Suchergebnisse

Sir David Omand, former Director of GCHQ, and later Security and Intelligence Co-ordinator in the Cabinet Office, has just published How Spies Think: Ten Lessons in Intelligence.

China regards the island of Taiwan as a breakaway province; Taiwan's leaders say it is an independent state. As China rises to superpower status, it has shown greater interest in reclaiming territory long regarded as its own, in the South China Sea, along the Himalayan border – and in Taiwan. The growing tensions could drag the US into the fray. To discuss the implications for security, peace and the people of Taiwan, we have three distinguished experts: Prof Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute; Susan Thornton, a retired senior US diplomat and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution; and Dr Chun-Yi Lee, director of the Taiwan Studies programme at the University of Nottingham.

Jack Straw was Foreign Secretary in the Blair government from 2001 to 2006. His five years at the Foreign Office saw him grappling with every conflict zone from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, the accession of ten new states to the EU, the failed accession bid from Turkey, the bombing of the Twin Towers on 9/11, and the Allied invasion of Iraq, led by the United States. At this seminar he will reflect on the role of Foreign Secretary with Sir David Manning, foreign policy adviser to Tony Blair from 2001 to 2003, and at the time of the invasion of Iraq, British Ambassador to the US.

How can we design our institutions to protect the interests of future generations?

In July the Intelligence and Security Committee published its long awaited Russia report.

To introduce the report, and explain the difficulties which delayed its publication, our first speaker is Dominic Grieve, former Attorney General and chair of the committee when the report was compiled. Then to discuss the threat posed by Russia, and how the West should respond, we have two further experts: Dame Anne Pringle, British Ambassador to Moscow 2008-2011; and Catherine Belton, investigative journalist and author of Putin's People.

Curt Magleby is Vice President, U.S. Government Relations, Ford Motor Company and spoke to our Public Affairs Career Lecture Series on Thursday, September 26, 2019. He spoke about his position engaging with policymakers on a wide range of legislative and regulatory issues and overseeing Ford's federal, state and local government affairs. Magleby previously was director, […]

BYU lecture series was eager to have David Barlow as its speaker on March 7th, 2019. Barlow received his bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University. He received his J.D. degree from Yale Law School, where he was a Truman Scholar. Barlow worked for the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin for a time. He then was chief counsel to Mike Lee in connection […]

If victors write history, and Bashar al-Assad is consolidating his grip on Syria after nearly a decade of civil war, is there any hope of justice for victims of state-sponsored abuse in Syria?

Russia and China have blocked efforts to set up an international tribunal for Syria, so Syrians in exile have been searching for ways to use national laws, and the principle of universal jurisidiction to pursue accountability.

Last year Germany arrested two Syrian men and charged them with committing crimes against humanity. When they go on trial this year, it will be the world's first prosecution for state-backed torture in Syria.
Activists have also filed cases in Norway, Sweden and Austria, and international groups are stockpiling evidence in the hope of future court cases.

But with the top members of Assad's government safely ensconced in Damascus, how much impact can these cases have?

About the speaker:

Emma Graham-Harrison is senior international affairs correspondent for the Guardian and Observer. She has covered conflicts, political crises, energy and the environment in more than 40 countries across five continents, and was based in China, Afghanistan and Spain for over a decade, before returning to London to take up her current roving role. She graduated from Oxford with a first class degree in Chinese Studies, and speaks Mandarin and Spanish. Awards include Foreign Reporter of the Year at the 2017 British Press Awards; her investigative work on the Cambridge Analytica investigations was also recognised at the British Press Awards and by the London Press Club.

What will the 2022 midterm elections mean for American politics and policy? Recorded 3 November 2022.

The Centre on US Politics, in collaboration with Policy and Practice, brings you an event examining domestic policy under President Joe Biden.

Vernon Bogdanor's latest book, Britain and Europe in a Troubled World, considers the motivations which lay behind Brexit, and asks how widespread they are in the rest of Europe. Has the elitism in the original European project become a handicap to progress? How can 'ever closer union' be achieved by popular consent amongst 27 highly diverse member states? Is it possible for the member states to consider the interests of Europe as a whole? To discuss these questions he is joined by Dr Julie Smith, Reader in European Politics at Cambridge and member of the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee, and Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Reform, Brussels.