Search

Begin New Search Political Geography Russia Author Steven Blockmans

1. The Practice, Promise and Peril of EU Lawfare

Author:
Steven Blockmans
Publication Date:
05-2024
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
International Centre for Defence and Security - ICDS
Abstract:
Power generates law and its interpretation, irrespective of whether it serves the cause of international justice. Despite its many shortcomings, the rules-based international order (RBIO) tries to advance that cause. But as a concept, the RBIO is now being rejected by China, Russia and parts of the so-called “Global South” for what they claim is the Western hegemonism and liberal values that underpin it. The fact that these countries have voluntarily signed up to the international covenants that enshrine the legal doctrines to strengthen the sovereign rights of weaker countries, especially in the context of economic relations, makes it hard to sympathise with the argument that the RBIO should be replaced by another concept, especially one that is advanced by autocracies. The RBIO has been partially shaped by the European Union (EU), a community of law that encodes the aspiration of “good global governance” in its constitutional DNA. With the waning “Brussels effect”—the soft power of EU law in shaping international rules and standards, the EU should consider how to instrumentalise the law to protect and promote its foreign policy interests, first and foremost the protection and promotion of the RBIO. This report unpacks the notion of “lawfare” and conducts a comparative analysis of such practices by the US, China, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and others to assess the promise and peril of the EU using the power of the law to its strategic advantage.
Topic:
International Law, Sanctions, European Union, International Order, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Europe, Turkey, Ukraine, and United States of America

2. The EU’s Magnitsky Act Obsolete in the Face of Russia’s Crimes in Ukraine?

Author:
Steven Blockmans
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Centre for Defence and Security - ICDS
Abstract:
Despite the mounting evidence of the most serious of human rights violations being conducted by Russian forces on Ukrainian soil, the EU has chosen not to use its new Magnitsky Act to blacklist the perpetrators and their commanders. Instead, the EU has preferred to respond to Russia’s ‘dumb’ bombs with increasingly ‘dumb’ sanctions. This Brief explains why, after decades of work to smarten up its restrictive measures, the politicisation of human rights sanctions and the high threshold of evidentiary standards make it very hard for the Council to rely on evidence gathered from transition countries where the justice sector is still vulnerable to widespread corruption and political cronyism.
Topic:
Human Rights, International Law, European Union, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

3. Europe’s Indo-Pacific Tilt: Estonian and Japanese Interests

Author:
Frank Jüris, Steven Blockmans, Kazuto Suzuki, Sanshiro Hosaka, and Maret Nukke
Publication Date:
01-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
International Centre for Defence and Security - ICDS
Abstract:
Reshaped by the new great power competition, the international order has been undergoing revolutionary transformations. Revanchist Russia has unleashed a barbarian war against a sovereign European nation, while increasingly militarised and contentious China looms as a not-so-insidious threat in the Indo-Pacific. In response to these shifting dynamics and mounting geopolitical tensions, Europe is now awakening to the new reality and paying greater attention to the far-away region. At first glance, Estonia and Japan may seem like odd partners, yet they share vital commonalities and common interests impossible to ignore. Amidst Russia’s ongoing brutal invasion of Ukraine and China’s territorial claims over Taiwan, Japan’s strong advocacy in the Indo-Pacific region confirms how essential unity, consensus, and solidarity are for tackling global challenges in an environment of limited resources. This report brings together foreign and security policy experts to improve our understanding of each other’s security concerns — be it threats in cyber and information space, ruptures in trade, energy, and food, or authoritarian neighbours — by taking a step closer to a shared threat perception. Acknowledging unprecedented challenges to global security and rules-based order that democracy and democracies are confronted with from East to West, this report critically examines whether the European Union’s regional strategy maximises and realises the union’s full potential in the Indo-Pacific, which will test its actorness and agency and determine the role for the decades — if not centuries — to come. As the long-distance race for technological hegemony between the U.S. and China — of which Japan and Estonia are by far neither neutral nor casual observers — tightens, the report highlights national policies and capabilities needed to stay competitive, as well as to reduce known and potential vulnerabilities, from the perspective of economic security. China’s dramatic rise — as not only an economic but also a military superpower — entails an assertive and oftentimes assailing foreign policy that is felt both in Europe and the Indo-Pacific alike. The authoritarian regime in Beijing cleverly exploits the vacuum of power wherever it finds any. Cautioning against repeating the old mistakes of China-centrism, the report advocates for fostering multifaced cooperation with Japan in the framework of EU-Japan and Estonia-Japan relations. Thus, the report recommends that the EU as a whole and its individual member states should continue building on the positive momentum generated by the Indo-Pacific strategies and modify their approach to incorporate like-minded partners. From freedom of information to information- and cybersecurity, the report reminds us that leadership matters. It explains the changing tides in the Japanese mainstream public opinions that have already washed away the decades of harmful Russia-centrism from media, academia, and corridors of power and thus resulted in a society successfully resisting malign foreign disinformation campaigns. Estonia and Japan should facilitate digital transformation beyond their national borders, promote economic security, and exert geopolitical power through domestically produced sophisticated technology. The report also probes Sino-Russian relations from the perspective of Chinese strategic interests in its own neighbourhood. Able to contain the West by redirecting its focus and resources towards the war in Ukraine, Russia creates additional operation space for China in the Taiwan Strait. With the war raging In Europe, it should be clear that appeasing an aggressor with concessions and seemingly clever compromises only emboldens the latter, making it even more contentious in both territorial claims and bellicose actions. To prevent a conflict from breaking out in the Taiwan Strait, the EU should be building up allied immunity by counterbalancing China in the Indo-Pacific and proactively defending the rules-based world order.
Topic:
Defense Policy, European Union, Cybersecurity, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), ASEAN, and Economic Security
Political Geography:
Russia, Japan, China, Europe, Ukraine, Taiwan, Asia, Estonia, and Indo-Pacific

