Tag: Democracy and Rule of Law
Peace Picks August 8-12
- Technology: Improving Elections One Bit Or Byte At A Time? | Tuesday, August 9th | 3:15 pm -4:45 pm | Pew Charitable Trusts – Research Facility| Click HERE for more information | Election apps, online tools, electronic poll books, and more, are changing every aspect of the elections process. What role do legislators play in adopting new technology? What is the price for implementing new voting tools? And what about the human factor—how does all this impact voters and poll workers? Speakers will include David Becker of the Pew Charitable Trusts, Washington, D.C.; Matthew Mastersonof the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, Maryland; and Amber McReynolds, Denver Elections Division, Colorado
- Women And The SDGs: Partner Perspectives | Tuesday, August 9th | 4:00pm -6:00pm | Woodrow Wilson Center| Click HERE to register | Please join Plan International USA and the Woodrow Wilson Center for a practical discussion on how various partners can and should work together to move the SDG needle for women and girls. The panelists will share their perspectives and the challenges they face, and discuss what the SDGs really mean for women globally. To enhance the conversation, 26 women leaders from 18 countries participating in Plan’s Global Women in Management program will also be in attendance to share their views from the field. Speakers include Tony Pipa, Chief Strategy Officer at USAID; Natalie Co, Senior Manager at Accenture Development Partnerships; Roger-Mark de Souza, Director of Population, Environmental Security, and Resilience, Woodrow Wilson Center; and Xolile Manyoni, Project Coordinator/Co-founder, Sinamandla, South Africa (Global Women in Management participant, Plan USA). The discussion will be moderated by Ann Hudock, Senior Vice President for International Programs at Plan International USA. The discussion will be from 4-5pm, with a reception to follow from 5-6pm
- Teaching The Middle East Through Art, Music, And Culture | Wednesday, August 10th | 9:00am -3:00pm | Elliott School of International Affairs| Click HERE to register | This workshop will help K-12 educators develop strategies to look beyond the dominant narratives of conflict and violence in the Middle East and instead teach students about the region through its wide array of peoples and cultures. Along with presentations from leading scholars, we will engage discussions and activities, and distribute information to help educators access resources on teaching about the Middle East. Speakers include Ted Swedenburg, Professor of Anthropology, University of Arkansas and Hisham Aidi, Lecturer, Columbia University.
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Liberal democracy at risk
The handwriting is on many walls. Liberal democracy and the world order it has built since World War II are at risk. Equal rights, political pluralism and rule of law are being challenged from several directions.
We see it in Brexit, which aims explicitly to restore borders, reject immigrants and implicitly to end the liberal democratic establishment’s monopoly on governing power. We see it in Trump, who aims at similar goals. We see it in Putin, Erdogan and Sisi, who are selling the idea that concentrated power and restrictions on freedom will deliver better and more goods and services. We see it in China, which likewise aims to maintain the Communist Party’s monopoly on national political power while allowing markets to drive growth. No need to mention Hungary’s Orbán, Macedonia’s Gruevski, Poland’s Szydło and other democratically elected leaders who turn their backs on liberal democratic values once in power, in favor of religion, nationalism or ethnic identity.
Among the first victims are likely to be two bold efforts at freeing up trade and investment and promoting growth by removing barriers and encouraging globalization: the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the European Union and the US as well as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), which was intended to do something similar in the Pacific Basin. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have said they are opposed to TPP. It is hard to picture TTIP proceeding while the EU is negotiating its divorce from the United Kingdom.
We have seen assaults on liberal democracy and its associated world order in the past. Arguably that is what World War II was about, at least in part. Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and Mussolini’s Italy offered Fascist, autocratic responses to relatively liberal democracy in Britain, France, Germany and the United States. The Soviet Union, which fought with the Allies against Fascism, offered a Communist alternative that survived the war and engaged in the Cold War standoff with liberal democracies for almost 45 years thereafter, one that involved proxy wars, Communist and anti-Communist puppets, and the enormous risk of nuclear holocaust. The history of fights between liberal democracy and its antagonists is fraught with war, oppression, and prolonged authoritarianism.
It wasn’t that long ago, when the Berlin wall fell, that liberal democracy seemed overwhelmingly likely to win worldwide. The end of history didn’t last long. The two big challenges liberal democracy now faces are Islamist extremism and capitalist authoritarianism. These are both ideological and physical challenges. Putinism is an authoritarian style of governance that sends warplanes, naval ships and troops to harass and occupy its neighbors and adversaries. The same can be said of Xi Jinping’s China, which is making the South China Sea into its backyard and harassing its neighbors.
