In a first analysis of the outcomes of the 2003 UNGASS mid-term review in April 2003, TNI concluded that the outcomes were very disappointing. The absence of significant progress over the past five years had not led to self-reflection and evaluation. The goals and targets of the UNGASS were simply re-affirmed. Most countries concentrated on a stock taking halfway of the implemented measures, without an honest analysis of the impact. The result is a distorted picture of virtual progress in order to justify to stay on the same course. The illusion is kept alive that reality will somehow fall into line with wishful thinking.

A myriad of documents and records of meetings published by the UN, reveal a previously unwritten history of events leading to the 1998 UNGASS meeting. These show the extent to which the hardliners have gone to maintain the status quo through rhetoric, denial, manipulation, selective presentation, misrepresentation and suppression of evidence, selective use of experts, threats to funding, and purging "defeatists" from the UN system.

TNI is co-organising a number of public discussions with Roger Burbach, the author of The Pinochet Affair.