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1. China, Africa and the WHO : a challenge for post covid19 multilateralism

Author:
Valerie Niquet
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Japan Institute Of International Affairs (JIIA)
Abstract:
China plays a significant role in Africa, particularly in Ethiopia, where the current Director-General of the WHO was Minister of Health and then Minister of Foreign Affairs. This opaque influence and the support given by Beijing to Dr. Tedros seems to have weighed on the positions taken by the WHO in the face of the Covid 19 crisis. The consequences of these decisions are now being felt worldwide and contribute to undermining the credibility of a fragile multilateral system.
Topic:
International Relations, Diplomacy, United Nations, World Health Organization, Multilateralism, Soft Power, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Africa, China, and Asia

2. International Peace Efforts in the Syrian Civil War: The ‘Inevitable’ Failure?

Author:
I. Aytac Kadioglu
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Institution:
Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:
The purpose of this article is to assess international negotiation efforts towards ending the civil war in Syria. Although many peace events have been organised since the beginning of the civil war, the existing literature has paid little attention to the impact of international peace efforts in ending the Syrian war. The article aims to close this gap by assessing major peace efforts between 2011 and 2019; The Arab League Peace Plan, the United Nations peace initiatives, and the Geneva, Vienna and Astana peace talks. It analyses these efforts through official reports and documents published by the UN, US, Republic of Turkey, UN Security Council, and members of peace initiatives. These documents are complemented by newspaper articles showing the official views of the regional and global actors as well as the key agents of the conflict. Therefore, the article reveals the reasons for the failure of these conflict resolution efforts. The Syrian government’s reluctance to end the conflict in a non-violent way, the armed groups’ dream of territorial gains and regional and global powers’ involvement in the conflict prevented the solution of the conflict. It utilises official negotiations and ripeness approaches to investigate the insights and contents of peace efforts. The article argues that the regional and global powers have acted as facilitators instead of mediators in the peace talks. It finds that even though these peace events are viewed as official negotiations, they are only pre-negotiation efforts.
Topic:
Civil War, Diplomacy, International Cooperation, United Nations, and Peace
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Asia, and Syria

3. Data Protection and Digital Agency for Refugees

Author:
Dragana Kaurin
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
For the millions of refugees fleeing conflict and persecution every year, access to information about their rights and control over their personal data are crucial for their ability to assess risk and navigate the asylum process. While asylum seekers are required to provide significant amounts of personal information on their journey to safety, they are rarely fully informed of their data rights by UN agencies or local border control and law enforcement staff tasked with obtaining and processing their personal information. Despite recent improvements in data protection mechanisms in the European Union, refugees’ informed consent for the collection and use of their personal data is rarely sought. Using examples drawn from interviews with refugees who have arrived in Europe since 2013, and an analysis of the impacts of the 2016 EU-Turkey deal on migration, this paper analyzes how the vast amount of data collected from refugees is gathered, stored and shared today, and considers the additional risks this collection process poses to an already vulnerable population navigating a perilous information-decision gap.
Topic:
United Nations, Refugee Issues, European Union, Asylum, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Asia

4. Q&A: The International Court of Justice & the Genocide of the Rohingya

Author:
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Abstract:
FACTSHEET | NOVEMBER 2019: Starting in October 2016 and then again in August 2017, Myanmar’s security forces engaged in so-called “clearance operations” against the Rohingya, a distinct Muslim ethnic minority, in Rakhine State, Myanmar. The operations, in particular those that started in August 2017, were characterized by brutal violence and serious human rights violations on a mass scale. Survivors report indiscriminate killings, rape and sexual violence, arbitrary detention, torture, beatings, and forced displacement. Reports have also shown that security forces were systematically planning for such an operation against the Rohingya even before the purported reason for the violence — retaliation for small scale attacks committed by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) — occurred. As a result, an estimated 745,000 people — mostly ethnic Rohingya — were forced to flee to Bangladesh. According to the UN Human Rights Council-mandated Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (FFM), the treatment of the Rohingya population during the “clearance operations” amounts to genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, the commission of which evokes specific obligations and responsibility under international law. In its final report, published in September 2019, the FFM concluded that “the State of Myanmar breached its obligation not to commit genocide” and found that Myanmar “continues to harbor genocidal intent” towards the Rohingya. On November 11, 2019, The Republic of The Gambia filed suit against Myanmar in the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) for violating the Genocide Convention. This momentous lawsuit brings a critical focus to Myanmar’s responsibility as a state for genocide and compliments ongoing investigations into individual accountability. This fact sheet answers fundamental questions about the ICJ case, and seeks to clarify available avenues for justice for the crimes committed against the Rohingya population.
Topic:
Genocide, Human Rights, International Law, United Nations, State Violence, Atrocities, and International Court of Justice (ICJ)
Political Geography:
Asia, Southeast Asia, and Myanmar

