Diplomacy & Defense Think Tank News

This paper addresses a largely overlooked actor in China’s foreign relations, the International Department of the Communist Party of China (ID-CPC). Using publicly available documentation, we systematically analyze the patterns of the CPC’s external relations since the early 2000s. Building on an intense travel diplomacy, the ID-CPC maintains a widely stretched network to political elites across the globe. The ID-CPC’s engagement is not new; but since Xi Jinping took office, the CPC has bolstered its efforts to reach out to other parties. We find that party relations not only serve as an additional channel to advance China’s foreign policy interests. Since President Xi has come to power, party relations also emerged as a key instrument to promote China’s vision for reforming the global order. Moreover, China increasingly uses the party channel as a vehicle of authoritarian learning by sharing experiences of its economic modernization and authoritarian one-party regime. The cross-regional analysis of the CPC’s engagement with other parties helps us to better understand the role of the CPC in Chinese foreign policy-making, pointing to a new research agenda at the intersection of China’s foreign relations, authoritarian diffusion, and transnational relations.

This paper addresses a largely overlooked actor in China’s foreign relations, the International Department of the Communist Party of China (ID-CPC). Using publicly available documentation, we systematically analyze the patterns of the CPC’s external relations since the early 2000s. Building on an intense travel diplomacy, the ID-CPC maintains a widely stretched network to political elites across the globe. The ID-CPC’s engagement is not new; but since Xi Jinping took office, the CPC has bolstered its efforts to reach out to other parties. We find that party relations not only serve as an additional channel to advance China’s foreign policy interests. Since President Xi has come to power, party relations also emerged as a key instrument to promote China’s vision for reforming the global order. Moreover, China increasingly uses the party channel as a vehicle of authoritarian learning by sharing experiences of its economic modernization and authoritarian one-party regime. The cross-regional analysis of the CPC’s engagement with other parties helps us to better understand the role of the CPC in Chinese foreign policy-making, pointing to a new research agenda at the intersection of China’s foreign relations, authoritarian diffusion, and transnational relations.

This paper addresses a largely overlooked actor in China’s foreign relations, the International Department of the Communist Party of China (ID-CPC). Using publicly available documentation, we systematically analyze the patterns of the CPC’s external relations since the early 2000s. Building on an intense travel diplomacy, the ID-CPC maintains a widely stretched network to political elites across the globe. The ID-CPC’s engagement is not new; but since Xi Jinping took office, the CPC has bolstered its efforts to reach out to other parties. We find that party relations not only serve as an additional channel to advance China’s foreign policy interests. Since President Xi has come to power, party relations also emerged as a key instrument to promote China’s vision for reforming the global order. Moreover, China increasingly uses the party channel as a vehicle of authoritarian learning by sharing experiences of its economic modernization and authoritarian one-party regime. The cross-regional analysis of the CPC’s engagement with other parties helps us to better understand the role of the CPC in Chinese foreign policy-making, pointing to a new research agenda at the intersection of China’s foreign relations, authoritarian diffusion, and transnational relations.

Contemporary UN peace operations are expected to implement ambitious protection of civilians (POC) mandates while supporting host states through conflict prevention, peacemaking, and peacebuilding strategies. Reconciling these people-oriented POC mandates and the state-centric logic of UN-mandated interventions ranks among the greatest challenges facing peace operations today.

This report explores how peace operations implement POC mandates when working with, despite, or against the host state. It analyzes the opportunities, challenges, and risks that arise when peacekeepers work with host states and identifies best practices for leveraging UN support to national authorities. The paper concludes that peacekeeping personnel in each mission need to decide how to make the most of the UN’s strengths, mitigate risks to civilians, and maintain the support of government partners for mutually desirable POC goals.