The Islamist extremist challenge comes above all from Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, which are competing with each other even as they destroy fragile states like Libya, Yemen and Syria. Iraq appears to be winning its fight, though it is likely to face a virulent insurgency even after it ends Islamic State control over parts of its territory. The outcome is unlikely to be liberal democratic. Many other states face that kind of insurgent Islamist threat: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Somalia, and Tunisia, to name but a few.
But the biggest threat to liberal democracy today comes from inside the liberal democracies themselves. Islamist terror has killed relatively few people, apart from 9/11. Popular overreaction to Islamist threats, immigration and globalization could bring to power people with little commitment to liberal democratic values in the United States, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark and elsewhere. They will seek to reestablish borders, slow or end immigration, impose draconian laws to root out terrorists, and restore trade barriers in the hope of regaining lost industries.
Another challenge, peculiar to the US, seems to be emerging: black insurgents with guns who think they are retaliating against police for abuse of black citizens. This is bound to elicit a law and order response the could even bring a real threat to liberal democracy in Washington: Donald Trump in the presidency. If the protests in Cleveland this week are not disciplined and peaceful, it could put real wind in his sails.
The menace to liberal democracy is real. If we want pluralism, human rights and the rule of law, we are going to have to take some risks. I find it an easy choice, but many of my compatriots seem inclined to lean in the other direction.
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The difference Brexit makes in the Balkans
I enjoyed a meeting today with Kosovo’s foreign minister, Enver Hoxhaj, some of Kosovo’s ambassadors stationed in European capitals and foreign ministry staff. They were concerned mainly about the implications of Brexit for their country. Here are the notes I used in my presentation:
Brexit makes no difference to some important things
- The EU isn’t going away. The single market that allows the free flow of goods, services and capital will continue, even if constraints on movement of people increase.
- Brussels will continue to try to coordinate foreign and security policy and will remain an important interlocutor for the US. Brexit may even make it easier for France and Germany to unify EU policy prescriptions.
- The EU is moving to close the gap with NATO, which was a luxury no one can afford any longer.
- Brussels will try to have a common policy on immigration, albeit one without the UK and much less welcoming than in the past.
- The euro will survive Brexit, though it may still face serious challenges from bank weakness in Italy and elsewhere.
- Even enlargement will continue, as promised recently at the Paris summit, since the Balkans are not a heavy burden and their cheap labor will be welcome, especially if it stays at home.
But Brexit will change some other important things
- The UK, or more likely England, will continue its relative economic and political decline, in particular if Scotland and possibly Northern Ireland leave.
- EU investment and growth will slow.
- All EU countries, seeing the political risks, will treat illegal immigration much more harshly.
- Standards for EU accession will be enforced more strictly, especially those pertaining to rule of law.
- Europe’s global political weight will continue to decline and its engagement abroad will decrease.
- The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership the EU and the US hoped to conclude is likely in suspense, if not moribund.
- Putin’s Russia will gain and feel encouraged to expand its anti-EU and anti-NATO efforts, in particular in the Balkans.
- The world will continue to look to the US for leadership, especially as financial flows looking for a safe haven boost the US dollar (and maybe its economy).
- The Balkans countries will be expected to handle more of their own issues: clamping down on foreign fighters and illegal immigration, resolving the remaining interstate conflicts, and building up regional physical, financial economic and cultural infrastructure.
What does this mean for Kosovo? If I were a Kosovar, I would want to use the next 5-10 years, when the EU will be preoccupied with itself, to complete my country’s sovereignty and enable viable candidacies for both NATO and EU membership. This entails domestic as well as diplomatic efforts. I would want:
- The Kosovo courts to become fully independent and capable of providing a fair trial with due process to all citizens, regardless of ethnicity, without the participation of international prosecutors or judges.
- The work of the Special Court to try crimes that occurred after the war to be created and complete its work as quickly and competently as possible.
- To ensure that radicalization in Kosovo is reduced to a minimum through effective preventive (not only law enforcement) measures.
- To grow the economy, and in particular jobs, more rapidly through improvement in the business environment and reducing corruption to levels at least comparable to the average within the EU.
