In the wake of 9/11 and subsequent terrorist attacks on European and American soil governments felt the need to adapt their legislation to what was perceived as a new threat paradigm. Policymakers considered existing criminal laws as insufficient to combat terrorism. A contributing factor was that governments needed to be seen doing something about the [...]

We are delighted to announce that the Centro Argentino de Estudios Internacionales (CAEI) has joined our global partner network. Based in Buenos Aires, CAEI is a civil society institution that aims to foster understanding of prominent issues on the international agenda from a pluralistic and interdisciplinary perspective. CAEI runs academic programs on all regions in [...]

A new fear is engulfing Switzerland and this time its about cyberspace. True, the threat of ‘cyberwar’ and cyber-attacks is real and sometimes very difficult to prepare for. Recent events, like the hacking of political parties’ websites or the recent distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) on Postfinance, the bank hosting Julian Assange’s account, point to a [...]

Last week, ISN Insights looked at: Bosnia’s post-election future in a piece by Anes Alic The importance of nuclear nonproliferation efforts and the dangers of hyping up the nuclear bomb threat in an article by Justin Alger The struggle for democracy in Iraq in a piece by Mark N Katz Al-Qaida’s fast-evolving strategy in Yemen [...]

Fans of WikiLeaks have launched numerous, high-profile Denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) on sites that turned against WikiLeaks recently. Targets as varied as Sarah Palin, Mastercard, the Swedish government, and the Swiss bank Postfinance have come under attack for either criticizing WikiLeaks or for refusing some services to Julian Assange. I don’t know the details of all [...]