Designing an Effective European Arctic Strategy

Photo: flickr/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

The promise of new shipping routes and access to natural resources continues to attract external players to the Arctic. While states such as Singapore have successfully acquired permanent observer status in the Arctic Council (AC), the European Union (EU) has historically been far less successful in contributing to or securing a voice in Arctic governance. This problem is eroding away, however. All Brussels has to do is play to its strengths and continue focusing on ‘small target’ goals that can be achieved through existing political structures.

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Big Data, ICTs and New Media in Times of Crisis

Photo: flickr/Michael Doherty

On March 28, the ISN hosted a Roundtable Discussion on “Big Data, ICTs and Social Media in Times of Crisis,” which featured Mr Sanjana Hattotuwa, who is both a TED Fellow and a Special Advisor to the ICT4Peace Foundation. Our purpose today is to share Mr Hattotuwa’s lively presentation, which among other things focuses on how web- and mobile-based media have enhanced our ability to respond to complex emergencies, and to participate in ‘organic’ political processes. The presentation is then augmented by the question and answer session that followed in its wake.

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Justice in Syria Could Help Break the Cycle of Revenge: Interview with Jeffrey Howell

Image: Wikipedia.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on 2 April 2014 on the IPI Global Observatory.

While the war in Syria rages on, the concept of justice may seem like a distant ideal. But one group is collecting documentation on war crimes and crimes against humanity so that perpetrators may be brought to justice when the conflict ends. At that time, “the decision to prosecute should be made so that the victims of this conflict have not died in vain,” said Jeffrey Howell, Chief of Staff for the Syrian Accountability Project, which was started at Syracuse University’s College of Law in 2011. In the long term, this can also contribute to peace by breaking the cycle of revenge, according to Mr. Howell, since “you can’t rebuild your country on revenge; you can only rebuild your country on justice.”

This interview was conducted by Margaret Williams, Research Assistant at the International Peace Institute.

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Managing Paul Kagame, Africa’s Enfant Terrible

Image: Flickr

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) on 30 March 2014.

South Africa is conducting a fairly delicate struggle with Rwanda, trying to choreograph and coordinate complex moves to manage the difficult and dangerous President Paul Kagame – on the hard streets of Johannesburg, in the polite halls of diplomacy, in the courts of law, and, by proxy, on the field of battle.

On Tuesday this week the terrain of this struggle moved to multilateral diplomacy in Luanda, where President Jacob Zuma once again attended a summit of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR). South Africa is not a member of this body, but Zuma has become a sort of country member, having been invited to the last few summits as a special guest.

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Book Review: When Soldiers Say No: Selective Conscientious Objection in the Modern Military, edited by Andrea Ellner et al.

Image: Wikipedia

This article originally appeared at LSE Review of Books.

When Soldiers Say No: Selective Conscientious Objection in the Modern Military. Andrea Ellner, Paul Robinson and David Whetham (eds.) Ashgate. January 2014.

When Soldiers Say No brings together arguments for and against selective conscientious objection, as well as case studies examining how different countries deal with those who claim the status of selective conscientious objectors Gary Wilson writes that this collection adds considerably to the literature by bringing together a range of perspectives on the merits of selective conscientious objection, as well as consideration of its application (or lack thereof) in a number of states.

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