While originally conceptualized as an interposition force meant to monitor ceasefires and control buffer zones between two waring parties, the United Nations peace operations of today operate in progressively complex and intractable intrastate conflicts made worse by rapidly growing transnational issues such as climate change and terrorism. In response to these unprecedented challenges, the nature of UN peace operations has …

This month marks Seven months since the invasion of Ukraine by Russian Forces. While Internet outrage and heated discussions on Club House have died down, war is still a reality for the people of Ukraine. With more than 50,000 killed, there is no end in sight to the Russian-Ukraine War. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and expected the Ukrainian …

Russia uses its energy supplies consistently and with great strategic calculation to weaken and divide Europe. Such a calculation is not to be found in Europe’s response to this economic war. The EU’s strategy is to impose a complete embargo on oil, electricity, gas and coal from Russia as soon as possible. It is as if Europe is playing chess …

The UN Trade and Development Body, UNCTAD, has called to curb the rise of cryptocurrency in developing countries, calling them unstable financial assets that cause unforeseeable risks and costs. The three newly-released policy briefs examined the risks and costs of cryptocurrencies, including the threats cryptocurrencies bring to financial stability, domestic resource mobilisation and the security of monetary systems. The document …

The control and limitation of nuclear armaments worldwide has been a key factor to achieve in order to maintain a relatively peaceful balance of power after the Second World War. Despite the ratification of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), effective since 1970, however, several countries across the world have not discontinued uranium enrichment programs and increased …

Tigray, Ethiopia, is currently witnessing the worst humanitarian crisis in modern history, and half the world has not even heard about it. The region has been destabilized since November 2020, when the conflict between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the Government of Ethiopia began. The ongoing conflict has killed thousands and internally displaced millions of Ethiopians. An estimated 59,000 …

Some aspects of gender impacts in armed conflict have been addressed through case laws, statutes, and customary international law, especially the uneven effect of sexual violence on women, both combatants and civilians. However, this emphasis has led to other areas of gender being ignored, such as the operational risk of gender in armed conflict. As the United Nations Security Council …

War almost broke out between the two NATO countries in 1996 already over an uninhabited rocky island. This time, however, it’s over much more: the Greek islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos and Ikaria off Turkey’s west coast, as well as the Dodecanese islands, which are also near the Turkish coast and belong to Greece – the largest of which is …

Diplomats in Vienna were again negotiating with the Iranian regime in an attempt to reach a return to the nuclear agreement yesterday. But time is running out. Nuclear discussions with Iran resumed in Vienna on Thursday 4th of august after months of disruption. Initially, individual negotiators from Iran as well as Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China met for bilateral …

When South Sudan achieved independence in 2011, its conditions led to hopes for the possibility of positive development for the new nation. The act of self-determination concretised in a remarkably peaceful secession from the parent State of Sudan, combined with a richness in natural resources such as oil and gold, however, were not sufficient to counterbalance some of the structural …