Publications

Policy efforts currently fall short of all SDG 7 targets. Progress on clean cooking and renewable energy is lagging behind. Progress on electricity and energy efficiency is better, but more efforts are needed to meet the targets. Based on the latest IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 ̊C, energy-related emissions need to be reduced by 3.5% annually until 2050 and continue thereafter. The accelerated deployment of renewable energy, combined with increases in energy access and energy efficiency, can achieve 90% of the energy-related CO2 emissions reductions needed to reach the well-below 2 ̊C aim of the Paris Agreement

SDG 7 is set out to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.3 According to the UN, energy is central to nearly every major challenge the world faces today. For one thing, the problem of energy is closely connected to the problem of climate change as the energy sector represents by far the largest source of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions that are contributing to global warming.

Algae is not yet a well-known source for the needs of humans. In the last decades however, increasing numbers of people see the advantages of this very versatile organism. Scientists across the world are trying to develop different techniques to use algae for food, fodder, medicine, bio fuel or environmental purification. How can algae help solve the water and food shortage especially in the poorer countries?

Central aim of the paper is to analyze the reasons why paying taxes in Greece makes someone an “irrational” actor. it presents certain incentives that encourage tax evasion in the country. The first part will briefly document the level of tax evasion in Greece. The second part will list all the stimulants that have prompted the phenomenon of tax evasion in the country. Finally, the report will comment on the words of the former Greece’s Finance Minister, according to which “Greeks are not overtaxed”.

Central aim of the paper is to analyze the reasons why paying taxes in Greece makes someone an “irrational” actor. it presents certain incentives that encourage tax evasion in the country. The first part will briefly document the level of tax evasion in Greece. The second part will list all the stimulants that have prompted the phenomenon of tax evasion in the country. Finally, the report will comment on the words of the former Greece’s Finance Minister, according to which “Greeks are not overtaxed”.

The report describes how the fuel market works in Greece. It pays special attention to oil smuggling that has become dominant in the Greek economy. The report concludes with measures that should be taken to improve the income of Greece.

How Greater Commitment towards Human Rights Can Contribute to Global Economic Stability?

The financial crisis that erupted 2008 in the United States, spread all across the globe and spilled over into the real economy, has unveiled the extreme volatility and interconnectedness of today’s global economy. Since then, economic experts, accomplished authors and university professors alike have furthered their arguments as to the causes of this event: their analyses range from liquidity floods (Chandrasekhar 2011) to global imbalances (Helleiner 2011b), from excessive risk-taking behaviour of bankers (Lane and Maeland 2011) to ever-growing income inequality (Stiglitz 2012). Together, they paint a complete picture of the state of today’s global economy. At its core, it is one in which private profits and social returns have become increasingly misaligned.

This study aims to examine the impact of IMF programs in Ukraine during the period between 1994 and 2002. Many questions have been raised about the effectiveness of IMF-backed adjustment programs. Some Ukrainian politicians and academics have been eager to blame the Fund for Ukraine’s transition woes. Actually, the IMF helped Ukraine to limit its severe economic trouble.

Over the past year, events like the use of the “Kinzhal” hypersonic missile by Russia in Ukraine and the USA’s successful test of an AGM-183 hypersonic missile in December have brought hypersonic missiles into the spotlight. With the war in Ukraine having its first anniversary and tensions over Taiwan continuously rising, questions regarding the new technology and its impact on international stability have become ever more pressing.

Russia’s war against Ukraine shows once again that a large dictatorial state is the enemy of surrounding democracies and countries that aspire to freedom. Ukraine holding out against the Russian military might shows that support from North America, Great Britain and other Western states is essential for the preservation of freedom.

The incredible viciousness of the war in Ukraine keeps a normal person awake all night. The mined bodies of Ukrainian citizens who were shot randomly in Butscha by misled angry Russian soldiers are nauseating. The soldiers were ordered to withdraw after the failure of their attack on Kyiv. Putin sends them now to east and south Ukraine to conquer territory, again at the cost of thousands of lives. He concluded that his aim to destroy the independence of all of Ukraine ran into a resistance that was too much for his soldiers, to which he constantly lied in the past several years. Now, more death and destruction will be spread in the Donbas and the coastal cities of the Black Sea. And poor Putin says he has no other option… It is not difficult to recognize a psychiatric mass murderer.

