Category: Humanitarian Issues

Categories
Humanitarian Issues

“Soldiering Through”: A Preliminary Assessment of Serbia’s OSCE Chairmanship

High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini shakes hands with Serbia`s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic. Image: European External Action Service/Flickr

This article was originally published by the Security and Human Rights blog of the Netherlands Helsinki Committee on 2 December, 2015.

When in December 2011 Serbia – together with Switzerland – put forward its candidacy for the OSCE Chairmanship, it was seeking wider international affirmation and influence. Belgrade wanted to prove itself as capable of sustaining a serious, committed service to European security, and also hoped to bolster its chances for EU membership. The fact that 2015 presented an important milestone – 40 years since the signing of the Helsinki Final Act – was not without significance.

Continue reading ““Soldiering Through”: A Preliminary Assessment of Serbia’s OSCE Chairmanship”
Categories
Humanitarian Issues

Military Leaders: Climate Change, Energy, National Security Are Inextricably Linked

The world facing climate change. Image: geralt/Pixabay

This article was originally published by New Security Beat on 9 November, 2015.

In the midst of a minefield on day two of Desert Storm Task Force Ripper, Marine Corps Operations Officer Richard Zilmer stepped out of his armored personnel carrier, squinted up at the sky, and saw nothing but black from horizon to horizon. Iraqi forces, trying desperately to blunt the attack of coalition armies, had set fire to hundreds of Kuwaiti oil wells and oil-filled trenches.

“The sun was a little white ball about the size of a ping-pong ball that you could look up at directly,” Zilmer, now a retired lieutenant general, said at the Wilson Center on October 21. “This was surreal to about the third power…truly for me a moment that I’ll never forget.”

He wondered, does anyone know we’re here? Or know why we’re here? The puzzle pieces linking energy and national security started to shift into place.

Continue reading “Military Leaders: Climate Change, Energy, National Security Are Inextricably Linked”
Categories
Humanitarian Issues

Russian Applications For US Asylum Skyrocket In 2015

LGBT activists marching for gay rights in Moscow. Image: Bogomolov.PL/Wikimedia

This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on 12 November, 2015.

The number of new U.S. asylum applications by Russians has reached its highest level in more than two decades, a surge that immigration lawyers link to the Kremlin’s tightening grip on politics, pervasive corruption, and discrimination and violence against sexual minorities.

Russian nationals filed 1,454 new asylum applications in the 2015 fiscal year ending September 30, up 50 percent from the previous year and more than double the number filed in 2012, when President Vladimir Putin returned to the Kremlin after a four-year stint as prime minister, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security data obtained by RFE/RL under the Freedom Of Information Act.

Continue reading “Russian Applications For US Asylum Skyrocket In 2015”
Categories
Humanitarian Issues

Finally! A Peace Policy for Kenya

“Keep Peace”, carved in a tree in Kibera, Kenya during the post election violence in 2008. Image: The Advocacy Project/Flickr

This article was originally published by Saferworld on 4 November, 2015.

The need for a national framework to guide efforts to prevent conflict and build peace in Kenya cannot be overstated. For a long time Northern Kenya was seen as the most problematic region of the country, with frequent incidents of cattle rustling fuelled by the proliferation of small arms and light weapons. The rest of Kenya remained ‘peaceful’, except for the cycles of political violence that have erupted during every election since the introduction of a multi-party democracy in 1992. The worst political violence was experienced in 2007–08, raising concern about the country’s capacity to deal with such high levels of violence and the effectiveness of its early warning and response, mediation, and security deployment.

Continue reading “Finally! A Peace Policy for Kenya”
Categories
Humanitarian Issues

What Are ‘Hotspots’? The Inevitable Rise of Detention in the Quest for Asylum Solutions in the EU

Migrants in Hungary near the Serbian border, August 2015. Image: Gémes Sándor/SzomSzed/Wikimedia

This article was originally published by the Centre for International Policy Studies (CIPS) on 16 October, 2015.

The Syrian refugee crisis has finally grabbed the world’s attention and is testing the sustainability of the European Union and its common asylum adjudication procedures. Policymakers are struggling to find solutions from under a complex latticework of administering and securitizing refugee and immigration admissions policy.

This struggle is amplified by the revelation that the influx may represent only the tip of a much larger cohort. As president of the European Council Donald Tusk predicted at a recent EU leaders summit: ‘The greatest tide of refugees and migrants is yet to come.’ These future asylum seekers are not only from Syria but also from Iraq, Afghanistan, and other impoverished, violent, and at-war states.

Continue reading “What Are ‘Hotspots’? The Inevitable Rise of Detention in the Quest for Asylum Solutions in the EU”