5. PARADOXICAL PERCEPTIONS ON SYRIANS’ FORCED MIGRATION TO TURKEY: A CASE STUDY OF ISTANBUL MUHTARS

Author:
H. Deniz GENÇ and Merve ÖZDEMİRKIRAN-EMBEL
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Alternative Politics
Institution:
Department of International Relations, Abant Izzet Baysal University, Turkey
Abstract:
As one of Syria’s neighbors, Turkey has become a refuge for more than 3.5 million forced Syrian migrants. Though many of them are living in Turkey’s border cities, in or around the refugee camps, many others have already dispersed to other cities. Among these cities, Istanbul has the largest Syrian community. Drawing on a qualitative field work in Istanbul’s neighborhoods, this study explores the Syrian migration to Istanbul and reports the attitudes towards this movement of the local neighborhood and village headmen, known as muhtars in the Turkish local administrative system. As the study shows, their attitudes towards forced Syrian migrants are paradoxical, marked both by feelings of disturbance, worry and uneasiness, and at the same time welcome and support. The study concludes by discussing historical and cultural reasons for these paradoxical attitudes by relating them to the understanding of hospitality in Turkish society to show how socio-psychological explanations of attitude formation towards Syria’s forced migrants seem more appropriate.
Topic:
Migration, Regional Cooperation, United Nations, Diaspora, and Refugees
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Asia, Istanbul, Syria, and Ankara

6. TURKISH MEDIA’S RESPONSE TO THE 2015 ‘REFUGEE CRISIS’

Author:
Fulya MEMİŞOĞLU and H. Çağlar BAŞOL
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Alternative Politics
Institution:
Department of International Relations, Abant Izzet Baysal University, Turkey
Abstract:
In 2015 the forced displacement of Syrians entered a new phase with the sharp rise in the numbers of refugees arriving at Europe’s shores mainly through the Eastern Mediterranean route. Grabbing widespread media and public attention, this unprecedent refugee influx and its surrounding events are commonly dubbed as ‘Europe’s refugee crisis’, which as some scholars highlight, is a ‘re-contextualised’ version of already existing processes of politicisation and mediatisation of immigration. This paper intends to contribute to the debate on ‘mediatisation of refugee crisis’ by giving an insight on the role of Turkish media in telling its readers what to think about the ‘refugee crisis’ during this period of particular significance. The paper relies on a content analysis of front-page articles from three Turkish newspapers (Birgün, Hürriyet and Yeni Akit) between July and November 2015. By limiting our analysis to ‘small data’, we look closely how these newspapers on different sides of the political spectrum react to the spread of the refugee crisis to Europe and its implications on Turkey. We highlight the type of coverage and the definition of issues in this particular media content. Overall, we find that the highly mediatised coverage of the Aylan Kurdi incident triggered a significant discursive shift as it has in other national contexts. While all the three newspapers –regardless of ideological stance– were responsive to the spread of the refugee crisis into Europe, news coverage about topics such as socio-economic vulnerabilities of refugees, issues of legal status and social integration in the domestic context was minimal within our period of analysis. We also assert that the way the three newspapers frame the ‘refugee crisis’ especially in relation to domestic or foreign politics shows significant variation. While we find that issues related to border security and border violations received the most intense coverage during the analysis period, we highlight that the coverage is embedded in a humanitarian narrative rather than a security narrative.
Topic:
Migration, United Nations, Mass Media, Diaspora, European Union, Media, and Refugee Crisis
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Asia, and Syria

