Diplomacy & Defense Think Tank News

On Tuesday, May 17th, IPI hosted a Global Leader Series presentation featuring Ambassador Lamberto Zannier, Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Ambassador Zannier addressed a number of security challenges in Europe—including countering violent extremism, curbing organized crime, and managing migration—from the perspective of the OSCE. He also discussed how the OSCE can improve its ability to promote inclusive dialogue among its fifty-seven member states in order to build trust and confidence, both of which are essential to a cooperative approach to security.

The OSCE region is facing a growing number of intricate security challenges—from the crisis in Ukraine to the politico-military dispute in Nagorno-Karabakh—requiring innovative and collaborative approaches at the multilateral level. In addition, the unprecedented rise in migration resulting from the Syrian crisis has destabilized national societies and exacerbated regional tensions, calling attention to the need for a more coordinated approach to border management disputes, human trafficking, and conflict prevention.

Acting under the guidance of the Chairperson-in-Office, Ambassador Zannier heads the OSCE Secretariat in Vienna, addressing a wide range of security-related issues in the OSCE region, including arms control, confidence- and security-building measures, human rights, national minorities, democratization, policing strategies, counterterrorism, and economic and environmental activities.

The event was moderated by IPI Senior Adviser for External Relations Warren Hoge.

Date: Mercredi 18 Mai 2016

You can read here the article on risks for world security, which was written by Professor Emeritus and Member of the Board of Trustees of ELIAMEP Theodore Couloumbis. This commentary was published on 15 May 2016 in the Sunday edition of Kathimerini.

On Monday, May 16th, IPI hosted a Global Leaders Series presentation featuring H.E. Mr. Vuk Jeremić, candidate for the position of United Nations Secretary-General.  At the event, Mr. Jeremić discussed his experience and how it informs his vision of the future of global politics and the United Nations. He addressed questions including how he would shape the job of UN Secretary-General and define his priorities in office.

In April 2016, the government of Serbia formally nominated Mr. Jeremić as a candidate for the position of UN Secretary-General. Mr. Jeremić is the President of the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development (CIRSD), a public policy think tank based in Belgrade, and Editor-in-Chief of Horizons – Journal of International Relations and Sustainable Development.

In June 2012, Mr. Jeremić was elected President of the sixty-seventh session of the United Nations General Assembly by the majority of UN member states in the first contested vote since the end of the Cold War. During his term in office, he launched the negotiations that led to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

As President of the General Assembly, he facilitated the adoption of the breakthrough Arms Trade Treaty, the first legally-binding instrument in UN history to establish common standards for the international transfer of conventional armaments. Mr. Jeremić initiated several high-level thematic debates in the UN on critical issues such as climate change, education, social inequality, credit rating agencies, international criminal justice, and the peaceful resolution of conflicts in Africa.

Mr. Jeremić served as Serbia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2007 to 2012. During his tenure, he paid official visits to over 100 countries and addressed numerous international summits and conferences. In 2007, he chaired the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers. In 2011 and 2012, Mr. Jeremić led Serbia’s successful campaign for the Chairmanship-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2015.

The event was moderated by IPI Senior Adviser for External Relations Warren Hoge.

Lorsque Donald Trump s'est lancé dans la course à la présidence des Etats-Unis en juin 2015, il était crédité de 4% des intentions de vote, et personne n'a cru qu'il pourrait l'emporter. Le magnat de l'immobilier, milliardaire et star de la téléréalité, a rapidement été placé dans la catégorie "showman", celle dans laquelle on trouve les personnages hauts en couleur des campagnes présidentielles (comme Herman Cain et Michele Bachmann, en 2012, ou, cette année, Ben Carson) qui marquent leur passage d'amusantes sorties dans les débats, avant de laisser la place aux challengers plus sérieux.
Or, contre toute attente, à l'encontre des estimations de toute la classe médiatique et politique américaine et étrangère, Donald Trump a grimpé dans les sondages, lentement mais sûrement, écrasant sur son passage les nombreux candidats, gouverneurs ou sénateurs, jugés capables de l'emporter...

Article publié dans l'Express.fr, le 12 mai 2016.

In Zeiten großer Instabilität in mehreren Regionen Afrikas und anhaltender Migrationsströme sind gute Beziehungen zwischen Europa und Afrika wichtiger denn je. Vor dem Hintergrund anstehender Verhandlungen über ein Folgeabkommen zwischen der EU und der Afrika-Karibik-Pazifik-Gruppe (AKP) nach 2020 luden Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung und Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung gemeinsam mit dem Europäischen Netzwerk Politischer Stiftungen (ENoP) am 2. und 3. Mai 2016 zu einem Austausch in Brüssel ein.