There are about 70 million refugees in the world. Half of them are children. Most of them lead a precarious life in which their physical survival is at stake, not to speak of their right to a happy future. Every human being has the right to survival, but this is only guaranteed in rule-of-law democracies that truly apply national and international law.

For many people, the world is a dangerous place. Sometimes we are very surprised by unexpected crises, but often serious crises are quite predictable. It is probable that we will see more and more migration crises, due to wars, suppressive governments, religious strife, and environmental threats. At present 1% of the world’s population is forced to flee from their dwellings. Half of them are children. In most cases their future is destroyed.

The British philosopher Tony Ord has studied all risks that could seriously harm or even teminate mankind. They range from stellar explosions to pandemics and far going climate change.  Stellar explosions near the earth,  a collision with a comet, or a supervolcanic eruption that might end human life as we know it, are  estimated  to occur not more often than once in 10.000 years (supervolcanic eruption) or once in 1000 million years (stellar explosion.).

More than 700 million people, almost 10% of the world population, have to subsist on an income of just $1.90 a day living in poverty-stricken areas like Sub-Sahara Africa and much of South and Southeast Asia. To many of us, living in rich societies, two dollars is just loose change we might not notice if they were lost.

Water determines the existence of humans, animals and plants. Humans cannot survive more than 3 days without drinking water. Clean water and sanitation for all are Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6. Yet of the 7.4 billion people in today’s world, 4.2 billion still live without safely managed sanitation’ and two out of five people worldwide have no basic handwashing facilities at home.

Nelson Mandela said that ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world’. He was right as achieving this goal will have a strong, positive effect on reaching other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It has been estimated that 420 million people can be lifted out of poverty, and maternal deaths can be reduced by two thirds if all women in low-income countries (LICs) and low-middle income countries (LMICs) complete secondary education.

There are reasons to expect that the climate will change faster than expected. First, the Paris Agreement to curb CO2 emissions is not kept. All states violate it. Current knowledge shows that average temperatures will rise by 3.5 degrees Centigrade, while the agreement is that countries take measures to limit the rise to less than 2 degrees.

The Corona crisis proves how important the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 3 is for all of mankind. SDG 3 seeks to ‘Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages’ by 2030 and has targets such as further research and development into affordable vaccines, ending AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases, increase health training, reduce global maternal mortality rates and achieve universal access to health care.

Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7) is set out to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. According to the UN, energy is closely connected to the problem of global climate change as the energy sector represents by far the largest source of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions that are contributing to global warming.

Vladimir Putin is known for exploiting the weakness of others. That is the core business of international politics. His regime wants to restore the Great Power of the USSR. But Russia’s economy, smaller than the Benelux, is not strong and modern and relies mostly on selling oil, gas and weapons. It has no appealing ideology other than nationalism and top-down control.

Sometimes it is necessary to go against intuitive common sense, which tells us that one should tackle difficult tasks one by one. There are occasions in which it is better to combine them and tackle them together. There are at least 15 serious problems concerning Europe and Africa that, if tackled together, offer new opportunities.

As in the past, the 21st century will be ruled by the strongest political actors, which now are: China, the US, India, Russia and a few large middle powers. Separate West-European states, even Germany, are small in comparison to the superpowers. The interests and values of many European states are similar to each other, but their division and the recurrence of nationalism keeps the European Union weak. The EU is a union but is only a strong power in the world’s commercial matters.

The rise of right-wing populist parties and movements is not new in Europe. Right-wing populists got parliamentary representation in the majority of EU member states. In discussed case study of the Netherlands, border residents voted for the Freedom Party (PVV) by 3.5% more than non-border residents. This is a significant difference for the Netherlands which has a quite fragmented multi-party parliamentary system where 0.67% of votes are enough to get a seat. Central governments try to include the maximal number of citizens in their distribution policies. This leads to dissatisfaction among border residents, as they have different preferences over the distribution of public goods.