- To create an army with representation from all of Kosovo’s citizens, compatible with NATO standards and capable of contributing to NATO missions, whose chief of staff should meet regularly with those of all of Kosovo’s neighbors, including Serbia.
- To settle all issues with Kosovo’s neighbors, including in particular the demarcation of the Montenegrin border (which should enable the EU to liberalize its visa requirements) and the Serbian border/boundary as well as full implementation of all agreements already reached with Belgrade.
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Peace picks July 11 – July 15
1) HEARING: Human rights under siege worldwide | Tuesday, July 12th | 10:00 AM | 2172 Rayburn House Office Building | Chairman Royce on the hearing: “Human rights violations are on the rise around the world. In Iran, the courts carry out public amputations and floggings. In Putin’s Russia, journalists are jailed for exposing government corruption and reporting the facts. In failed states like Syria, we’ve seen abhorrent treatment of civilians, including genocide. We’ve even seen backsliding in respect for human rights among established democracies. These are disturbing trends, and this hearing will seek answers on how the U.S. should respond.” Witnesses include: The Honorable Mark P. Lagon, President of Freedom House. Thomas Farr, Ph.D., President of the Religious Freedom Institute. Ms. Amanda Schnetzer, Director of the Human Freedom Initiativeat the George W. Bush Institute. Mr. Mark Bromley, Chair at the Council for Global Equality
2) Economic and Labor Reform in Bahrain | Wednesday, July 13th | 12:00 PM | Brookings | Click HERE to register | No country in the Gulf region and perhaps in the broader Arab world has thought about and experimented with reform more than the Kingdom of Bahrain. Indeed, Manama was setting up economic visions of the future long before the trend became popular. However, the country’s reform process faces various challenges, posed by an ongoing political crisis at home and an increasingly turbulent regional environment. Ausamah Abdulla Al Absi, Chief Executive Officer of the Kingdom of Bahrain’s Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA), will join the Atlantic Council to discuss Bahrain’s reform accomplishments and shortcomings and lay out the country’s path toward sustainable development. In his capacity as head of the LMRA, Mr. Al Absi is responsible for realizing Bahrain’s economic reform plan. Since its inception in 2006, the LMRA has played a crucial role in HRH Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa’s economic reform program. Additionally, the large and vastly important institution oversees the implementation of Bahrain Vision 2030. Speakers include:
Ausamah Abdulla Al Absi, CEO of the Labour Market Regulatory Authority, Kingdom of Bahrain Introduced by: Barry Pavel, Vice President, Arnold Kanter Chair, and Director of the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council. Moderated by: Bilal Y. Saab, Director, Middle East Peace and Security Initiative, Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security Atlantic Council.
3) Blasphemy Laws and Censorship by States and Non-State Actors: Examining Global Threats to Freedom of Expression | Thursday, July 14th | 2:00 PM | 2322 Rayburn House Office Building, click HERE for event details | The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission | The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission will hold a hearing that will examine blasphemy laws, state censorship, actions by non-state actors, and other threats to freedom of expression around the world. This hearing will examine these issues, while seeking to provide concrete recommendations for how U.S. policy makers can most effectively encourage the protection of freedom of expression around the globe. This hearing will be open to members of Congress, congressional staff, the interested public and the media. The event will be hosted by Joseph R. Pitts, M.C. and Co-Chairman, TLHRC. James P. McGovern, M.C. and Co-Chairman, TLHRC.
Panel I:
David N. Saperstein, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, U.S. Department of State
Panel II:
Rev. Thomas J. Reese, S.J., Chairman, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
Panel III:
Ms. Vanessa Tucker, Vice President for Analysis, Freedom House
Ms. Nina Shae, Director, Hudson Institute Center for Religious Freedom
Dr. Karin Karlekar, Director of Free Expression Programs, PEN America
Dr. Courtney C. Radsch, Advocacy Director, Committee to Protect Journalists
Mr. Wael Aleji, Spokesperson, Syrian Network for Human Rights
4) After Fallujah: Security, Governance, and the Next Battle Against ISIS | Friday, July 15th | 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM | Middle East Institute hosted at the Johns Hopkins Kennedy Auditorium | Click here to register | Iraqi forces have expelled the Islamic State (ISIS) from Fallujah, but difficult work lies ahead to retake the territory still under ISIS control, provide security, and rebuild. Restoring government and the rule of law, returning the displaced, and rebuilding homes and infrastructure will be crucial for sustaining the victory. Who will have the power and legitimacy to manage local resources and services? What will it take for civilians to return? Can the Popular Mobilization Forces that played an important role in the liberation of Fallujah be demobilized or absorbed into the army, or will they remain independent power centers? The Middle East Institute (MEI) and the Conflict Management Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) are pleased to host Robert S. Ford (MEI), Charles Lister (MEI), Jessica Lewis McFate (Institute for the Study of War), and Douglas Ollivant (New America) for a discussion of these and other questions regarding the aftermath of Fallujah, how ISIS may react in defeat, and the challenges ahead facing the liberation of Mosul.