The paper offers seven recommendations for managing POC and host-state support going forward:

• Persuade through dialogue: Peace operations should work to keep open channels of communication and better prepare personnel for interacting with state officials.
• Leverage leadership: The UN should better prepare prospective mission leaders for the complex POC challenges they will face.
• Make capacity building people-centered and holistic: The UN should partner with a wider group of actors to establish a protective environment while reconceptualizing mandates to restore and extend state authority around people-centered development initiatives.
• Induce best practices: Missions should leverage capacity building and other forms of support to promote national ownership and foster best practices for POC.
• Coordinate pressure tactics: Peace operations should make use of the full spectrum of bargaining tools at their disposal, including pressure tactics and compulsion.
• Deliver coherent, mission-specific messaging on the use of force: The UN should improve training, political guidance, and legal advice on the use of force, including against state agents.
• Reconceptualizing engagement with states on POC as a “whole-of-mission” task: The UN Secretariat should articulate a vision and mission-specific guidelines for partnerships with host governments on POC.

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The Covid-19 pandemic not only threatens to undo development gains and reverse progress in achieving the sustainable development goals of the 2030 Agenda. It also presents an early and serious test for the reform of the UN development system (UNDS), where major reform decisions were taken in 2018 to reposition the UNDS for improved, integrated and strategic support in line with the 2030 Agenda’s interlinked nature.

The Covid-19 pandemic not only threatens to undo development gains and reverse progress in achieving the sustainable development goals of the 2030 Agenda. It also presents an early and serious test for the reform of the UN development system (UNDS), where major reform decisions were taken in 2018 to reposition the UNDS for improved, integrated and strategic support in line with the 2030 Agenda’s interlinked nature.

The Covid-19 pandemic not only threatens to undo development gains and reverse progress in achieving the sustainable development goals of the 2030 Agenda. It also presents an early and serious test for the reform of the UN development system (UNDS), where major reform decisions were taken in 2018 to reposition the UNDS for improved, integrated and strategic support in line with the 2030 Agenda’s interlinked nature.

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“When a mission fails to protect civilians, that calls into question the credibility of the entire peacekeeping undertaking and the credibility of the United Nations,” said Valentine Rugwabiza, Permanent Representative of Rwanda to the UN. “We’ve seen that. This is what is at stake.”

Geraldine Byrne Nason, the Permanent Representative of Ireland to the UN, agreed, saying “those of us with experience with conflict or who are peacekeepers know that when protection fails, consequences are absolutely devastating.”

The two ambassadors were speaking about the centrality of Protection of Civilians to effective peacekeeping at a May 29th IPI virtual policy forum on Pledging to Protect Civilians in Peacekeeping Operations: Lessons from the Implementation of the Kigali Principles. The forum took place on the International Day of Peacekeepers, during the UN’s annual Protection of Civilians (POC) Week.

Adopted five years ago at the High-Level International Conference on POC in Kigali, Rwanda, the Kigali Principles are a non-binding set of 18 pledges for more effective and thorough implementation of POC in UN peacekeeping. The principles focus on the training of troops, their performance, and their readiness to identify and address threats, including through the use of force to protect civilians, the provision of adequate resources and capabilities, and the establishment of accountability and oversight mechanisms.

“The Kigali Principles are crystal clear that peacekeepers must be prepared for the tasks set for them,” said Ambassador Byrne Nason. “There are extraordinary challenges with far too many instances where we have seen that the deliberate targeting of vulnerable people and communities is still happening. And let’s be frank, without the proper resources, peacekeeping missions will never be able to fulfill the roles that we set.” She lauded the Kigali Principles for providing a good framework but added, “that framework is of little use if it’s not fully implemented.”

Ms. Rugwabiza said one of the key purposes of implementing the principles was “instilling in our peacekeepers the confidence to act in appropriate and effective ways to protect civilians. We found that most of the time when action towards POC has not been taken, it’s really by lack of will or hesitation, with peacekeepers wondering if they actually have the authority to use force, and the Kigali Principles will help clarify that. We all have an intricate complementary role to play in peacekeeping. When any of us fall short of responsibility, the consequences are tragic.” She reported that the Kigali Principles had become part of Rwanda’s routine “training regimen.”

She sounded the same existential warning as Ambassador Byrne Nason did about the need to provide support for the principles. “The principles demand for mandates to be accurately matched with resources on the ground,” she said. “The principles necessitated impartiality because impartiality means deference to objectives of the mandate rooted in the principles of the UN Charter: place POC at the heart and center of our efforts.”

