Suchergebnisse

Africa has experienced an unprecedented level of involvement in its regional affairs by Middle Eastern states in the past few years. This is a remarkable development, indeed, given that transregional relations have been characterized by reciprocal ignorance for most of the post‐World War II period.
The scope of these current transregional entanglements can be best observed along the African coast bordering the Red Sea. Middle Eastern states have facilitated peace talks in, for instance, Sudan (Qatar, 2008–2011), and Somalia (Saudi Arabia, 2007; Turkey, since 2011), as well as between Djibouti and Eritrea (Qatar, 2010–2017). More recently, concerted mediation efforts by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia have led to an agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia - ending, finally, their 20-year war in September 2018 - and stimulated fresh negotiations between Djibouti and Eritrea. New talks have also been facilitated regarding the three-way conflict among Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan over sharing the Nile waters.
However, recent Middle Eastern spats have also left the Horn of Africa facing security-related repercussions. The intra-Gulf crisis pitting Saudi Arabia and the UAE against Qatar and Turkey has reverberated to such an extent that the African Union discussed the spillover in January 2018. And while the recent diplomatic breakthrough between Eritrea and Ethiopia has been widely praised as an important step toward regional stabilization, observers also caution that Middle Eastern geopolitical rivalries could "provoke destabilizing reactions across the Horn of Africa."
This is even more true as the Red Sea has experienced notable militarization of late. Besides the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), which have already established military bases in the region or are planning to do so, Middle Eastern states are also emerging as regional military players. Egypt, Iran, Israel and Qatar obviously have a stake in these developments, while Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE, which seem bent on becoming key actors in the Greater Horn, are constructing a series of military bases from Sudan to Somalia.
The debates about the militarization of the Red Sea obscure, however, the fact that Africa as a whole has become a region of vital interest to these and other Middle Eastern states, each of them with its own history of relations there. While prospective economic benefits and international prestige have long dominated the agenda, present-day dynamics are heavily driven by the struggle for hegemony in the Middle East.
This article focuses on the policies of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the dominant regional powers at the center of the hegemonic competition. On the one hand, their turn to Africa indicates that their foreign policies have become more assertive on the international stage, especially regarding South-South relations. On the other, their current strategic approaches and their politics of alliance building follow very closely the logic of conflict dynamics in their home region.

The Berlin Conference on Libya in January 2020 was held to support United Nations (UN) conflict-resolution efforts. The participating states' commitment to the existing arms embargo garnered particular attention. But hopes of meaningful progress were quickly dashed, with the embargo violated yet again shortly after the conference. Indeed, the implementation and enforcement of UN arms embargoes is fraught with challenges, especially prominently in the case of Libya. But closer examination of existing embargoes in the context of armed conflict also reveals opportunities for mak­ing better use of the measure, which is the most frequently used form of UN sanc­tions. It goes without saying that no arms embargo can save a peace process on its own, however tightly it is monitored. But the instrument can be applied to greater effect as part of an overall package of conflict resolution measures. (author's abstract)

n May, Germany's parliament approved the country's continued military partici­pation in two missions in Mali and the Sahel. As part of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission (MINUSMA) and the EU Training Mission EUTM Mali, up to 1,550 German soldiers can be deployed. Given the scale of these engagements, which are currently Germany's largest, German discussions on Sahel policy, like those elsewhere, have been sluggish and unproductive. One reason for this is that buzz­words and false certainties determine the debate, which is largely detached from strategic considerations. (Autorenreferat)

This paper aims to bring to the public one of the most important moments in the history of modern times of Albania. After the Albanian independence on 28 November 1912 and international recognition of Albanian state on 29 July 1913, in 1919-1920, many national and international events unraveled which initially posed a real danger for Albania to become an independent state. The Paris Peace Conference, organized after the First World War by the Great Powers which win the war, and in which 27 winning states took part, became the real world center of that time. The Albanian point of view was headed directly at this Conference, with the hope to gain its independence and to win the right of self determination for its people. The main issues of the Conference were: border correction, especially in the southern part of Albania, relations between the Balkan states regarding Albania, the position of Italy, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and the position of Greece over Albania, and the real threat of secret pact during the First World War and the new role of American President, Woodrow Wilson. This paper also aims to bring the attitude of the Albanian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference and the position of Italy, France, Great Britain and Greece.