4. Opinion on Ukraine’s application for membership of the European Union

Author:
Michael Emerson, Steven Blockmans, Veronika Movchan, and Artem Remizov
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Abstract:
This paper responds to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s request on 28 February 2022 for his country to accede to membership of the European Union. The European Council meeting at Versailles on 10-11 March endorsed the Council’s invitation to the European Commission to produce an Opinion on this request. The present paper is our Opinion on the position that we would like to see the Commission take. Since it comes at a time when Ukraine is being attacked in Russia’s genocidal war of choice, two quite different matters have to be addressed: first the fundamental political issues at stake for the whole of Europe, and second, the more technical modalities of the accession process.
Topic:
European Union, Regional Integration, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

5. A transformational moment? The EU's response to Russia's war in Ukraine

Author:
Sergio Carrera, Steven Blockmans, Malorie Schaus, Willem Pieter De Groen, and Tinatin Akhvlediani
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Abstract:
It is often said that the EU is forged in crisis. After weathering what feels like so many crises over the past 15 years, the EU’s swift and decisive response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine has, for the most part, been welcomed as the EU finally getting a crisis right. In the first weeks of the war, the EU adopted an impressive series of sanctions, rapidly widening the net cast over growing numbers of targeted individuals and institutions. It has also provided over EUR 2 billion of ‘lethal aid’ to Ukraine to help it fight off the invaders, a notion that would have been absolutely unthinkable only a few short months ago. In advance of our 2022 edition of the annual CEPS Ideas Lab and harnessing our broad inhouse expertise, we gave our CEPS contributors a simple instruction for compiling this special report – to dive deep into their specialist areas and provide their perspective on whether the invasion and subsequent crisis is a true ‘game changer’ in terms of the EU’s immediate and ongoing policy response. Or, to put it another way, will 2022 be viewed by future historians as a year of genuine transformation, a transformation fuelled by the largest conventional conflict in Europe since the end of the Second World War? The picture that emerges from the fog of war is a fragmented one. A general conclusion is that while there have been some positive changes in certain policy areas (such as migration, sanctions, energy and climate), the use of the term ‘game changer’ is as of yet unwarranted. The only real exception here, and where an alleged transformation can be argued is really starting to place, is in security and defence policy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Sanctions, European Union, Crisis Management, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

6. Ukraine, Russia and the need for more flexibility in EU foreign policy-making

Author:
Steven Blockmans
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Abstract:
The downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine has unleashed a storm of grief and anger in the EU and around the world. Heads of state and government have joined the public outcry and called for tough action against those directly and indirectly responsible for this heinous crime. The EU's reaction, however, has been lame so far by comparison.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Territorial Disputes, and Sanctions
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine