anticolonial faction at the United Nations that gained the unchallenged ability to dominate debate and shape votes during first two years of the Committee on Information's fourth three-year term. The chapter reviews how the developing world was beginning to reclaim control of the United Nations from the Western states that had founded it and set the organization on a more universalist course than those states had ever intended. It also cites the attempts to thwart Soviet efforts to claim control of the accountability campaign and generally reject the US campaign against Soviet colonialism. the role of the East–West conflict in matters related to decolonization. It looks at the anticolonial element that put the United Nations in the decolonization business, which sought to neutralize. This chapter recounts the end of the Committee on Information's third term in 1955, which shows the growth that resulted in the anticolonial control of the General Assembly and the approval of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.

By disaggregating the problem in this way, we hope to identify opportunities for improving protections against abuses of power at the global level. We identify seven types of accountability mechanisms and consider their applicability to states, NGOs, multilateral organizations, multinational corporations, and transgovernmental networks. The distinction helps to explain why accountability is so problematic at the global level and to clarify alternative possibilities for pragmatic improvements in accountability mechanisms globally. How should we think about global accountability in the absence of global democracy? Who should hold whom to account and according to what standards? Thinking clearly about these questions requires recognizing a distinction, evident in theories of accountability at the nation-state level, between “participation” and “delegation” models of accountability. I will end this article with some concluding comments on the relevance of these ideas to AAI’s stated mission to help improve the quality of the global response to AIDS and ensure its implementation by holding key actors accountable for their promises and performance.ĭebates about globalization have centered on calls to improve accountability to limit abuses of power in world politics. I will then present an overview of vertical accountability across different world regions so as to give an idea of the sharp differences that exist. Having done so, I will present what has been called the accountability cycle pointing to some of the key elements involved in making institutions or bodies more accountable. In this brief background paper I will begin by making what I hope will prove a helpful distinction between horizontal and vertical accountability1.

The concept of accountability implies that the actors being held accountable have obligations to act in ways that are consistent with accepted standards of behavior and that they will be sanctioned for failures to do so (Grant and Keohane, 2005, p.29). On the other hand, it is also a sanction for those who misbehaved or failed to represent one’s interests in the past tenure – by giving the vote to someone else. An election gives a chance for the candidate to run for campaigns and attend forums so as to explain and inform their purposes and goals if they are elected. To help elucidate this definition consider the role of elections in promoting political accountability. Accountability has been defined in the following terms: 'A is accountable to B when A is obliged to inform B about A’s (past or future) actions and decisions, to justify them, and to suffer punishment in the case of eventual misconduct' (Schedler, 1999, p.17).

Def elucidate