The Chinese Communist Party’s Third Plenum culminated last month with the release of a reform-minded document outlining significant changes in 60 key areas of the Chinese economy. In targeting government monopolies in industry, as well as controls on the flow of capital, goods and people, while calling for upgrading the quality of governance, the document successfully identifies many of the major bottlenecks to continued rapid socio-economic development. Coupled with recent events in the political sphere, the agenda represents the emergence of President Xi Jinping as a leader and the benchmarks by which he will be judged between now and the [...]
The European Union is notorious for producing reams of official documents. Does it need to churn out another one on the state of the world? In last week’s column, drawing on a new paper published by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), I argued that the EU needs an overarching strategy to respond to escalating challenges both on its periphery and at the global level. The existing European Security Strategy, completed 10 years ago this month, remains a pithy analysis of the problems the bloc faced in 2003. But its age shows: It contains just two extremely brief references [...]
Last month, Uganda sought compensation from the U.N. for three Ugandan helicopters that crashed while in transit to the African Union Mission in Somalia, killing seven crew members. In an email interview, Scott Sheeran, a senior lecturer in international human rights, humanitarian law and U.N. law at the School of Law at University of Essex, explained the rules governing U.N. compensation to states contributing to peacekeeping missions. WPR: What rules govern responsibility for damage to U.N. equipment and harm to personnel during peacekeeping operations? Scott Sheeran: The rules for reimbursement to states providing equipment, personnel or support services to a [...]