Bintou Keita, Assistant-Secretary-General, UN Department of Peace Operations and Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, commented, “POC is at the heart of what we do now in the context of peacekeeping. The trust and confidence of the population lies within the fact that no matter what happens, there will be no breakdown in the communication, authority, and the ability to act.” She said the Kigali Principles stress active collaboration and the need for accountability. “When we look at the principles, it’s about partnership, not just about talking and saying the nice thing, it’s also about walking the talk and making sure we have a strong partnership because it’s only with that that we’ll have success. It’s a combination of the policy and the handbook which articulate elements of a strong accountability framework. When I look at key elements to highlight, everyone agrees it makes a difference to have strong political will and partnership. It’s not just about the uniformed people, it’s about the whole of mission encompassing endeavor for peacekeepers and POC.”

Lieutenant-Colonel Raoul Bazatoha, Defense and Military Adviser, Permanent Mission of Rwanda to the UN, focused on the principles’ emphasis on training. “In Rwanda, we only had pre-deployment training, but later we had to develop post-deployment training to collect valuable information to inform our training cycle.” Now, he said, Rwanda has established a peace academy training officers in International Humanitarian Law, armed conflict, and other training related to peace operations. He said that Rwandan contingents had carried out activities like outreach programs, quick impact projects, and built a relationship based on trusting the host population and including constructing school classrooms and markets safe for women, and supply of potable water to internally displaced people and local residents.

“Accountability is a central aspect of good governance in Rwanda,” he added, “and it applies to the armed forces as well as peacekeeping personnel, holding our highest standard of conduct, with a national investigative officer in each unit deployed. The Rwanda defense service also deploys lawyers that provide training on crime prevention and conduct investigations when crimes are committed.”

Eshete Tilahun, Minister Counselor and Political Coordinator, Permanent Mission of Ethiopia to the UN, said, “We all know that the POC mandates are getting more complex as peacekeepers are becoming subject to violent attacks.” Aware that “civilians continue to bear the brunt of consequences of conflict… we have made a lot of progress in training because we found ways of building the capacity of uniformed personnel, all under POC framing.” He noted, though, that as more and more is expected from peacekeepers, “less and less resources” are being provided. Mr. Tilahun shared some of Ethiopia’s practices in implementing the Kigali Principles, such as mandatory POC training for peacekeepers and building the capacity and capabilities of uniformed personnel.

Carlos Amorin, Permanent Representative of Uruguay to the UN, noted that the current moment is a particularly difficult one for peacekeepers. “The challenges that peacekeepers face are greater than ever. They are not only having to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic but also support and protect people in the countries they are based in.” Mr. Amorin noted that Uruguay’s endorsement of the Kigali Principles is just one example of their country’s commitment to POC. As one of the earliest signatories to the principles, Mr. Amorin said that their peacekeepers “must complete many training courses prior to deployment” and that Uruguay “deploy[s] without caveats, with the appropriate means to protect civilians and prepare to perform the tasks at hand.” He also said that Uruguay “places a great deal of importance to accountability in POC, both at our national and multilateral level.”

Alison Giffen, Director, Peacekeeping, Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) emphasized the importance of supporting POC so that the mandate is “matched with the resources” needed to do the job. “For more than two decades, civilians have looked to UN peacekeepers for protection, and, I want to remind folks, whether or not the peacekeeper is in uniform or whether or not the words protection of civilians were in a mandate.”

Pointing out that promoting and protecting human rights was “a key purpose and guiding principle of the UN,” she concluded, “There’s no reason to doubt that implementing the Kigali Principles and investing in more protection is worthwhile.”

Sofiane Mimouni, Permanent Representative of Algeria to the UN, listed the various challenges that civilians face on the ground and voiced the urgent need to strengthen POC. In particular, he stressed the need for the UN to be “strengthening cooperation and coordination with regional organizations such as the African Union” asking panelists about the “potential synergies to strengthen the culture of protection amongst peacekeepers and peacekeeping stakeholders.”

Dr. Namie Di Razza, IPI Senior Fellow and Head of IPI’s Protection of Civilians Program, moderated the discussion.

