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Executive Summary As a consequence of the Chinese government’s violent repression of the Tiananmen Square protests on June 4, 1989, human rights have become a central topic in the foreign relations of the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese party-state was internationally criticized for the…

He would be forced to “close up shop.” With these words, Gerhard Schindler, head of the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND), warned against a substantial reform of the agency, implying that stronger regulation of the BND would harm its ability to provide security to Germany. After the recent…

Abstract Reviewing findings from the recent institutional turn in peacebuilding research, this article identifies two conflicting arguments with respect to institutional designs that affect the performance of peace operations. One perspective favours functional decentralization and mission latitude,…

The strategic partnership between India and the European Union has stagnated over the years, producing few results in terms of strategic cooperation. Last year, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi dropped Brussels from his itinerary and planned his trip to accommodate other important European…

For the first time in 88 years, a sitting US president will visit Cuba next week. Last December, Barack Obama announced that he would only visit the island if human rights and fundamental freedoms had improved. It is therefore expedient that exactly one week before Obama’s visit, four political…

In November 2015, when the International Monetary Fund announced it was adding China’s currency, the renminbi (RMB), to its basket of four reserve currencies known as Special Drawing Rights (SDR), the fund’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, hailed it as a move that “will bring about a more…

Charlie Savage’s piece on the legal basis for the March 5 US strike against an al Shabaab training camp, which allegedly killed 150 fighters, raises the intriguing question of whether the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) has been stretched yet again, this time to justify US operations…

Executive Summary The report of the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations is only the most recent example of growing political recognition of conflict prevention and the protection of civilians, in particular by non-military means. Support to local conflict management is key to the…

Résumé exécutif La reconnaissance politique de la prévention des conflits et de la protection des civils, en particulier avec des moyens non militaires, est croissante ; le rapport du Groupe indépendant de haut niveau sur les opérations de paix en constitue l’exemple le plus récent. Le soutien à la…

Five years after the United States, France and Britain intervened to protect civilians in Libya, the country is in chaos. When Gaddafi’s regime collapsed, the state was picked apart and destroyed. Recent territorial gains by the Islamic State have Western countries considering another military…

In the usually predictable world of African presidents-for-life, it doesn’t get more exciting than this. José Eduardo dos Santos, Angola’s president since 1979 and constitutionally allowed to stay in power until 2022, made the surprise announcement on Friday that he would leave “active political…

Contrary to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s boldest dreams, illiberal national populists will not run Europe anytime soon. In many countries, the shrinking center still just about holds. But this should provide little comfort. Populists don’t need to run Europe to ruin it. Of course, the…

Under the flag of the United Nations, more than 125,000 civilian experts, police officers and soldiers are currently deployed in 16 missions worldwide to give peacebuilding efforts a better chance of success. In most cases, these efforts take years. Even as politicians and military leaders…

Introduction The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which came into effect in January 2016, are a new, universal set of economic, social and environmental goals and targets that United Nations (UN) member states are expected to achieve by 2030. The SDGs build and expand on the eight Millennium…

The results of the European Union summit on March 7 with Turkey will be decisive for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s proposed “European-Turkish solution” to the refugee crisis. Ahead of the summit, observers expected that the Turkish government would agree to take back asylum seekers from Greece.…

For the past two decades, evaluation of development assistance has relied on criteria of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) to assess the merit of development interventions in a structured and comparable way. In thousands of evaluations each year, evaluators thus assess the relevance,…

Last December in Paris, 195 countries reached a landmark agreement committing nearly every country to lowering greenhouse-gas emissions in response to the effects of climate change. The Paris agreement holds a great deal of promise. Negotiating countries dedicated themselves to preventing global…

Consulting people about the aid they receive is recognized as central to improving the quality of humanitarian assistance. This is particularly valuable in insecure contexts, such as Afghanistan and Somalia, where humanitarian staff have limited opportunities for face-to-face contact with the…

Für den Oxford-Wirtschaftswissenschaftler Paul Collier liegen die Dinge klar. Angela Merkel ist verantwortlich für die Flüchtlingskrise. „Wer sonst?“. Er weiß auch ganz genau, warum Deutschland so gehandelt hat: „Deutschland gefällt sich offensichtlich in der Retterrolle“. Es wäre leicht, dies als…

Executive Summary In 2011, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) principals adopted the Transformative Agenda to give new momentum to the 2005 Humanitarian Reform and strengthen leadership, coordination and accountability in humanitarian action. Their ultimate objective was to enhance…