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11. Delivering on Global Prosperity and Other Key Challenges

Author:
Richard Gowan
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
The London Summit on 2 April marks a potential turning-point in making international institutions fit for the 21 st century – but it is not clear how farreaching its impact will be. The Summit affirms the status of the G20 as a forum to address institutional reform. While it may begin to lay the groundwork for an overhaul of the Bretton Woods institutions, it is far from guaranteed that even major reforms of the global financial framework will stimulate comparable progress in security cooperation, over climate change or on international law.
Topic:
Globalization, International Cooperation, International Organization, Non-Governmental Organization, and Political Economy

12. Hitting Reboot - Where next for climate after Copenhagen?

Author:
Alex Evans and David Steven1
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
Copenhagen got us little further than Bali: a weak political declaration, with 2ºC as the only number. In some respects, the result moves us backwards: the politics are worse, while numbers previously agreed by the Kyoto club are omitted here. The conditions to turn a political declaration into a comprehensive deal appear absent.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, and International Cooperation

13. Right-Financing Security Sector Reform

Author:
Peter Middlebrook and Gordon Peake
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
Security sector reform (SSR) in weak and fragile state environments encompasses a broad range of efforts to improve the capacity, governance, performance, and sustainability of the security system. Financial dimensions of SSR include the allocation of resources according to well-defined priorities, both across sectors and within the security system, and ensuring that expenditure is transparent, efficient and effective. Issues of financial management were central to the origins of SSR in the 1990s, and they are no less central to security sector reform today. Yet current SSR strategies and programming all too often pay insufficient attention to public finance issues. As a result, the medium and long-term fiscal implications of short-run policy decisions are not factored into early post-conflict engagement processes. The negative consequences include unsustainable reforms, the squeezing out of other vital sectors, and, conversely, the under-provision of security. This paper argues for the “right-financing” approach to be adopted for the security sector – striking an appropriate balance between current security needs and the goal of building a fiscally sustainable security sector based on realistic resource projections. This paper makes four policy proposals.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Democratization, Government, and International Cooperation

14. Annual Review of Global Peace Operations 2008

Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
Global demand for peacekeepers continued to rise in 2007. By the end of the year, there were over 160,000 peacekeepers in the field. The UN remained the centerpiece of the international peacekeeping system, providing nearly 50 percent of all peacekeepers in the field. In 2007, the UN's deployments of uniformed personnel grew by 10 percent to 83,000 personnel. In addition, there were nearly 20,000 civilian staff serving in UN peace operations.
Topic:
Security, International Cooperation, Peace Studies, and United Nations

15. Nuclear Weapons: The Challenges Ahead

Author:
Christine Wing
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
Questions related to nuclear weapons are highly contested in the international arena—including the question of how these weapons constitute a challenge to human and international security. Does the challenge exist mainly in the incorporation of these weapons into military doctrines, or in the possibility that more states and/or terrorists will acquire nuclear capabilities? Have nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence prevented major wars, or are they ultimately destabilizing—or could both be true?
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Cooperation, Nuclear Weapons, and War

16. The Post-Kyoto Bidding War: Bringing developing countries into the fold

Author:
Alex Evans
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
This briefing paper explores the difference between the EU and US-Australian positions on global climate policy in the wake of the 2007 Heiligendamm G8 summit and the UN High Level Event on climate change. It notes that although the two have very different analyses of the urgency of responding to climate change, they still concur on two of the most fundamental issues in post-Kyoto policy on climate change mitigation: neither side is arguing for a quantified ceiling on CO2 levels in the atmosphere, and neither is arguing for developing countries to take on quantified targets.
Topic:
International Relations, Climate Change, International Cooperation, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
United States and Australia

17. Peacekeeping in Sudan: The Dynamics of Protection, Partnerships and Inclusive Politics

Author:
Ian Johnstone and Alhaji M.S. Bah
Publication Date:
05-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
The inter-related conflicts and peace processes in Sudan present a monumental peacekeeping challenge. The protracted crisis in Darfur has put the African Union – and the broader international community -- to a severe test. Plans for a hybrid African Union-United Nations operation there continue, but Khartoum remains opposed. Meanwhile, implementation of the north-south peace agreement is faltering, with the UN mission struggling to keep it on track in the face of indifference from both parties and frequent hostility from the north.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Development, International Cooperation, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

18. The UN and Peacekeeping: taking the strain?

Author:
Richard Gowan
Publication Date:
09-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
The summer of 2006 was open season for political sniping at United Nations peace operations, bookended by wrangling over the Darfur conflict and the Israel/Hizbollah conflict in the Lebanon. In early June, a delegation of Security Council ambassadors visited Sudan to negotiate the deployment of around 15,000 troops to Darfur. They were promptly followed by the organisation's Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guéhenno. But a combined total of a month's negotiations failed to deliver any deal.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, International Cooperation, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Sudan, Israel, and Lebanon

19. A Crowded Field: Groups of Friends, the United Nations and the Resolution of Conflict

Author:
Tessa Whitifield
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
This paper traces the evolution of groups of Friends—understood as informal groups of states formed to support the peacemaking of the United Nations—from the emergence of Friends of the Secretary-General on El Salvador in 1990, at a moment of post-Cold War optimism regarding the UN's peacemaking capacity, to the more complex (and crowded) environment for conflict resolution of the mid-2000s. The intervening fifteen years saw an explosion of groups of all kinds to support peacemaking, peacekeeping and post-conflict peacebuilding, a mirror of the extraordinary upsurge in a range of efforts to address global security in this period. Analysis of the groups is complicated by the great diversity they represent, including in the impact they have had on the processes with which they have been engaged. Indeed Annex I distinguishes four different categories of groups engaged with the UN in conflict resolution: Friends of the Secretary- General, Friends of a country, Contact groups and Implementation and/or monitoring groups. This paper's primary focus is on groups that have supported UN-led mediation efforts; however its analysis and conclusions embrace both issues specific to UN leadership, and broader considerations of the efficacy of group engagement in conflict management.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Cooperation, Peace Studies, and United Nations

20. International Organizations and Security Issues: An American Perspective

Author:
J. Matthew Vaccaro
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
This memo outlines the perspectives of US foreign policy practioners concerning the role of international organizations in managing security issues. The memo is based on contemporary literature, numerous interviews with current and former US foreign policy practioners, and the views of the author, a former practioner. The author argues that an instrumental perspective of international organizations prevails among practioners regardless of the party-affiliation of the Administration. He concludes by proposing a methodology that can be used to understand and predict US participation within international organizations on security matters.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States