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Zusammenfassung:

Seit März hat die Corona-Pandemie Deutschland fest im Griff. Weitreichende Beschränkungen des sozialen Lebens wurden vor allem zum Schutz älterer und weiterer besonders gefährdeter Menschen erlassen. Seit Mai werden diese Maßnahmen  schrittweise gelockert. Dabei stellt sich verstärkt die Frage, wie trotz der Lockerungen vulnerable Teile der Bevölkerung geschützt werden können. In vielen Ländern wird eine Umkehrisolation diskutiert: So sollen die Jungen und Gesunden das soziale Leben allmählich wiederaufnehmen, während die Älteren und weitere besonders gefährdete Gruppen isoliert bleiben. In diesem Zusammenhang ist es aber wichtig, die soziale Situation der älteren Menschen nicht aus dem Blick zu verlieren. Die vorliegende Studie beschreibt daher die soziale Situation älterer Menschen in Deutschland unter besonderer Berücksichtigung ihrer mentalen Gesundheit und möglicher Risikofaktoren sozialer Vereinsamung.[1]

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How COVID-19 and measures to curb its spread have amplified the vulnerabilities of civilians caught in conflict and raised new challenges for protection actors like humanitarian workers, peacekeepers, and human rights defenders was the subject of a May 28th IPI virtual policy forum. Co-hosting the event with IPI were the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Permanent Missions of the United Kingdom, Estonia, Niger, and Canada to the UN.

“The health crisis is quickly becoming a protection crisis,” declared Natacha Emerson of OCHA. “Collective and urgent action is needed to strengthen the protection of civilians so that we can tackle the pandemic and safeguard humanity. For people already struggling to cope with conflict, displacement, and hunger, COVID-19 adds another layer of insecurity, and in conflict settings the virus can easily grab hold and overwhelm crippled health care systems with deadly consequences.”

IPI Senior Fellow Dr. Namie Di Razza, who heads IPI’s Protection of Civilians (POC) program, introduced the discussion with the observation that COVID-19 “has had major disruptive effects, but it has not stopped atrocities, violence and abuse. On the contrary, the pandemic has raised new protection concerns for humanitarian workers, peacekeepers, and human rights defenders.”

Ilze Brands Kehris, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that human rights violations were rapidly rising in conflict situations in the world, with parties to the conflicts exploiting the circumstances of the pandemic to their advantage, further endangering the most vulnerable people. “So it is in this time of global crisis that universal values and norms, as guaranteed in international law, need more urgent attention than ever, and it also directly engages the responsibilities of states and other duty bearers to uphold their obligations under the law.”

She said that people infected with COVID-19 or suspected of being infected were being stigmatized, attacked and denied medical assistance, and even media representatives who report on the virus were being targeted. “Efforts to fight impunity are significantly impacted [and] governments are focused on the health response, so investigations and trials are de facto put on hold,’’ she said. As a consequence, there could be a premature release of grave human rights violators under the pretext of decongesting prisons for public health reasons. “The UN system must do better in better protecting people in pulling together different mandates and operational activities into one coherent whole under one and the same understanding of protection, putting human rights at the center.”

Laetitia Courtois, Head of Delegation to the UN, International Committee of the Red Cross, said that her organization was used to dealing with epidemics, but never with a pandemic of this “scope and impact.“ She broke down ICRC’s major protection concerns, and outlined four “asks” that would serve to mitigate and alleviate the repercussions of COVID-19:

• Insist that member states and parties to the conflict respect International Humanitarian Law (IHL);
• Prevent COVID-19 restrictions from hampering the movement of humanitarian staff and essential services;
• Protect medical equipment and medical personnel at all times; and
• Ensure that ICRC and other impartial organizations are allowed to continue working with non-state armed groups, and keep counterterrorism measures from impeding them from engaging with the groups, even those designated as “terrorist.”

Heather Barr, Acting Co-Director, Women’s Rights Division, Human Rights Watch, said the COVID-19 crisis had become “a global crisis for women.” She said there had been “huge spikes” in gender-based violence; waves of restrictions, staff shortages and shutdowns at clinics that provide sexual reproductive services; loss of income and jobs for health care workers, 70 percent of whom are women; and widespread closures of schools for girls, which adversely affects rates of child marriage, pregnancy, and sexual violence.

