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After a decade of negotiations, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), signed in February this year, is now set to go to legislators among the 12 signatory states for ratification. And they have much to consider: the expected economic gains are disputed; protests have erupted in the US, New Zealand,…

Calling for regime change and a participation revolution, humanitarians are once again committing to take accountability to affected populations (AAP) to the next level. But would the full implementation of these demands have unintended side effects? On paper, the proposal for accountability to…

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has often called the German-China relationship a win-win for both countries. During a recent visit to Beijing last month – Merkel’s ninth – German ministers and CEOs publicly signed €2.7 billion worth of agreements. But business rewards are no longer sufficient to…

In den Phantasien vieler heißblütiger Brexit-Unterstützer steht die EU-Armee kurz vor der Tür. Für Penny Mordaunt, Staatssekretärin im britischen Verteidigungsministerium, gibt es für das Vereinigte Königreich nur einen Weg, der Zwangsmitgliedschaft in der EU-Armee zu entgehen: der Austritt aus der…

Die Erwartungen waren groß als vor zehn Jahren die Reformbemühungen des damaligen UN-Generalsekretärs Kofi Annan in der Ablösung der dysfunktionalen Menschenrechtskommission durch einen neuen, schlankeren Rat gipfelten. Man könnte sagen, sie waren zu groß, um nach einer zehnjährigen Bilanz nicht…

Expectations were high in 2006 when former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s reform efforts culminated in the replacement of the dysfunctional UN Commission on Human Rights with a new, downsized Human Rights Council. Now, in light of the council’s 10-year anniversary, high expectations have turned…

If you believe ardent Brexit supporters, the EU is close to establishing a joint army that Britain would be forced to join. For UK Armed Forces Minister Penny Mordaunt the only way to escape this certain fate is to vote “Leave.” This is of course rather fanciful scaremongering. But while Mordaunt's…

The Dublin Regulation, which is the cornerstone of the Common European Asylum System, is crumbling. The law, directly applicable in all European Union states, seeks to achieve a system in which asylum seekers submit only one application for asylum in one member state. In May 2016, the EU Commission…

Abstract What is stabilisation, and why do we need a conceptual discussion? Based on interviews and policy documents from Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States, this article distils two conceptual visions of stabilisation, outlines a range of institutional and…

The oft-invoked “international community” has been caught off guard by a number of events in recent years: the refugee crisis, the rash of terrorist attacks by sympathizers of the Islamic State, regional instability across the Middle East, the Ebola and Zika viruses, the Panama Papers revelations…

Introduction Underfunded, underprioritized and underperforming, rule of law development has been a much-maligned part of the Afghan statebuilding exercise. Critics argue that rule of law efforts were not only poorly managed and implemented but also poorly conceived and designed, driven by…

Five years after France, Britain and the US led a military intervention to protect civilians in Libya, the country is in chaos. Recent territorial gains by Daesh (also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS) have even prompted Western countries to consider yet another military…

When the world is burning, tackling excessive bureaucracy in the humanitarian aid machine might seem like rescue ships planning how to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. Yet, following talks at the World Humanitarian Summit where EU commissioner Kristalina Georgieva said she believes $1bn a…

It was the first time that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon invited the world’s political leaders and top bureaucrats to "stand up for our common humanity and take action to prevent and reduce human suffering." But has the summit delivered on the hopes that it would substantially improve…

In late March, the FBI announced that it would drop its lawsuit against Apple because it was able to unlock the iPhone of Syed Rizwan Farook, a gunman in the December shooting in San Bernardino, California, without the tech giant’s help and using an undisclosed vulnerability. Apple remains alarmed –…

Während in den USA heftige Auseinandersetzungen um Verschlüsselungsmethoden und die daraus resultierenden Herausforderungen für Sicherheitsdienste toben, herrscht in Deutschland Ruhe. Offiziell gilt das Regierungsmantra der "Digitalen Agenda": "Wir unterstützen mehr und bessere Verschlüsselung",…

Why Map Civil Society Actors in EU Refugee Policy? After a decade of relatively steady numbers of asylum applications, there was a significant increase in people seeking asylum in the European Union in 2015. Since then, media outlets and civil society actors have described the situation unfolding…

UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) frequently seeks to develop protection capacity of refugee-hosting states, for example through creating or adapting national legal frameworks; assistance in registration and status determination; knowledge transfer in government institutions; support of civil society…