7. China’s challenge to human rights: Increased proactivity may weaken the UN human rights system

Author:
Katja Creutz
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
China has raised its stakes in human rights governance. It has systematically sought to remove human rights from the centre of the international order by launching alternative human rights concepts, blocking human rights financing at the UN, and hindering civil society involvement in human rights scrutiny. China’s approach to human rights is not only guided by past experiences of humiliation and the idea of developmentalism, but first and foremost by the desire to secure the existing political system and its leadership. The alternative design for human rights is built around consensual cooperation rather than hard legal obligations and international scrutiny. It promotes dialogue and capacity-building instead of practices such as naming and shaming. States supportive of human rights should respond to Chinese efforts in the Human Rights Council as well as within the UN more broadly. This can be done by raising awareness of the systematic attack on human rights, increasing knowledge about Chinese foreign policy objectives, and by creating practices that help to achieve common stances.
Topic:
Civil Society, Human Rights, United Nations, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
China and Asia

8. People’s Republic of the United Nations: China’s Emerging Revisionism in International Organizations

Author:
Kristine Lee and Alexander Sullivan
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security
Abstract:
China is increasingly using its economic, political, and institutional power to change the global governance system from within. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under President Xi Jinping has become more proactive in injecting its ideological concepts into international statements of consensus and harnessing the programmatic dimensions of global governance to advance its own foreign policy strategies, such as “One Belt, One Road.”1 These efforts demand the attention of the United States, its allies and partners, and civil society. If unchecked, they will hasten the export of some of the most harmful aspects of China’s political system, including corruption, mass surveillance, and the repression of individual and collective rights. This report examines China’s approach to seven organs and functions of the United Nations (U.N.): the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the Human Rights Council, Peacekeeping Operations, Accreditation for Non-Governmental Organizations, the International Telecommunication Union, UNESCO, and the Office of Drugs and Crime.
Topic:
Economics, International Organization, Politics, United Nations, and Governance
Political Geography:
China and Asia

9. International Collaboration Efforts to Denuclearize the Korean Peninsula

Author:
George Hutchinson
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
The international community’s confrontation with North Korea reached crisis proportions in 2017, following Pyongyang’s ballistic missile launches and its sixth nuclear test. In the wake of a series of high-level summits, tensions began to thaw in 2018. At the inter-Korean summit in Panmunjom on April 27, 2018, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un agreed to seek support from the international community to denuclearize. But the international community, led by the U.S. in concert with the United Nations Security Council, has already worked tirelessly over the past 26 years to coordinate efforts to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. Successive U.S. administrations have worked through the cycle of confrontation, crisis, discussions and agreements with North Korea. Nonetheless, all these agreements have ultimately fallen apart, allowing North Korea to advance its nuclear program. This paper focuses on two key questions: How has the international community contributed toward denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, and what is its role in facilitating the complete, verifiable dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear program? Ultimately, the success of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula will be measured by whether North Korea completely dismantles its nuclear program. Fortunately, the international “tools” are on the table, but successfully denuclearizing North Korea will, in the end, be a matter of effectively enforcing existing international measures.
Topic:
Nuclear Weapons, United Nations, Sanctions, Nonproliferation, and Negotiation
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, North Korea, and United States of America

10. Whose Coup? The Alliance of Park Chung-hee and Kim Jong-pil

Author:
Justin Malzac
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
The historiography of the one of the most significant events of the “Park Chung-hee Era” has changed little in the past decades. Recent research does not analyze the agency of Park and his fellow coup makers. It has largely been taken for granted that Park was the architect and leader of the May 16th coup that eventually brought him to power. However, in 2015, new interviews with Kim Jong-pil were released that strongly contradicted much of the traditional narrative. Kim, one of the main coup leaders, strongly asserted that he was the mastermind behind the coup, and that he enlisted Park to the cause, not the other way around. By comparing Kim’s new narrative with the primary record, this paper attempts to assess the veracity of his comments that challenge the conventional narrative.
Topic:
United Nations, History, and Coup
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, North America, and United States of America