In part 1, we noted the power of peaceful conflict resolution, as exemplified by Mahatma Gandhi. We also noted the instruments and effective approaches. In this article, I want to add an approach which is important but often forgotten: tax reform. As most people and institutions respond to fiscal incentives to lower their tax bills, fiscal reform is an important tool to improve behaviour or corporations, states and people. 

Mahatma Gandhi, who we honour this year, 150 years after his birth,  remains a shining example of the power of non-violent conflict resolution. In 2013, I visited the Gandhi Museum in New Delhi. I was struck in particular by a cartoon on the wall near the end. Martin Luther King had been drawn standing next to Mahatma Gandhi, who was sitting on the ground. Gandhi looked up to King and said: You know, the funny thing with assassins is that they think they killed us.

Since the end of the Cold War and the seemingly decisive victory of neo-liberal economic prescriptions, numerous developing countries have experienced sharp and steady growth, eventually achieving what the World Bank defines as middle income status of a Gross National Income of around 12,000 USD per capita at current levels.

The preamble of the official translation of the German Constitution states the determination of the German people “to promote world peace as an equal partner in a united Europe”. The meaning of a “united Europe” remains disputed to this day but promoting world peace is a relatively clear and concrete goal. As is often the case with translations however, the original text does not quite carry the same meaning. “Dem Frieden der Welt zu dienen” translates more accurately to “serving the peace of the world” and “serving” is in linguistic terms a more intense expression than “promoting”.

On February 23 2018, five Turkish warships, applying a NAVTEX issued by the Turkish authorities in Block 3 of RoC’s EEZ, harassed the drilling rig Saiepem 12000 of the Italian state-owned company ENI, and threatened to sink it. The Italian vessel, after the discovery of an allegedly important amount of gas reserves in Block 6 of RoC’s EEZ, was heading towards Block 3 to initiate drilling in another well.

The beginning of the political year in Turkey has been marked by what is likely to be the overarching theme for the months to come: the presidential race and the upcoming elections. In 2019, the Turkish electorate will head to the polls three times for ordinary municipal elections, as well as for parliamentary and presidential ones.

The United States and China are leading the world in investing in new technologies, specifically advanced computing such as artificial intelligence and AVs. These two countries are global economic leaders and rivals. AV technology is not only a commercial opportunity for the countries but also a strategic imperative.

Turkey shares a border with the EU where troubling developments are occurring. With a population of over 80 million people, and through its role as a host of over 3 million Syrian refugees who would otherwise have tried to come to Europe, the current instability plaguing the country should be a serious concern for all Europeans.

We are nearing the 30th anniversary of Francis Fukuyama’s famous prediction that Western liberal democracy will come to be the universally accepted and final form of government. In the summer of 1989, Mr. Fukuyama, while witnessing the collapse of the Soviet Empire, prophesized a future world largely devoid of ideological struggles, where consumerism, a general sense of boredom and intellectual stagnation would rule the day.

In the last decades, Europe was experiencing a considerable increase of right-wing populist parties. The maps of the electoral results show an intriguing puzzle. Radical right parties were more successful at the border constituencies

This research explores the extent to which Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) explains the difference in the asylum policy approaches of Germany and the Netherlands during 2015. Both countries had been conducting restrictive asylum policies during the past 20 years. However, in 2015, at the peak of the European refugee crisis, Germany abruptly transformed its approach to refugees into an open-door policy while the Netherlands continued with its restrictive approach. This led to a remarkable difference in the number of asylum seekers both countries received in 2015; a divergence which served as a point of departure for this research. This paper mainly focuses on the case study of Germany’s asylum policy.

