Category Topical

Asia Pacific, Europe, Security & Conflict

A World Historical Perspective on the War in Ukraine and the China-Taiwan Standoff

September 10, 2023

As the world faces a protracted war in Ukraine with no clear end in sight and a tense standoff in the Taiwan Strait with potential for catastrophic escalation, the time is ripe for a world historical perspective on these conflicts,…

Asia Pacific, Civil Society, Regional, Security & Conflict, Topical

The Palestinianization of the Rohingya Crisis: No Money, No Love

September 4, 2023

Evidently, for quite a long time, the protracted Palestinian refugee crisis has not only condemned millions of Palestinians to a life of indescribable suffering but also kept the Middle East destabilized and much more volatile than any other region across…

Asia Pacific, Economics, Governance & Law, North America, Policy & Politics

How China’s Political System Discourages Innovation and Encourages IP Theft

July 31, 2023

U.S. observers have long complained that Chinese firms steal intellectual property (IP) from American companies, universities, and research institutions.¹ Most of these complaints stress that the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) directs this theft. Other analysts focus…

Asia Pacific, Economics, Energy & Environment, Europe

Unveiling Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) Challenges: The Potential Dispute Between China and EU

July 24, 2023

In December 2022, the European Union (EU) approved a green tax on carbon-intensive commodities called the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). It aims at reducing carbon leakage, a phenomenon in which manufacturers move carbon-intensive production to countries with laxer climate…

Europe, Policy & Politics, Security & Conflict

Hamster on a Treadmill: Western Diplomacy and the Kosovo Status Dispute

July 10, 2023

Since 1878 the Balkan region has come under successive great power security caps, each of which has turned out to be less permanent than advertised. The war in Ukraine underscores the fact that stability in the area, and in Europe…

Governance & Law, North America, Policy & Politics

Unmoored from the UN: The Struggle to Ratify UNCLOS in the United States

June 26, 2023

On July 9, 1982, after three series of multilateral conferences spanning decades of rigorous negotiations, President Ronald Reagan formally announced that the United States would not sign the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), on the…

Africa, Policy & Politics, Security & Conflict

Sudan: A Tinderbox to All-Out War

June 19, 2023

Violent clashes between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the infamous paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have plunged Sudan into crisis and renewed instability. In mid-April of 2023, brief gun battles in the streets of Khartoum and other strategic areas…

Regional, Topical

International Law’s Role in a Strat-Dominated World

June 12, 2023

This article originally appeared on May 15, 2023, in the SAIS Europe Journal of Global Affairs. Even the finest warrior is defeated when he goes against natural law. By his own hand he is doomed and all creatures are likely…

Europe, Governance & Law, Interviews, Policy & Politics

A Conversation with Charles Dunst: On Defeating the Dictators

June 5, 2023

Charles Dunst is the author of Defeating the Dictators: How Democracy Can Prevail in the Age of the Strongman. In a world where democracy is in decline and autocracy is on the rise, Dunst argues autocracy is not the solution…

Europe, Policy & Politics, Security & Conflict

‘Not in Our Name:’ Why Russia is Not a Decolonial Ally or the Dark Side of Civilizational Communism and Imperialism

May 29, 2023

This contribution was written as part of the research project Postcolonial Hierarchies in Peace & Conflict [grant number 01UG2205A], funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Though decolonial thinking has existed for as long as colonization itself,…

Economics, Governance & Law, Middle East, Policy & Politics, Regional, Security & Conflict, Topical

Rethinking Irish Migration Governance: Why Refugees and Asylum Seekers Must Be Meaningfully Included in Policymaking Decisions

May 10, 2023

Serena Clark recently finished a consultancy at the International Organization for Migration (IOM), UN Migration. She recently completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at Maynooth University. She holds a doctorate in global politics from Trinity College Dublin, where she was a…

Economics, Governance & Law, Middle East, Policy & Politics, Regional, Security & Conflict, Topical

Negotiating With Gangs: Lessons From the 2012 Truce in El Salvador

April 24, 2023

Siniša Vuković is a Senior Lecturer of Conflict Management and Global Policy and Director of the Master of Arts Global Policy Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Eric Rahman is a Foreign Service Officer with the US Department…