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532. North Caucasus Weekly: Rebels Reportedly Kill Dozens of Servicemen in Ingushet
- Author:
- Mairbek Vatchagaev
- Publication Date:
- 10-2008
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
- Abstract:
- Following the capture of the foothill villages of Muzhichi and Yandare in Ingushetia on the evening of October 16 (North Caucasus Weekly, October 16), militants from the Ingush Jamaat “Shariat” carried out another series of high-profile actions against Russian troops. According to various sources, more than 50 Russian military personnel were killed and wounded in two assaults by the militants on the Galashki Highway on October 18, which would make this the most audacious attack by the jamaat members in Ingushetia to date. According to the media reports, the attack on the Russian military motorcade took place on the Alkhasty-Surkhokhi road in Ingushetia's Nazran district at ten in the morning. According to Ingush Prosecutor General Yury Turygyn, only two soldiers were killed and five were wounded in the attack. All of them were from Interior Ministry detachments based in the village of Alkhasty (RIA Novosti, October 18) According to Turygyn, the assault was carried out by members of “illegal armed formations” with the purpose of destabilizing the situation in the region. Turygyn, however, was apparently referring to the casualties in an attack on another column of servicemen that had occurred earlier on October 18, and the Regnum News Agency quoted a source in the Interior Ministry department forIngushetia's Sunzha district as saying that all the soldiers in the column targeted in the second attack were killed except forone and that the total number killed was around 50. The surviving serviceman was transported to the Sunzha Central District Hospital, the source said (www.regnum.ru/news/1071507.html). Thus, according to the Ingush police, two attacks took place, not one, as the Ingush Prosecutor General's Office claims.
- Topic:
- Security and Ethnic Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, and Asia
533. Status of Forces and Status of Mission Agreements under the ESDP: The EU's Evolving Practice
- Author:
- Aurel Sari
- Publication Date:
- 02-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The conduct of EU military and civilian crisis management operations in third states within the context of the European Security and Defence Policy has presented the EU with new administrative and operational challenges in recent years, including the need to define the international legal position of such operations and their personnel during their presence abroad. In some cases, the EU has entered into agreements with host states to determine the legal status of EU crisis management operations, while in other cases the application of already existing arrangements has been extended to them. The status agreements negotiated directly by the EU confer more extensive privileges and immunities on EU operations and their personnel than current international practice in this area would warrant. Despite opposition to this policy within the EU, it has remained in place under the two model status agreements adopted by the Council of the European Union in 2005 to serve as a basis for negotiations with prospective host states in all future EU operations. Even though no norm of international law compels the EU to request only such privileges and immunities as are absolutely necessary for the purposes of an operation, its practice of negotiating extensive privileges and immunities does not sit well with the growing emphasis on the accountability of peace support operations. This article offers an overview of the evolution of the EU's practice of concluding status agreements in the context of the European Security and Defence Policy and examines the key provisions of the two model status agreements.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- Europe
534. Making Markets Work: A Review of CDM Performance and the Need for Reform
- Author:
- Charlotte Streck and Jolene Lin
- Publication Date:
- 04-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is the first global market mechanism in international environmental law. It has been much lauded for its success. However, doubts whether the CDM governance structure is robust enough to meet the challenges of regulating an international market mechanism in the long term are emerging. The Executive Board (EB)'s decision-making practice is often not predictable and many of its decisions have come as a surprise to project participants and technical project experts. Members of the EB often have multiple responsibilities which result in a complicated situation of conflicting interests. Finally, private sector participants in the CDM who have been aversely affected by EB decisions have no right of recourse and essentially little if any due process rights. This article argues that incorporating mechanisms to promote procedural fairness and creating an appeals process for aggrieved CDM participants will promote transparency and accountability in the CDM decision-making processes. This is essential for the sound operation of the CDM regulatory regime which will have a direct positive effect on the international carbon market. After conducting a comparative analysis of other regimes in which international bodies take decisions that directly affect individuals, most notably the system of targeted sanctions of the UN Security Council and the Anti-Doping Regime, as well as examining the World Bank Inspection Panel and the European Ombudsman as models of international review mechanisms, the authors set out proposals for reform of the CDM, including professionalizing the EB and the panels, securing better and more consistent funding, the elimination of political interference, and the introduction of administrative law-like processes.
- Topic:
- Security, Governance, and Reform
- Political Geography:
- Europe
535. North Caucasus Weekly:Vostok and Zapad Battalions to be “Reorganized"
- Publication Date:
- 11-2008
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
- Abstract:
- The deputy commander of Russia's army, Colonel General Vladimir Moltenskoi, announced on November 8 that the two Chechen-manned special force battalions of the Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), Vostok and Zapad, will be reformed into companies of the Defense Ministry's 42nd Motor Rifle Division, which isbased in Chechnya. According to RIA Novosti, Moltenskoi announced the reorganization at a meeting with Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov in Grozny. However, there was some confusion about the battalions' fate: Interfax quoted the Chechen president's press service as saying that Moltenskoi had said the battalions would be disbanded. Yet Moltenskoi told Interfax on November 8 that the units would not be disbanded but rather reorganized into companies within the 42nd Motor Rifle Division. Interfax on November 10 quoted Kadyrov's press service as saying that it had been stated during the meeting between the Chechen president and Moltenskoi onNovember 8 that the criminal investigation committee of the Russian Prosecutor General had ordered the Chechen Interior Ministry to bring Sulim Yamadaev to interrogators by force. Prague Watchdog reported on November 10 that the Chechen Interior Ministry had received a formal request on November 7 that Sulim Yamadaev be sent to the Gudermes district investigative unit for questioning. According to the website, Yamadaev is the principal suspect in the case of the murder of aGudermes district resident committed ten years ago.