This thesis is a comparative study between French and Dutch integration models. It attempts to answer the question which model is more effective in integrating immigrants. The period selected for this study is the 1980s and the 1990s, when the French integration model was assimilationist and the Dutch model was multicultural. The results of this thesis are mixed. On the one hand, the French assimilationist integration model seems to enhance the relative participation rate of immigrants, to reduce their relative unemployment rate and to enhance their proficiency in French. On the other hand, the Dutch multicultural integration model seems more effective when measured through the level of education of immigrants, their rate of naturalization and the rate of exogamy. Indeed, on these three indicators, immigrants in the Netherlands score higher. At the end of this thesis, the limitations of this research will be developed.

Gross domestic product (GDP) is the most widely used measure of economic activity. In reality, however, things are more complicated. First, prices may not exist for some goods and services. This raises the question of how these services should be valued. Second, even where there are market prices, they may deviate from society’s underlying valuation. In particular, when the consumption or production of particular products affects society as a whole, the price that individuals pay for those products will differ from their value to society at large (Stiglitz, Sen & Fitoussi: 2009). Emphasizing the required shift from measuring economic production to measuring people’s wellbeing, a renewed framework for measuring a country’s performance is needed. This paper proposes an alternative framework for measurement.

Singapore gained full independence in 1965. This young state propelled itself from a considerably poor state with few natural resources into one of the most efficient and rich states on the globe. A centre of industry and education, Singapore can be seen by many as a role model for development. Can Singapore’s success be replicated elsewhere and be used as a new framework for developing countries to employ?

This file contains the content from the Building Peace Symposium.

This paper brings up a theoretical debate on conflict resolution and conflict transformation approaches and explains why the second one is deemed more useful in understanding conflicts.

De UN Stand-by High-Readiness Brigade [SHIRBRIG] was een initiatief van Denemarken in 1995 en had ten doel om parate slagkracht te creëren ten bate van Peace Keeping operaties van de Verenigde Naties. De voornaamste aanleiding tot de oprichting van SHIRBRIG was de genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Als permanente standplaats voor een hoofdkwartier wees men de 30 kilometer ten Noorden van Kopenhagen gelegen Garder-kazerne te Høvelte aan. 

Since the end of the conflict in 1999 and its unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia, Kosovo has been subject to several international peacekeeping and peacebuilding missions. This thesis looks at what impact external actors can have in the peacebuilding process after secession and to what extent they can accelerate or hinder the process of state-building and developing of institutions. The thesis makes use of a proto-theory which sketches several variables by which one can determine to what extent there is good governance in a state. The conclusion of the research is that external actors have even more influence in Kosovo than was expected, and that this influence is embedded in the institutional design of Kosovo due to the way Kosovo became what it is today.

What measures are to be taken by the international community to protect civilians in a war which cannot be ended by an external humanitarian intervention? How to execute more effectively the Responsibility to Protect? This book tries to answer these questions by comparing 15 cases in recent international history. From 1948 till 2014 eight more or less succesfull interventions by the international community stand against 7 serious failures.

Policy efforts currently fall short of all SDG 7 targets. Progress on clean cooking and renewable energy is lagging behind. Progress on electricity and energy efficiency is better, but more efforts are needed to meet the targets. Based on the latest IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 ̊C, energy-related emissions need to be reduced by 3.5% annually until 2050 and continue thereafter. The accelerated deployment of renewable energy, combined with increases in energy access and energy efficiency, can achieve 90% of the energy-related CO2 emissions reductions needed to reach the well-below 2 ̊C aim of the Paris Agreement

SDG 7 is set out to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.3 According to the UN, energy is central to nearly every major challenge the world faces today. For one thing, the problem of energy is closely connected to the problem of climate change as the energy sector represents by far the largest source of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions that are contributing to global warming.