Ceasefire agreements are legally governed by international humanitarian law because they have generally been considered in relation to how they affect levels of violence. However, new research in the fields of anthropology, security, and development studies suggests that ceasefires can have many more ramifications. These range from their ability to influence governance institutions, property and citizenship rights, economic networks, and security mechanisms. Consequently, this article suggests that a broader legal framework is needed through which to consider ceasefires and their consequences. While canvassing the option of ceasefires being types of contractual documents or as special agreements under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, the article concludes that the best way to regulate ceasefire agreements is through an expanded version of lex pacificatoria. Rather than being governed by hard international law, such a move would allow for the implementation of more flexible programmatic standards to influence the myriad ways ceasefires are negotiated, the conduct of belligerents, and their diverse effects on the ground during wartime.

Since the Northern Mali war of 2012, the Sahel countries have seen substantial international aid and military involvement. Yet, the region is more fragile than ever. As jihadist groups have established themselves throughout Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, violence has escalated dramatically and states have been pushed to the brink of collapse. In August 2020, after weeks of public unrest, Mali's government was toppled by a military coup. There is a palpable need to rethink international engagement in the Sahel region.
Policymakers in Africa and Europe must realise that governments are involved in asymmetric conflicts that they cannot win militarily. Parts of the Sahel will remain ungovernable for the foreseeable future. As the situation takes a growing toll on societies, state legitimacy and social order are eroding.
National policy and international assistance risk doing further damage, by narrowly focusing on counterterrorism, by taking sides in local conflicts, and by fuelling corruption through ill-designed development programmes. To prevent these unintended consequences, policymakers should adopt a holistic understanding of the Sahel crisis that explicitly considers the risks and consequences of military and development interventions.
Governments and their international partners still lack coherent strategies to mitigate the impacts of violent jihadism on states and societies, to strengthen state-society relations and to address growing intercommunal violence.
International involvement, including military assistance, is necessary to stop the spiral of violence and counter state fragility in the Sahel region. However, it must be centred on the objective of strengthening state-society relations. Preventing abuses against civilians and advocating for profound security-sector reform should be top priorities. Governments must begin to address growing injustices and economic grievances at the local level, to prevent further intercommunal violence. At the same time, targeted strategies need to be developed to undermine jihadists' recruitment strategies, intimidation tactics, revenue streams, and internal cohesion.

Suspend the transfer of weapons, ammunition and military equipment to secondary conflict parties, such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, to stop illegal re-transfers to the Syrian war zone. Existing national agreements to suspend certain arms exports to Turkey (2019) by Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom and Germany, as well as the export moratoria of limited duration for Saudi Arabia (2018), should be extended to a comprehensive, not time-limited EU arms embargo. Many of the weapons that are re-exported to Syria are old arms, produced in former Yugoslavian countries or the Soviet Union. To date, partially uncontrolled and illegal stocks of old arms exist on the Balkans and in eastern European states. To prevent further proliferation of these weapons to Syria and other war zones, the European Commission should set up an initiative to buy and destroy these weapons. To stop the cycle of mass displacement and attacks against civilians, a UN-mandated no-fly zone must be established in northern Syria. If a no-fly zone is not successful in protecting civilians in northern Syria, a UN-mandated safe zone must also be considered and ultimately implemented. EU member states must call on the UN Security Council to vote for continuing humanitarian cross-border aid (UNSCR 2165) and to reopen the al-Yarubiyah border crossing with Iraq in north-eastern Syria to prevent the humanitarian situation from deteriorating further.

Arbeit an der Bibliothek noch nicht eingelangt - Daten nicht geprüft ; Innsbruck, Univ., Masterarb., 2019 ; (VLID)3434768

Existing research suggests that democratization can run counter to building peace in post-conflict contexts. This article analyses the effect of two competing strategies that external actors use to address the conflict of objective between democracy and peace: prioritization and gradualism. The prioritization approach advises sequencing, which means postponing support for democratization and concentrating first on peace in terms of the absence of violent conflict. The gradualist approach promotes peace and democracy simultaneously. This article offers a systematic analysis of these two prominent donor strategies. To this end, it focuses on two critical junctures in two similar post-conflict settings (Burundi and Nepal). Drawing upon extensive field research, the analysis shows that a gradualist approach is not more risk-prone than a prioritization strategy. To the contrary, the analysis suggests that even in most fragile contexts, gradualism can help to foster peace. Prioritization, in turn, may also contribute to the instability it aimed to prevent. Two factors condition the effect of the selected strategy on peace: which dimensions of democracy are affected and to what degree, and whether the institutional context reinforces or counteracts this trend.