Month: April 2010

Our Business: Trafficking Weapons, Delivering Aid

What’s transported in this cargo plane? Weapons? Humanitarian aid? Or both? / photo: tz1_1zt, flickr

The global transport industry plays a crucial role in conflict economies. Ethical Cargo, a new information portal by one of our partners, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), sheds light on this role and helps donors to choose the right companies when giving out contracts.

An earlier study by SIPRI showed that 90 percent of air transport companies engaged in weapons, drugs or precious minerals trafficking have also received contracts to deliver humanitarian aid or peacekeeping equipment.

“Air transportation has played a key role in fuelling the war economies that have devastated much of Africa in recent decades,” Hugh Griffiths and Mark Bromley write in their paper. They urge the EU and its member states to “deny humanitarian aid, peace support, stability operations and defence logistics supply chain contracts to air transport companies engaged in destabilizing or illicit commodity flows, in particular the transfer of SALW [small arms and light weapons].”

To support this, Ethical Cargo was launched, namely to help the “humanitarian aid and peace-support communities implement effective conflict-sensitive logistics and ethical transportation policies.” The website offers an emergency 24-hour hotline, a database, model codes of conduct, best practices and contract negotiation techniques.

People working for organizations engaged in humanitarian aid or peace-support can register and use the services freely.

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ISN Weekly Theme: Social Resilience

Basketball bouncing
Can society bounce back after catastrophe? Photo: Kristin/flickr

In a new millennium that must face complex, transnational challenges ranging from climate disruption to cyberwar, averting disaster is not always an option. How then can society quickly rebound from unavoidable disruptions to its social fabric? Social resilience helps guide us toward a sustainable answer.

This ISN Special Report contains the following content:

  • Jamais Cascio’s Analysis outlines a vision for the resilient society of the future.
  • In our Podcast interview Jennifer Giroux discusses the concept of resilience in light of the Iceland volcano eruption, particularly the impact of social media and the private vs public sector relationship.
  • A Security Watch article about “The Complexity of Social Resilience” by Professor Norman Vasu of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
  • Publications housed in our Digital Library, like the Center for Security Studies’ policy brief, “Resilience: A Tool for Preparing and Managing Emergencies.”
  • Links to relevant websites, among them the UN’s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.
  • Our IR Directory with relevant organizations, such as the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, which provides a research outlet for ‘non-traditional’ security studies, like social resilience.

The ISN Quiz: IPR – Help or Hindrance?

What do you know about intellecutal property rights? Find out in this week’s quiz and make sure to check out our special report: IPR – Help or Hindrance?

[QUIZZIN 15]

ACTA: Secret Anti-Piracy Negotiations Unveiled

Piracy graffiti in Sweden (cc Thobias Vemmenby)
Piracy graffiti in Sweden (cc Thobias Vemmenby)

It seems like ACTA negotiators have finally gone one step in the direction of transparency. After a week of negotiations in Wellington (NZ), they announced on Friday that the draft treaty would be made public next Wednesday. Or maybe they just learned their lesson after repeated leaks.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has been in the making for over two years behind closed doors. The new treaty aims to improve “global standards for the enforcement of [Intellectual Property Law], to more effectively combat trade in counterfeit and pirated goods,” according to the EU Commission.

As you might expect, the negotiating parties are a western club (US, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the EU and Switzerland) with a few ‘like-minded’ friends (Singapore, South Korea, Mexico, Morocco).

ACTA has faced a storm of criticism from internet users. Here is a little summary of the main issues at stake:

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“Library Trend Watch”

Discussing the future of libraries at the 11th InetBib Conference / photo: Ralph A Stamm, ISN

If you think librarians are old-fashioned people dressed in checkered shirts, I tell you: they’re not. At least not those attending the 11th InetBib Conference.

I entered an auditorium populated by people sitting with computers on their laps, listening, thinking and twittering about the future of libraries. Encouraged by an atmosphere of open discussion and criticism, participants would, from time to time, raise their voice and challenge the presenter’s views.

For the session I attended this morning, the organizers invited five people to give five-minute presentations on technological trends that might influence the future of libraries. “Let’s look into the crystal ball,” Patrick Danowski, the moderator, said. Fittingly, his introductory talk was entitled “Library Trend Watch”.

Dr. Rudolf Mumenthaler from ETH Library, talked about the future of e-readers. He argued that only multifunctional tablets such as iPad will become popular, with classic e-book readers remaining a niche product. It is the libraries’ job to provide their users with electronic content, on which they could cooperate with publishers.

Christian Hauschke from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Hannover, talked about Linked Open Data. He called on libraries to open access to their bibliographical information and follow the four principles of linked data.

Andreas Kahl introduced us to Google Wave, an open-source collaboration tool currently under development. Wave would allow librarians to log themselves into the work process of students and make suggestions like: Have you considered this source? At the same time, Google Wave allows users to delegate certain processes to the machine, such as including biographical references.

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