- Topic:
- Security and Ethnic Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, and Asia
536. North Caucasus Weekly: Ingushetia's Parliament Confirms New Presiden
- Publication Date:
- 11-2008
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
- Abstract:
- Ingushetia's parliament on October 31 confirmed Yunus-Bek Yevkurov as the republic's president, replacing Murat Zyazikov, who resigned the previous day (North Caucasus Weekly, October 31). According to Itar-Tass, 16 legislators out of the 18 who attended the session voted to confirm the 45-year-old colonel, while one voted against and one ballot was invalidated. The news agency reported that Yevkurov was born into an ethnic Ingush family in North Ossetia and graduated from the Ryazan Higher School of Airborne Troops in 1989. In 2004, he graduated from the Academy of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, Russia's highest military education institution. In 1999, Yevkurov commanded a unit of Russian paratroopers that entered Kosovo and took control of the international airport ahead of the forces of other countries. As the Moscow Times wrote on November 1, Russian media reported that Yevkurov led the 200-man contingent that caught NATO off guard by racing from Bosnia to Kosovo to occupy the airport in Kosovo's capital of Pristina, an operation at the end of the Kosovo war that “risked a dangerous confrontation with NATO troops, who were also heading to the airport.” According to the English-language newspaper, it was later revealed that an armed clash was only averted because the local NATO commander, British General Michael Jackson, refused to be involved in a conflict that could “start World War III.” However, Itar-Tass, in its description of the incident, wrote that the Russian race to occupy the airport in Pristina “went down in the history of the Russian Airborne Troops as one of the most successful peacekeeping operations.”
- Topic:
- Security, NATO, and Ethnic Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Bosnia, Asia, and Kosovo
537. North Caucasus Weekly: Zyazikov Steps Dow
- Publication Date:
- 10-2008
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
- Abstract:
- On October 30, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree ordering an early end to Murat Zyazikov's term as Ingushetia's president, Itar-Tass reported, citing the Russian presidential press service. Zyazikov, the former KGB general who headed Ingushetia for six and a half years, said that his resignation as Ingushetia's president was absolutely voluntary and connected to his transfer to another job. “I will be working in Moscow,” Interfax quoted him as saying. Zyazikov did not indicate what his new job would be.
- Topic:
- Security and Ethnic Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Asia, and Moscow
538. Editorial
- Author:
- Cindy Strömer and Andrew Sullivan
- Publication Date:
- 07-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
- Institution:
- Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- The Strategic Studies Student Conference (S3C), is the largest student-organized The Strategic Studies Student Conference (S3C), is the largest student-organized conference for students across the country to participate in academic presentations. This year, the tenth anniversary of the conference, students from as far as Uzbekistan submitted over sixty paper proposals. The paper selection committee, consisting primarily of masters and PhD students from the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, grouped the successful proposals into nine conference panels. The twenty-seven successful participants mostly came from the University of Calgary and other Canadian universities. The conference enjoyed the participation of international student delegates from Amsterdam University and Helmut Schmidt University in Germany. Panel topics were diverse and comprehensive including: "Countering Terror and Fostering Security", "Security Through Red and White Coloured Lenses: Canadian Perspectives and Issues", "Making Security Private and Profitable: and Private Military Companies", "Security Set in Eastern Europe", "Transformation and Evaluation for Security", "Fuelling the Debate: World-wide Energy Security", "Words, Pictures, and Beyond: Communicating Security", "Deciphering Security: Cryptography and Intelligence", and "Building Security: Roles and Responsibilities".
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Uzbekistan, and Germany
539. Merging Security from the Two Level Game: Inserting the Treaty of Prüm into EU law?
- Author:
- Elspeth Guild
- Publication Date:
- 03-2007
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Centre for European Policy Studies
- Abstract:
- On 27 May 2005, seven EU member states signed the Prüm Treaty to promote cross-border cooperation, aimed particularly at combating terrorism, cross-border crime and illegal migration. In response, we published a critical analysis of the measure, in which we expressed reservations on three grounds: The treaty format in a field of EU activity produces negative externalities for the EU's area of freedom, security and justice by circumventing the EU framework; Reverting to an intergovernmental arena excludes the European Parliament at a time when its role in democratic scrutiny of the area of freedom, security and justice is critical; The effect of the Prüm Treaty is to weaken the EU rather than to strengthen it, as it postpones an important debate among all the member states about cross-border cooperation in policing and creates the impression that a small group of member states seek to impose their view on the rest.
- Topic:
- Security, International Law, and Treaties and Agreements
- Political Geography:
- Europe
540. The European Union's Strategic Role in Central Asia
- Author:
- Neil J. Melvin
- Publication Date:
- 03-2007
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Centre for European Policy Studies
- Abstract:
- For the first time since the collapse of communism, the EU is facing a strategic challenge in its external policies. The rise of Russia and China as international actors – with India close behind – and the growing confidence of some leading regional powers, such as Iran, are creating a serious threat to the EU's ambition to apply external policies that reflect European values. Against this background, the employment of the democracy – promotion agenda developed during the 1990s is unlikely to be effective and may even serve to weaken the position of the EU in key regions. This situation demands an urgent and far-reaching rethink of the approach the Union takes to external relations. If the EU is to remain a serious global actor, it will have to find ways to reconcile the imperative of engaging in difficult regions beyond the immediate European neighbourhood while also remaining true to the values of the Union.
- Topic:
- Security and Foreign Policy
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, Europe, and Central Asia