Moscow Sticks to Peace Denials Despite War Exhaustion

Posted by & filed under Peacebuilding, Security, Ukraine War

The Russian offensive in Donbas has slowed in the last few weeks to a crawl, and in the Kursk oblast, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s order to expel the Ukrainian forces remains unfulfilled. This deadlock, in which both sides suffer heavy casualties, could have created a favorable situation for opening peace negotiations. Such talks remain a hypothetical proposition, and the Kremlin is signaling its full commitment to its maximalist demands of Ukraine’s capitulation (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, January 10).

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in 2018. Photo: Mikhail Svetlov / Getty Images

This demonstrative toughness sharply contrasts with public opinion, which clearly favors ending the war.Read More

Greenland Is Not for Sale

Posted by & filed under Energy Transitions and Conflict, Environment, Governance, Law and Ethics

President Donald Trump has provoked strong reactions with his proposition to buy Greenland, not the least because the right to self-determination is a fundamental principle in international law, allowing peoples to freely determine their political status and pursue their economic, social, and cultural development.

Nanortalik, Greenland. Photo: Jim Griffin via Flickr (CC-BY)

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This Is What Norwegians Think About Emergency Alerts on Mobile Phones

Posted by and & filed under Security

The mobile phone has become an indispensable part of our daily lives. We carry it with us everywhere, and it’s a crisis when it’s lost. Now it has also taken on a new role: alerting us to emergencies.

The traditional sirens for alerting are still there, while alerting on mobile phones is now being tested. Photo: Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection

On Wednesday, January 8, emergency alerts on mobile phones were tested across Norway, eighteen months since the system was first tested nationwide.

But how has the Norwegian population received the new alert system?Read More

The International Criminal Court at Risk of Collapse

Posted by & filed under Law and Ethics

As many are by now acutely aware, the International Criminal Court (ICC) relies on state cooperation to investigate and arrest individuals charged with international crimes. This is not new. What is new is the seriousness, complexity, and extent of the political resistance that the ICC is currently facing after issuing an arrest warrant for a Western ally. The court risks collapse.

The arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the first against a sitting head of state in a so-called liberal democracy, writes Kjersti Lohne. Benjamin Netanyahu in 2024. Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

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We Need to Talk About Children Born of War

Posted by & filed under Civilians in Conflict, Gender

Every day, children are born in war and armed conflict, in Ukraine, on the Gaza Strip, in South Sudan, in Myanmar and elsewhere.

Photo: Alexey Furman/Getty Images

Some of these children might have parents who are enemies, that is, parents who are on opposite sides of the conflict. Some of these children might have been conceived through conflict related sexual violence. After the Bosnian war, and the genocide in Rwanda, in the 1990s we started talking about rape as a weapon of war and unprecedented political attention followed.
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An Untested Refugee Theory

Posted by & filed under Middle East

From late January 2025, the Israeli ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) will come into effect. What does this mean for the rights of the Palestinian refugees, and who will then take responsibility for helping them?

A Palestinian sand sculptor commemorating World Refugee Day in Gaza City in June 2020. Photo: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images

In October 2024, the Israeli parliament (Knesset) passed two laws targeting UNRWA. Both laws are due to take effect after 90 days.Read More

Escalation Management: Putin-style, Ukraine-challenged, and NATO-pursued

Posted by & filed under Security, Ukraine War

Russian missile strike on the sprawling industrial complex in Dnipro on November 21 produced far more strategic resonance than material damage – and has reopened hard questions about the constant mutation of the long Russia-Ukraine war and the methods of managing its escalation.

Kyiv in April 2024. Photo: STR/NurPhoto via Getty Images

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Making Women Combatants Visible: Steps Towards Gender-Responsive Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration

Posted by and & filed under Gender, Peacebuilding

In October the Security Council met for its annual Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Open Debate under the theme of “Women Building Peace in a Changing Environment.”

A 32 years old female FARC guerrilla fighter inside a demobilization camp in Colombia in 2017. Photo: Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images

Despite the WPS agenda’s goals for including women in all aspects of security and peace-making, their participation in disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR), a crucial part of peace processes, has often been minimal or merely symbolic.Read More

Protection of Civilians in Crisis: Geneva Conventions at 75

Posted by & filed under Civilians in Conflict, Law and Ethics

With the devastating news from Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan among other wars, we witness a crisis of the international regime for protecting civilians in armed conflict. However, this is not a total collapse but a return to the troubling world that the legal protections for civilians in the 1949 Geneva Conventions were made for.

Photo: Majdi Fathi/Nur Photo via Getty Images

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