Ambassador (ret.) Jeff DeLaurentis, Magro Family Distinguished Fellow in International Affairs with the Dickey Center, brought his Multilateral Diplomacy and U.S. Leadership class to New York this fall for a full program of meetings with diplomats accredited to the United Nations and with UN Secretariat officials. The objective was to acquaint students with practitioner views on conducting multilateral diplomacy, of working at the UN during its 80th year, its successes and failures, the role of the U.S. at the UN and the future of the rules-based international order.
The students started the day meeting with the Permanent Representative of the Bahamas to the UN Stan Smith at his mission. (David Kim ’27 interned with Ambassador Smith earlier in the year.) Smith talked about the role of smaller countries at the UN and what direction the rules-based order is likely to take.
From there, the students visited the UN permanent missions of the United Kingdom, China, Mexico, and Brazil. The deputy permanent representative from each delegation (Ambassadors James Kariuki, Geng Shuang, Alicia Buenrostro and Norberto Moretti, respectively) outlined their countries’ priorities at the UN, the continued relevancy and necessity of the United Nations and their engagement with the U.S.
Lastly, the students entered United Nations Headquarters and met with two senior UN Secretariat officials, Lisa Buttenheim, Assistant Secretary General for Support Operations, Department of Operation Support (which services UN peacekeeping and political missions abroad) and Laura Flores, Americas Division director in the Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations. Ambassador Flores, who had visited Dartmouth a few weeks earlier, invited her entire team to explain how they keep Secretary General Antonio Guterres abreast of all relevant developments in the region.