She pointed to water and sanitation as an example of how COVID-19, gender, and preexisting crises “come together in a really harmful way. We all know that washing your hands is important, but often they can’t safely access toilets, latrines, and water points because of concerns about sexual violence, poorly designed camps, lack of freedom of movement for women and girls, and that’s really a crisis in this situation.” She added that long term recovery planning must be gender responsive and “has to think about what impact there’s been on women and how we repair that.”

Caitlin Brady, Director of Programme Development and Quality for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Save the Children, gave a stark account of the effects of epidemics on children, based on past experience. “Border closures and impacts on trade will increase economic hardship everywhere, of course, creating a range of risks, one of them hunger, malnutrition, and associated diseases, and vulnerability to sexual exploitation and abuse, as we saw in the West African Ebola response. We’ll see very weak health facilities, which are already directly targeted by armed groups or are collateral damage when explosive weapons are used in populated areas. Having to respond not just to existing illness and childbirth, but also to COVID-19 will increase excessive maternal and infant mortality.” She forecast that children would be subject to recruitment by armed groups and harsh labor like working in mines.

It was imperative, she said, that school feeding programs be maintained even if the schools themselves were closed. “Yes, the pandemic is a public health emergency, but it’s exacerbating existing protection crises and patterns of marginalization. It’s important that while countries try to respond to the epidemic, they continue with commitments to address child protection and other humanitarian needs.”

Koffi Wogomebu, Senior Protection Adviser, UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), said that steps to curb the virus like limitations on the ability to travel into the field were inadvertently impeding the peacekeeping mission’s POC work. “I just want to say that COVID-19 itself did not constitute a physical violence against civilians falling under our POC mandate, but it is seriously having direct and indirect consequences on the protection of civilians. Measures taken to protect public health such as scaling back activity to prevent the spread of the disease are certainly posing a serious risk to the protection of civilians.”

He said too that the 14 armed groups in the Central African Republic, despite the UN Secretary-General’s call for a global ceasefire, were exploiting the lockdown situation to advance their own aims. “We believe that they take advantage of the fact that we are no longer moving a lot to within their territory, and in doing so, they are committing some serious human rights violations.” In addition, he said, there was an “anti-MINUSCA sentiment” arising out of the misperception that it was the responsibility of the UN mission to slow the spread of the virus and produce a remedy. “This has a put another pressure on the mission,” he said.

James Roscoe, Acting Deputy Representative of the United Kingdom to the UN, said that the UK, working with other countries, had made four pledges in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. He listed them as supporting an effective health response led by the World Health Organization (WHO); reinforcing resilience in the most vulnerable countries; pursuing treatments and vaccines; and helping to “shore up” the global economy. As for POC and the COVID-19 crisis, he said, the United Kingdom would work to expedite access and needed equipment and to guarantee “unfettered humanitarian access.”

In concluding remarks, Gert Auväärt, Deputy Permanent Representative of Estonia to the UN, lamented that some conflict parties have “sought to take advantage of the situation, and regrettably it has provided a pretext to adopt repressive measures for purposes unrelated to the pandemic.” The main message, he said, was that “we need more protection, not less.”

Mohammad Koba, Deputy Permanent Representative of Indonesia to the UN, observed that “what is more important now with the spread of coronavirus already and international cooperation is to support those who are most vulnerable to the virus, particularly in armed conflict.” Furthermore, he reiterated that Indonesia “fully support[s] the call for the immediate global ceasefire. It is an extremely important call for all parties to the conflict, to focus on the handling the impact of COVID-19, provide respite for civilians, facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and offer space for continued diplomacy.”

Abdou Abarry, Permanent Representative of Niger, remarked that “one of the unfortunate unintended consequences of COVID-19 is the worldwide alarming increase of gender-based violence and violence against our children,” which exacerbated existing inequalities “particularly in African countries where women constitute the majority of the work force.” He said that direct and indiscriminate attacks on schools had deprived over one half million African children of education. “An attack on education is an attack on the future,” he declared. Looking ahead, he said that when a safe and effective vaccine would be developed, “let it be the people’s vaccine, available to all. This would be a cornerstone of the POC agenda.”

