Edward Luck

Edward C. Luck is Professor of Practice in International and Public Affairs and Director of the Center on International Organization of the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. From 1997 to 2001, he was Founder and Executive Director of the Center for the Study of International Organization, a research center jointly established by the School of Law of New York University and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs of Princeton University. From 1994 to 1998 he was President Emeritus of the United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA), America’s principal center for public education on the world organization. From December 1995 through July 1997, he played a key role in the UN reform process as a Senior Consultant to the Department of Administration and Management of the United Nations and as Staff Director of the General Assembly’s Open-ended High-level Working Group on the Strengthening of the United Nations System.

From 1984 to 1994, Dr. Luck served as President and CEO of the United Nations Association. From 1974 to 1984, he served the Association as Executive Vice President, Vice President for Research and Policy Studies, and Project Director of the UNA-USA National Policy Panel on Conventional Arms Control. He was also a consultant to the Social Science Department of the Rand Corporation.

A frequent media commentator, Professor Luck has published and testified before Congress on arms control, defense, and foreign policy, Russian and East Asian affairs, as well as on United Nations reform and peacekeeping. Dr. Luck has published scores of articles in Foreign Policy, the Washington Quarterly, Current History, Disarmament, the American Journal of International Law, Global Governance, International Perspectives, and other scholarly journals, as well as in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, International Herald Tribune, USA Today, Newsday, and other newspapers.

Dr. Luck’s recent research agenda has focused on four sets of issues: 1) US policies and attitudes toward international law and organization; 2) UN reform and adaptation; 3) US and UN policies toward terrorism and counter-terrorism; and 4) compliance with international law. In the latter area, he has co-edited a volume with Michael W. Doyle on International Law and Organization: Closing the Compliance Gap. It looks at comparative lessons from the compliance experience in five sectors (humanitarian law, environment, trade and finance, war crimes, and arms control and disarmament) and from the perspectives of authors from different parts of the world. It is to be published by Rowman & Littlefield in early 2004.

On UN reform, his recent publications include:

Among his recent writings on American approaches to international law and organization are:

  • Co-editor with Michael W. Doyle, International Law and Organization: Closing the Compliance Gap (Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004). Author of concluding chapter, "Gaps, Commitments, and the Compliance Challenges."
  • “American Exceptionalism and International Organization: Lessons from the 1990s,” in Rosemary Foot, S. Neil MacFarlane, and Michael Mastanduno, eds., US Hegemony and Multilateral Organizations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003)
  • “The United States, International Organization, and the Quest for Legitimacy,” in Stewart Patrick and Shepard Forman, eds., Multilateralism and US Foreign Policy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner for the Center on International Cooperation, 2001)
  • “Bush, Iraq, and the UN: Whose Idea Was This Anyway?,” in Margaret Crahan, John Goering, and Thomas G. Weiss, eds., Wars on Terrorism and Iraq: The U.S. and the World (a project co-sponsored by the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies and the Center for Humanities, The CUNY Graduate Center, 2003)
  • Mixed Messages: American Politics and International Organization, 1919-1999 (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press for the Century Foundation, 1999).

Concerning international responses to terrorism, Dr. Luck’s recent writings include:

  • "The Uninvited Challenge: Terrorism Targets the United Nations," in Edward Newman and Ramesh Thakur, eds., Multilateralism Under Challenge: Power, International Order and Structural Change (Tokyo: United Nations University and the Social Science Research Council, forthcoming 2005).
  • Talking Points for Briefing to Security Council Working Group Established Pursuant to Resolution 1566 (2004), May 25, 2005
  • “The United States, Counter-Terrorism, and the Prospects for a Multilateral Alternative,” in Jane Boulden and Thomas G. Weiss, eds., Terrorism and the UN: Before and After September 11th (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2003, forthcoming)
  • “Trouble Behind, Trouble Ahead?: The UN Security Council Tackles Terrorism,” in David M. Malone, ed., The UN Security Council in the Post-Cold War Era (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003, forthcoming)
  • “Another Reluctant Belligerent: The United Nations and the War on Terrorism,” in Richard Price and Mark W. Zacher, eds., The United Nations and Collective Security (New York: Palgrave, 2003, forthcoming).

Dr. Luck holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College with High Distinction in International Relations and a series of graduate degrees from Columbia University, including an M.I.A. from the School of International Affairs, the Certificate of the Russian Institute, and M.A., M.Ph., and Ph.D. degrees in Political Science from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Century Association, serves on several non-profit boards, and is a member of the Secretary-General’s Policy Working Group on the United Nations and Terrorism.