5) How to Defeat Terrorism in Iraq | Wednesday, July 20th | 10:30-12:00| The Institute for World Politics | Click here to RSVP | Sheikh Jamal al-Dhari will share his vision for his country: a political re-crafting of the existing government structure away from sectarianism and towards a new constitution based on Iraqi national citizenship and inclusive of participation from all sectarian communities. HE Sheikh Jamal al-Dhari is the Chairman of the Iraq National Project and President of Peace Ambassadors for Iraq (PAFI). One of the leaders of the al-Zoba tribe in Iraq, he is the nephew of the late Islamic scholar and religious leader. Sheikh Harith al-Dhari Jamal was born in the Abu Ghraib district of Iraq on July 16, 1965. He grew up within the al-Zoba tribe and in the 1970s he attended the Hafsa School. In the 1980s, Jamal was conscripted into the Iraqi Army to fight in the Iran- Iraq War. During his time on the frontline, he fought alongside both Sunni and Shia officers and friends, in the Iraqi Republican Guard. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by coalition forces, Jamal was a strong proponent of Iraqi nationalism and self-rule. In 2005, he and his family fought against al-Qaeda’s occupation of Iraqi territory and, as a consequence, Jamal lost 70 members of his family in the struggle. In 2014, Jamal helped to establish the nonprofit think tank Peace Ambassadors for Iraq, whose purpose is to advocate for a renewed system of government in Iraq, to determine the best policies to fully eliminate ISIS/Daesh and other terrorist forces from Iraq, and to build international support for an all-inclusive Iraq. Presently, Jamal is working for a renewal in Iraq by forging a non-sectarian and inclusive settlement for all Iraqis.
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Shape up, anything else is coddling
I disagree with much of what two of my dearest SAIS colleagues and their associate say in a recent Foreign Affairs article advocating greater EU and US backing for the Balkans. They argue that in the wake of Brexit,
European leaders, and perhaps those in Washington too, need to roll out a bold new plan for Europe. Enlarging the union by finally extending a hand to the Balkans would be a good place to start.
That’s wrong on two counts.
First, the Union has been extending a hand to the Balkans for more than twenty years, with some positive results: Slovenian and Croatian membership above all, as well as progress in Albania, Montenegro and Serbia. Even Macedonia, Kosovo and Bosnia, which are stymied by their own internal problems, have gained important access to EU markets and have begun adopting the acquis communautaire. None of the non-members will be ready before 2020, but some could hope for accession shortly after that.
Second, EU accession has in fact become more difficult due to Brexit, no matter what Chancellor Merkel (or my colleagues) say. The Brexit campaign unabashedly used immigration from the Balkans as one of its talking points. No one should imagine that ratification of an accession treaty with Albania, Montenegro or Serbia would be easier today than it was a couple of weeks ago. Brexit has consequences. The EU club has become harder to get into.
The only concrete advantage the Foreign Affairs article offers as an example of the advantages of additional Balkans membership in the EU is this:
For example, if the Balkans were incorporated into the EU, Brussels could help fund temporary shelters for Syrian refugees that land in the Balkans and facilitate better registration and processing.
But the EU could do what they suggest without adding any Balkan members, just as it has already done with Turkey. And the article suggests many good reasons why the EU should hesitate on accession: ethnic strife, corrosive politics, corruption, and organized crime.
The right lesson to be drawn from Brexit is not that the EU should open its arms wider. That isn’t going to happen, because EU members are all democracies that have to reckon with domestic political reactions. The right lesson is that non-EU Balkan countries need to shape up and meet the increasingly stringent requirements the EU has imposed since the arguably premature accession of Bulgaria and Romania.