Civil wars and other armed conflicts within states kill tens of thousands of civilians every year, destroy many more livelihoods and have forced millions of people to flee their homes over the last five years alone. For many years since the mid-1990s, armed intrastate conflicts seemed to be steadily receding, but this trend has reversed itself since 2013. For populations affected by civil war, 2014 – the year for which the most recent data is available – was deadlier than any year since the Rwandan genocide in 1994.
Most violent conflicts today are recurrences of previous wars. Thus, besides ending ongoing violence, preventing wars from breaking out again is one of the major challenges the world faces today. Since the 1990s, this has been the exact objective of peacebuilding activities. But how successful are efforts to stabilise peace after armed conflict really? And what can be done to make them more effective?
Summarising a broad range of empirical research on post-conflict peace support, this briefing paper reports which types of external engagement are known to be effective, and which ones are not. International peacebuilding efforts focus mainly on four issue areas: providing security, (re-)starting socio-economic development, advancing democratic governance and promoting transitional justice. Assessing the evidence available in each area, three messages for external actors who wish to support peace in post-conflict environments emerge most clearly.

• First, international peacekeeping missions are in many cases an effective instrument for stabilising peace after civil war, indicating that the immediate security concerns of affected populations is of utmost importance. Yet, security alone is not enough. Peacekeeping is all the more successful when it is embedded in a multidimensional approach, supporting the notion that political, economic and social concerns also need to be addressed early on if peace is to last.
• Second, supporters of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programmes and security sector reforms need to embrace the political character of these processes. Approaching them merely as technical issues – as outside actors often do – and turning a blind eye to the vested interests involved risks fuelling new conflicts instead of preventing them.
• Third, transitional justice is an important area of post-conflict peace consolidation – but only if it meets the interest and support of key stakeholders in the affected population: in parliament, in government and administration, and in civil society.

One-size-fits-all strategies for how to support sustainable peace after civil wars do not exist. Different types of conflicts obviously require different pathways to peace. One direction of future research should be a more systematic analysis of post-conflict contexts that are similar enough to call for similar strategies of peace support.

On Thursday, May 12th, the Independent Commission on Multilateralism (ICM) hosted a Public Consultation on its Discussion Paper: “The Impact of New Technologies on Peace, Security, and Development.” This Public Consultation provided an opportunity for representatives from member states, civil society, the private sector, academia, and the United Nations to comment on the Discussion Paper’s recommendations, and to exchange perspectives on the larger trends and challenges.

A new wave of technology is driving rapid global change. This change has created new opportunities for multilateral cooperation in the areas of sustainable development, state-society relations, peace and conflict, international security, and global governance.  Yet with these opportunities comes the challenge of keeping up; the UN and other multilateral institutions must determine where they can play a useful role in addressing and integrating new technologies into their work and where existing mechanisms and other actors may be better placed.

On sustainable development, for example, the UN has arguably come farthest in integrating new technologies into its work. The ten-year review of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS+10) drew a strong link between technologies and sustainable development, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Looking to peace and conflict, new technologies can help prevent conflict by reducing the gap between warning and response, facilitate peacekeeping through new tools relevant to increasingly complex environments, and help support peacebuilding by empowering local actors.  New technologies and governance of the internet, on the other hand, is an arena where the future role of multilateral actors is subject to greater debate. Whether in sustainable development, peace and conflict, state-society relations, international security, or cyberspace, new technologies have transformed how the UN and multilateral institutions operate in a 21st century world. Based on these opportunities, challenges, and multilateral responses, this Discussion Paper provides recommendations for the UN System.

This Public Consultation focused on the findings and recommendations of the Discussion Paper, which can be accessed at this link.

Discussants:
H.E. Mr. Vladimir Drobnjak, Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the Republic of Croatia to the United Nations
Mr. Robert Kirkpatrick, Director, United Nations Global Pulse, Executive Office of the Secretary-General
Ms. Véronique Pepin-Hallé, Senior Adviser, Independent Commission on Multilateralism
Dr. Patrick Vinck, Assistant Professor, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Moderator:
H.E. Ms. Barbara Gibson, Deputy Secretary-General, Independent Commission on Multilateralism

Date: Vendredi 13 Mai 2016

DT 7/2016 - 12/5/2016
Carlos Alonso Zaldívar
Un día a finales de 2014, Barack Obama y Raúl Castro aparecieron en televisión diciendo al alimón que habían acordado tratar de normalizar las relaciones entre Cuba y EEUU. Desde entonces, la opinión dominante actual ya no sabe qué profetizar.

Date: Jeudi 12 Mai 2016

Comentario Elcano 19/2016 - 12/5/2016
Carlota García Encina
Donald Trump será el candidato republicano en las próximas elecciones presidenciales de EEUU. Muchos se preguntan aún cómo ha llegado hasta aquí, pero también cuáles serán las consecuencias de su nominación para el Partido Republicano, sobre todo porque según todas las encuestas su elección supone arrastrar hacia el desastre al GOP.