Diplomacy & Defense Think Tank News

L'organisation internationale des migrations (OIM) a indiqué dans un rapport publié le 14 septembre que plus d'un migrant sur cinq arrivé irrégulièrement en Europe l'a fait par voie terrestre, soit six fois plus que l'an dernier à la même période, délaissant ainsi la voie maritime. L'itinéraire le plus fréquent est celui qui relie la Turquie à la Grèce, où les autorités ont recensé 12 166 arrivées par voie terrestre depuis le début de l'année.

Les ministres du Commerce des pays du G20 réunis en Argentine ont unanimement reconnu le 13 septembre la nécessité d'une réforme de l'Organisation mondiale du Commerce (OMC) afin de mieux gérer les conflits, alors qu'une guerre commerciale menace l'économie.

La 66ème édition du festival international du film de San Sebastian se tient du 21 au 29 septembre. Le prestige de la "Concha de Oro" qui récompense un réalisateur ou un acteur en fait un rendez-vous important pour le secteur du cinéma. Il est aussi l'occasion de découvrir une large sélection de films internationaux.

La 185ème édition de l'Oktoberfest de Muncih, une des plus grandes fêtes de la bière en Europe, se tient du 22 septembre au 7 octobre .

La Fondation Beyeler à Bâle expose, jusqu'au 1er janvier, l'œuvre singulière du peintre figuratif Balthus qui compte parmi les grands maîtres de l'art du XXe siècle. Dans son travail complexe aux multiples facettes, Balthus poursuit une voie artistique alternative aux courants de l'avant-garde moderne.

Le 18ème édition de la Biennale de la Danse se tient à Lyon jusqu'au 30 septembre. Sans équivalent ni en France ni dans le monde, la Biennale s'adresse à tous les publics - amateurs, passionnés, professionnels - en proposant une programmation marquée par l'audace et la créativité.

Le festival d'automne de Varsovie (Warsaw Autumn) de musique contemporaine se tient du 21 au 29 septembre.

Jusqu'au 20 janvier 2019, le musée Maillol à Paris présente plus de 50 sculptures de l'artiste suisse Alberto Giacometti, mises en regard avec près de 25 œuvres d'autres artistes majeurs .

Die Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung im Maghreb ermöglichte ausgewählten Partnern einen Informationsbesuch in Brüssel. Dabei ging es um mehr als nur um sicherheitspolitische Fragen und um Migration. Fest steht, die Zusammenarbeit muss weiter verstärkt werden. Potenzial dafür ist auf beiden Seiten vorhanden.

Le 15 septembre 2008, Lehman Brothers se déclarait en faillite, après que le Trésor américain eut refusé de renflouer la banque d’investissement. La panique qui saisit alors les marchés financiers assécha rapidement le crédit aux entreprises et aux ménages, aux Etats-Unis, puis en Europe, et tarit le financement des échanges internationaux. Six mois plus tard, le commerce mondial avait chuté de près de 20 %. Il fallut deux ans pour qu’il retrouve son niveau du…

L’image de l’Amérique s’est effondrée en France, où l’on rejette massivement le président américain. Le regard porté par les Français sur l’ami américain s’est teinté de méfiance. Selon les résultats d’un sondage Ifop pour AJC Europe et la Fondation pour l’innovation politique sur l’image des États-Unis, ils ne sont plus que 44 % à estimer que […]

The post Les Français se méfient des États-Unis de Trump et plébiscitent l’Allemagne appeared first on Fondapol.

Manuel Sánchez-Montero. ARI 104/2018 - 14/9/2018

Se precisa de un impulso político para poner en marcha medidas al alcance de la mano de una generación que puede, y tiene, la obligación moral de ser la que convierta al hambre en historia.

Am 7. Oktober finden in Bosnien-Herzegowina Präsidentschafts- und Parlamentswahlen statt, auf gesamtstaatlicher Ebene sowie in den beiden Landesteilen. Die Spannungen zwischen den nationalistischen Vertretern der Serben, Muslime und Kroaten im Land haben zuletzt weiter zugenommen. Bosniens euroatlantische Integrationsprozesse kommen so nur äußerst langsam voran, obwohl das Land von der EU umfassende Unterstützung erfährt. Von dieser Situation profitiert Russland. Der Kreml stärkt seit Jahren die Position der bosnischen Serben und trägt damit zu den inneren Konflikten des Landes bei. EU und Nato sollten künftig an ihren Beitrittskonditionen festhalten, anstatt Kriterien zu verwässern und sich auf einen geopolitischen Wettstreit mit Moskau einzulassen.