The long pole in the EU membership tent throughout the Balkans is rule of law, which is weak and inconsistent. When a Serb can get a fair trial in a Kosovo court without international judges or prosecutors, when crooked politicians and their organized crime enablers are routinely prosecuted in Albania and Bosnia, when Serb politicians and generals answer for their 1990s war crimes in Serbian courts, then the Balkans will be ready for EU membership. If I were a citizen in one of the potential EU members, I would be doing everything I could to hasten the day, not pleading for special dispensation that is unlikely to come.
None of the non-EU Balkan countries is so big or problematic as Turkey. The largest is Serbia, at a bit over 7 million and declining (less than 10% of the population of Turkey). They will all be minor burdens on the EU budget and suppliers of needed cheap labor and taxpayers. Three are majority Muslim (Bosnia by a hair, Albania and Kosovo by more), but their Islam is fundamentally moderate. The Islamic State had a spurt of success recruiting in the Balkans, but that appears to have subsided in the wake of its military defeats and Balkan government crackdowns.
The best backing friends of the Balkans can give is to help them shape up for EU membership as soon as possible. Anything else is coddling.
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Accountability should finish at home
I signed this open letter concerning Serbian lack of prosecution of war criminals, in particular the murderers of the Bytyqi brothers, but let me add that I feel no less strongly about Kosovar, Bosnian and Croatian failures in this domain. All their now more or less democratic governments need to take a hard look in the mirror and get busy with the difficult business of holding people accountable for horrendous crimes in the 1990s. Accountability may not start at home, but it should finish there.
OPEN LETTER TO
JOSEPH BIDEN, THE U.S. VICE PRESIDENT,
JOHN KERRY, THE U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE,
FEDERICA MOGHERINI, HIGH REPRESENTATIVE OF THE E.U. FOR
FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND SECURITY POLICY,
JOHANNES HAHN, E.U. COMMISSIONER FOR EUROPEAN NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICY & ENLARGEMENT NEGOTIATIONS,
THE EUROPEAN UNION FOREIGN AFFAIRS COUNCIL,
THE U.S. SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, AND
THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
As former representatives of the United States government, authors, human rights activists, and academics who have closely followed the breakup of the former Yugoslavia and Serbia’s subsequent efforts to resolve the many war crimes committed during that period, we are deeply concerned by the slow pace of Serbia’s domestic war crimes prosecutions, including its failure to resolve the murders of Ylli, Agron, and Mehmet Bytyqi, three brothers who were executed and dumped on top of a mass grave seventeen years ago today.
Since the position’s inception in 2003, the Serbian war crimes prosecutor has indicted no senior Serbian military or police officials, no government officials, and no persons of any rank involved in the removal from Kosovo and reburial in Serbia of more than 900 Albanian bodies – a deliberate “cover-up operation”.[i] Prosecutors filed only seven indictments in 2014, the majority of which were the result of complete investigatory files transferred from prosecutors in Bosnia and Herzegovina.[ii] In 2015, they only issued two, neither of which was confirmed.[iii] This is not a record to be proud of.
In the Bytyqi case, a Serbian President[iv] and the two most recent Prime Ministers[v] have repeatedly promised resolution since 2006, but have failed to take adequate steps to secure this result. Instead, reports indicate that a primary suspect has intimidated witnesses and remains close to senior members of the current government.[vi]
International and domestic NGOs, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the European Commission, have diagnosed numerous problems with Serbia’s war crimes record. Uniformly, each cites a lack of political will and political interference as impeding accountability.[vii]
Similarly, witnesses will never come forward and cases will not be resolved when government Ministers host “welcome home” parties[viii] for returning convicts of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and suggest there be a political loyalty test when selecting the chief war crimes prosecutor.[ix]
Though the ICTY is winding down, the hard work for its countries of focus is nowhere near complete. Across the Balkans, tens of thousands of victims and their families deserve closure. Henceforth, only domestic prosecutions will have the ability to deliver them justice.
To date, Serbia’s record has been a dismal one that is ultimately unacceptable. Therefore, we urge you and the entities you represent to take constructive steps to ensure better commitment and effort by Serbia’s leaders and institutions to resolve war crimes cases, including the Bytyqi Brothers case. This issue should be raised as part of your continuing dialogue with the Serbian government, parliament and civil society leaders.
Sincerely, Read more
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