Leaving Switzerland behind bars, image: Nicolas Macgowan/flickr
Zurich Airport, 18 March 2010. A Nigerian immigrant, convicted of drug dealing died shortly before boarding the plane on which he was to be deported to his home country. As a consequence, deportation of illegal immigrants was stopped. Diplomatic relations between Switzerland and Nigeria became strained.
Of the 1800 Nigerians who immigrated to Switzerland last year, only 1 percent were granted asylum. The rest are asked to leave the country. Those who refuse to move are deported forcefully.
Last week the Swiss government announced that a memorandum of understanding with Nigeria had been signed, allowing for “special flights” to be resume on 1 January 2011. A Nigerian state secretary insisted that Nigeria agreed “voluntarily” and his Swiss counterpart talked of a “win-win-situation.”
Chris Pallaris of i-intelligence explaining intelligence tools to ISN staff, image: Emilie Boillat/ISN
In order to be able to offer increasingly intelligent services, we are educating ourselves. This week, the ISN team is taking a workshop on “Skills in Intelligence Collection and Analysis.”
Let’s start with an intelligence problem. Thinking about the US mid-terms, we wondered about the future of the US during a coffee break. Our (bold) question: Might the US disintegrate over the course of the next decade?
Applying the methodology taught by Chris Pallaris of i-intelligence, we’d first analyze the problem by taking it apart. Intelligence analysis is problem-solving. As any good intelligence problem, our question asks for a predictive answer. Intelligence IS prediction.
The first step would be to make our assumptions concerning the US and its future explicit by writing them down. Assumptions are key to our thinking but need to be watched closely and examined critically because they may lead us to a biased answer. Next, we would formulate hypotheses. As many as possible. We would develop indicators to monitor the stability and future prospects of the US. We would need to have a collection plan to guide the accumulation of information. In doing this, ‘source awareness’ helps us look for information in the right places.
Our problem may not demand an immediate answer. It may, as Chris put it, be a “wicked problem” that has no neat answer at all. We needn’t hurry. The tension between an accurate prediction crafted with care and time, and the limited amount of time available for decision-making and action, however, is always there. The longer we wait in answering the question at hand, the less time there is for our government to look for new allies and to do contingency planning.
Do you think our speculations are unrealistic? Well, intelligence is also about thinking the unthinkable.
We hope the ISN keeps inspiring you and catering to your intelligence needs with the resources we offer in the Digital Library and the analyses we provide with ISN Insights.
Not the most biodiverse place: artificial creatures in Nagoya, photo: rumpleteaser/flickr
Eric Johnston called it “the most important conference you never heard of”:
You would think that a conference that was once billed as a meeting designed to come to an agreement on a “Kyoto Protocol” for all living things would get just a bit more media respect. Or public attention.
And indeed, having just returned from Japan, I am surprised how much less media coverage COP 10 is getting outside its host country. It was by chance that I stumbled over COP 10 when in Nagoya last week and it took me a while until I understood the meaning of the acronym, which was all over the Japanese media: COP 10 stands for the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Given the technical and complex nature of the issues at stake, lay people may find it difficult to understand let alone explain what’s going on in Nagoya. However, the International Year of Biodiversity should provide reason enough to make an effort.
The most contentious issue at the conference is a possible compensation paid by drug companies to indigenous people for using and patenting their knowledge on the medical use of natural resources.
I give the word again to Eric Johnston of the Japan Times:
Should we offer some sort of compensation to indigenous peoples for medicines from their traditional lands already on the market?
Should we sign contracts directly with them so the next time a drug company is hiking through a biodiverse rich environment, they’ll be doing so with the approval of whoever lives on the land those plants come from?
And how do we determine, legally, whether the knowledge of how to manipulate those plants came from ancient oral traditions or a peer-reviewed article in a scientific magazine?
And if payments are to be made to indigenous peoples, how are they to be paid, and what does this mean for drugstore prices in developed countries?
If there is a keyword that best summarizes this week’s international agenda it’s this: UN Millennium Development Goals. Ten years into the third millennium and five years before the goals need to be attained, at the occasion of the UN summit taking place in New York today and tomorrow, political leaders, activists, journalists and academics discuss what has already been achieved and what still needs to be done.
What are we talking about? The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a set of eight goals, with several concrete targets each, to which all 192 UN member states as well as dozens of international organizations committed in 2000:
Image: courtesy of UNDP
The situation regarding the goals doesn’t look as bleak as some like to imply. But it doesn’t look too good either.
For a more nuanced evaluation, check our our Digital Library, where some or our partners from the north, south, east and west have published excellent reports, analyses and commentaries on 10 years of MDGs. Under the keyword UN Millennium Development Goals you will also find primary resources, such as the UN Millennium Declaration from 2000, organizations that deal with the MDGs, links and ISN news articles.
The fact that we still talk about the MDGs is, in my view, a surprising success for the UN leadership. It shows the UN’s agenda setting power. On the other hand, I’m still skeptical whether we’re not missing something by focusing on these eight development goals. And there is an inherent problem in the goals as with all output-oriented performance evaluation: You only measure what’s measurable and human well-being is notoriously difficult to measure.
Listen, talk, vote: UN General Assembly Hall; photo: Sebastian Delmont/flickr
If you don’t read, watch or listen to Swiss media you probably haven’t noticed. On Tuesday, the new president of the UN General Assembly Joseph Deiss opened the 65th session of the UN’s house of representatives. As a Swiss I feel honored that only a decade after a majority of my co-citizens finally agreed to become a full member of the UN, our former federal councilor and foreign minister will be chairing the General Assembly (GA) for one year.
Joseph Deiss, a former economist, is realistic about his new position. Confronted with the criticism that the UN GA is only a talking shop and lacks any power, he says: So what? The GA is the only body representing all states in an equal manner and the only place where representatives of even the smallest and least important countries have a say. The UN GA is the principal place for international debate.
The GA also facilitates the human aspect of diplomacy. A colleague pointed out that Iran, Iraq and Israel are seated next to each other in the assembly hall. Imagine an Israeli diplomat bumping into the representative of Iran and apologizing: “Oh, I’m very sorry!” – “No problem at all”, the other says.
Addressing, perhaps implicitly, the big number of small states in the opening address, Deiss called for making the UN the center of global governance. Institutions such as the G8 or the G20 may be more efficient and be able to act swiftly. However, it is only the UN that has the legitimacy to make decisions for all states. In order for the UN to play a more active role in global governance, the organization needs to be reformed, which is one of the main points on Deiss’ agenda.
Let’s hope that the opening ceremony will not remain the last occasion we’ve read or heard about the 65th session of the UN General Assembly.
Yes, I was talking to you: fellow bloggers, journalists and news editors.