En quelques années, de nouvelles solutions de mobilité se sont multipliées, offrant des alternatives à la voiture particulière et aux transports en commun. Cependant, en France l'usage de la voiture reste plébiscité et nous sommes encore loin d'un service de mobilité “sans couture” pour l'usager. Comment la mobilité urbaine va-t-elle se transformer dans les prochaines années ? Rémi Cornubert, senior partner chez Advancy, rapporteur général du rapport …

Military operations abroad by the German Armed Forces are always a controversial instrument of German crisis management. Yet, such foreign deployments are likely to remain necessary for the foreseeable future while, at the same time, they are undergoing noticeable change. The conditions shaping this transformation can be captured in three dimensions of change: the change in war and violent conflict; the transformation of the international political and legal context; and the shifting institutional frameworks for these operations.

German policy-makers must address the related challenges – whether setting normative anchors and formats for operations, contributing to stabilisation in a context of continuing insecurity, building partners’ military capacities, dealing with transnational threats or using benchmarks for exiting. Yet, they only have limited influence over the described changes. Fundamentally, decisions about military operations abroad are taken within the triangle of pressing problems (crises and conflicts), responsibility (obligations under international law, alliances, political commitments), and the political situation and available capabilities in Germany itself.

It is hard to predict the developments which will dictate the scope for action within this triangle. However, the worst possible approach would be to address the described challenges only from a short-term and ad-hoc perspective, especially since they do not exclusively concern operations abroad. In its 2017 Guidelines on crisis prevention and conflict resolution and 2016 White Paper, the German federal government outlined a framework for German engagement that it now has to fill. Furthermore, the expectations of Germany’s partners within the EU, NATO and UN have grown – which will also require further military contributions.

The editor of the SWP study “While We Were Planning”, Lars Brozus, speaks about the potential benefits of scientifically grounded foresight.

Entre peur de la mondialisation, refus de l’immigration, montée de l’islamisme et des populismes, dans un contexte de bouleversements de l’ordre mondial, les relations entre l’Europe et les États-Unis subissent la crise la plus importante de leur histoire. L’affaiblissement de la relation transatlantique, du multilatéralisme, de l’OTAN, joint aux divisions internes de l’Union européenne, est […]

The post Les Français face à la crise démocratique : Immigration, populisme, Trump, Europe… appeared first on Fondapol.

On Monday, September 17th, IPI in cooperation with the Norwegian Nobel Institute is pleased to invite you to a discussion on “The Nobel Peace Prize: Past, Present, and Future” featuring Dr. Asle Toje, a member of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.

Remarks will begin at 1:15pm EST*

The Nobel Peace Prize is world-renowned as the most prestigious recognition of achievements in the pursuit of peace. This event will focus on the history of the prize, how it currently serves to contribute to the promotion of peace in today’s world and how it will do so in the future.

Asle Toje is the former Research Director at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo and a current member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. He is also an influential public intellectual and commentator. Since completing his PhD at Cambridge in 2006, Toje has lectured and taught at universities in Europe and beyond. His research focuses on the intersection of security studies and European studies. Among his scholarly works are America, the EU and Strategic Culture (2008); The European Union as a Small Power (2010); Neoclassical Realism in Europe (2012); and Will China’s Rise Be Peaceful? (2018).

The event will be moderated by Terje Rød-Larsen, President of IPI.

*If you are not logged into Facebook, times are shown in PST.