Richard Arbeiter, Deputy Permanent Representative of Canada to the UN, commended participants for ensuring that the just concluded POC week “was not a casualty of COVID-19 as well.” He praised the POC community’s work, saying that “the POC community is very sophisticated and it has evolved over twenty years. I am amazed by how quickly all parts of this community has been able to identify and analyze the situations locally and what that means globally for all of us. [Panelists] had ground-truth reality recommendations, both to acknowledge what is working, where the gaps and inequalities have been exacerbated as well. It’s really quite something to stand back from it and see how quickly and ably we are able to figure out what needs to change in order for those that are most vulnerable to receive the support that they need.”

Dr. Di Razza moderated the discussion.

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Lancering af DIIS-rapport om den sikkerhedspolitiske situation i Arktis

Addressing resilience in Denmark’s development policy

On May 27th, the government of Sweden and IPI co-organized their first annual ministerial level discussion on women, peace and leadership. Ministers of the governments of France, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, and Tunisia, as well as a former minister from Yemen met to discuss opportunities for supporting women’s participation in peacebuilding during this time of a global pandemic. Together with the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and representatives from civil society, participants committed to continue in their efforts to support women’s rights and women’s full and effective participation in all peace efforts.

In the virtual roundtable, conducted under the Chatham House rule of non-attribution, discussants pointed out that crisis responses often pushed gender considerations to the side, but that maintaining focus on the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda and supporting women’s participation in peacebuilding was critical. Central to the discussion was the concern that restrictions imposed as part of the pandemic response placed a particular burden on women. Speakers identified the need for responses to the COVID-19 crisis that addressed women’s protection and security, as the majority of healthcare workers are women, and because women faced a heightened risk of gender-based violence and limited access to sexual and reproductive health services.

Participants agreed that the 20th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) should be marked by a clear commitment to include women in peace and security efforts at all levels. Speakers encouraged the international community to sustain the ambition of this anniversary year into 2021 and beyond.

The discussion concluded with recommendations for state and multilateral leadership on WPS, including to support the UN secretary-general’s recent call for global ceasefire, along with the African Union’s Silencing the Guns initiative. Participants underscored the need to lead by example and include women in national peace processes, as well as to ensure international actors consult with and implement ideas from women in decision-making processes.

IPI Non-resident Senior Adviser Sarah Taylor was the moderator. IPI Vice President Adam Lupel provided opening remarks. This event is part of a larger project on women, peace, and leadership under IPI’s Women, Peace and Security program.

This ministerial-level discussion will inform the planning of this year’s High-Level Women, Peace, and Leadership Symposium, organized by IPI and the government of Sweden, that will take place around the time of the opening of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly in September 2020.

Klimakampen skal være en integreret del af udviklingssamarbejdet – DIIS-forskning ser på hvorfor og hvordan.

A growing literature recognizes treaty secretariats and other international bureaucracies as distinctive actors in global environmental governance. These actors exhibit varying degrees of autonomy, authority and influence on environmental governance processes and outcomes. This chapter reviews recent scholarship on international bureaucracies and highlights the distinct ways in which they exert influence beyond their narrow functional mandates. More specifically, this chapter highlights how international bureaucracies influence governance processes by deriving authority from structural characteristics of the international system, exerting influence from their ability to deliver specific administrative and governance functions and leveraging their organizational autonomy. The chapter outlines empirical and conceptual gaps in our understanding of how international bureaucracies function in global environmental governance, and argues that the dynamics of change in world politics may open new pathways of influence for these actors moving forward.

A growing literature recognizes treaty secretariats and other international bureaucracies as distinctive actors in global environmental governance. These actors exhibit varying degrees of autonomy, authority and influence on environmental governance processes and outcomes. This chapter reviews recent scholarship on international bureaucracies and highlights the distinct ways in which they exert influence beyond their narrow functional mandates. More specifically, this chapter highlights how international bureaucracies influence governance processes by deriving authority from structural characteristics of the international system, exerting influence from their ability to deliver specific administrative and governance functions and leveraging their organizational autonomy. The chapter outlines empirical and conceptual gaps in our understanding of how international bureaucracies function in global environmental governance, and argues that the dynamics of change in world politics may open new pathways of influence for these actors moving forward.