In the face of increasingly frequent extreme weather events, the need to manage climate risk becomes more urgent, especially for the most vulnerable countries and communities. With the aim of reducing vulnerability, climate risk transfer in the form of climate risk insurance (CRI) has been gaining attention in climate policy discussions. When properly designed, CRI acts as a safety net against climate change impacts by providing financial support after an extreme weather event. Two main types of insurance enable payouts: indemnity (traditional) insurance or predefined parameters (index-based) insurance. Individuals, groups, or even governments may take out policies with either type of insurance and receive payouts directly (insurer to beneficiary payout) or indirectly (insurer to aggregator to beneficiary payout). Direct insurance is usually implemented at the micro-level with individual policyholders. Indirect insurance is usually implemented through group contracts at the meso-level through risk aggregators and at the macro-level through the state.
While promising, risk transfer in the form of CRI also has its share of challenges. Within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the lack of accessibility and afford¬ability of CRI for poor and vulnerable groups have been identified as barriers to uptake. In light of climate justice, asking the poor and climate-vulnerable groups - most of whom do not contribute substantially to anthropogenic climate change - to solely carry the financial burden of risk transfer is anything but just. Employing a human rights-based approach to CRI may ensure that the resilience of poor and climate-vulnerable groups is enhanced in a climate-just manner.
Indigenous peoples are some of the poorest and most climate vulnerable groups. Often marginalised, they rarely have access to social protection. The strong communal relationship of indigenous peoples facilitates their participation in community-based organisations (CBOs). CBOs are a suitable vehicle for meso-insurance, in which risk is aggregated and an insurance policy belongs to a group. In this way, CBOs can facilitate service provision that would otherwise be beyond the reach of individuals.
Conclusions of this briefing paper draw on a conceptual analysis of meso-insurance and the results of field research conducted in March 2018 with indigenous Palaw’ans in the Philippines. We find that CRI needs to be attuned to the differential vulnerabilities and capacities of its beneficiaries. This is particularly true for poor and vulnerable people, for whom issues of accessibility and affordability need to be managed, and human rights and pro-poor approaches need to be ensured. In this context, meso-insurance is a promising approach when it provides accessibility and affordability and promotes a pro-poor and human rights-based approach of risk transfer by:

• Properly identifying and involving target beneficiaries and duty-bearers by employing pro-poor and human rights principles.
• Employing measures to improve the financial literacy of target beneficiaries.
• Designing insurance models from the bottom up.

In the face of increasingly frequent extreme weather events, the need to manage climate risk becomes more urgent, especially for the most vulnerable countries and communities. With the aim of reducing vulnerability, climate risk transfer in the form of climate risk insurance (CRI) has been gaining attention in climate policy discussions. When properly designed, CRI acts as a safety net against climate change impacts by providing financial support after an extreme weather event. Two main types of insurance enable payouts: indemnity (traditional) insurance or predefined parameters (index-based) insurance. Individuals, groups, or even governments may take out policies with either type of insurance and receive payouts directly (insurer to beneficiary payout) or indirectly (insurer to aggregator to beneficiary payout). Direct insurance is usually implemented at the micro-level with individual policyholders. Indirect insurance is usually implemented through group contracts at the meso-level through risk aggregators and at the macro-level through the state.
While promising, risk transfer in the form of CRI also has its share of challenges. Within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the lack of accessibility and afford¬ability of CRI for poor and vulnerable groups have been identified as barriers to uptake. In light of climate justice, asking the poor and climate-vulnerable groups - most of whom do not contribute substantially to anthropogenic climate change - to solely carry the financial burden of risk transfer is anything but just. Employing a human rights-based approach to CRI may ensure that the resilience of poor and climate-vulnerable groups is enhanced in a climate-just manner.
Indigenous peoples are some of the poorest and most climate vulnerable groups. Often marginalised, they rarely have access to social protection. The strong communal relationship of indigenous peoples facilitates their participation in community-based organisations (CBOs). CBOs are a suitable vehicle for meso-insurance, in which risk is aggregated and an insurance policy belongs to a group. In this way, CBOs can facilitate service provision that would otherwise be beyond the reach of individuals.
Conclusions of this briefing paper draw on a conceptual analysis of meso-insurance and the results of field research conducted in March 2018 with indigenous Palaw’ans in the Philippines. We find that CRI needs to be attuned to the differential vulnerabilities and capacities of its beneficiaries. This is particularly true for poor and vulnerable people, for whom issues of accessibility and affordability need to be managed, and human rights and pro-poor approaches need to be ensured. In this context, meso-insurance is a promising approach when it provides accessibility and affordability and promotes a pro-poor and human rights-based approach of risk transfer by:

• Properly identifying and involving target beneficiaries and duty-bearers by employing pro-poor and human rights principles.
• Employing measures to improve the financial literacy of target beneficiaries.
• Designing insurance models from the bottom up.