In the last decades, Europe was experiencing a considerable increase of right-wing populist parties. The maps of the electoral results show an intriguing puzzle. Radical right parties were more successful at the border constituencies

Considering the above context, the International Institute of Governance & Leadership, organized the 2nd Global Governance & Leadership Forum in India on 10th September 2018 at Hotel Taj Mahal Palace, Colaba Mumbai. The theme of the Forum was appropriately chosen to be the ‘Challenges in Global Governance – Collective Governance of the Planet’. Here, our Director and Former Defence Minister of Netherlands & Member of the Global Board of IIGL,  Joris Voorhoeve, being an expert on Peace, as he was co-chair of global partnership for the prevention of armed conflict, which is a ‘UN Peace Keeping’ initiative, shared his thoughts on the ‘Role of Peace in advancing achievement of SDGs’.

Download Article

This file contains the content from the Building Peace Symposium.

This paper brings up a theoretical debate on conflict resolution and conflict transformation approaches and explains why the second one is deemed more useful in understanding conflicts.

Central aim of the paper is to analyze the reasons why paying taxes in Greece makes someone an “irrational” actor. it presents certain incentives that encourage tax evasion in the country. The first part will briefly document the level of tax evasion in Greece. The second part will list all the stimulants that have prompted the phenomenon of tax evasion in the country. Finally, the report will comment on the words of the former Greece’s Finance Minister, according to which “Greeks are not overtaxed”.

The report describes how the fuel market works in Greece. It pays special attention to oil smuggling that has become dominant in the Greek economy. The report concludes with measures that should be taken to improve the income of Greece.

De UN Stand-by High-Readiness Brigade [SHIRBRIG] was een initiatief van Denemarken in 1995 en had ten doel om parate slagkracht te creëren ten bate van Peace Keeping operaties van de Verenigde Naties. De voornaamste aanleiding tot de oprichting van SHIRBRIG was de genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Als permanente standplaats voor een hoofdkwartier wees men de 30 kilometer ten Noorden van Kopenhagen gelegen Garder-kazerne te Høvelte aan. 

Since the end of the conflict in 1999 and its unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia, Kosovo has been subject to several international peacekeeping and peacebuilding missions. This thesis looks at what impact external actors can have in the peacebuilding process after secession and to what extent they can accelerate or hinder the process of state-building and developing of institutions. The thesis makes use of a proto-theory which sketches several variables by which one can determine to what extent there is good governance in a state. The conclusion of the research is that external actors have even more influence in Kosovo than was expected, and that this influence is embedded in the institutional design of Kosovo due to the way Kosovo became what it is today.

When Edmund Burke declared in his Reflections on the Revolution in France, “the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever,” his obituarial note gave very little hint that Europe was, right at that time – in the eighteenth century – ushering in a transformative phase in world history. The European Enlightenment not only changed the institutional structures governing societies and states, it was a gigantic influence in establishing the basic understanding that public reasoning is essential for making societies better. Social improvement through systematic reasoning was a prominent component of the intellectual animation of the European Enlightenment. I will argue that the role of Europe in our troubled world today can be more sure-footed as well as more constructive if greater use is made of that heritage. What emerged firmly in eighteenth century Europe, riding on the back of the European Renaissance earlier, remains deeply relevant and constructive today.

Good governance improves human rights. Full implementation of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights is the highest goal. The UN treaties on human rights specify all. The best system of government is free representative democracy. Illiberal democracy, populist direct democracy, referendum democracy, theocracy and autocracy do not lead to good government.

What measures are to be taken by the international community to protect civilians in a war which cannot be ended by an external humanitarian intervention? How to execute more effectively the Responsibility to Protect? This book tries to answer these questions by comparing 15 cases in recent international history. From 1948 till 2014 eight more or less succesfull interventions by the international community stand against 7 serious failures.

Much of what is wrong in our world has a common cause: the abuse of political, economic, military and media power. Full rule of law curbs the perennial inclination of the powerful to abuse the powers entrusted to them. Are governments seeking to serve the well-being of their citizens, or are government leaders seeking less elevated personal goals? Do they restrict or eliminate their critics, upset the international status quo, change borders, or create confrontation, encouraging nationalism to solidify popular support in the short run? The latter approach fuels military expenditure and conflict and harms the long-term interests of countless people.

Global communications encourage global values. The ideal of global values gives us a warm feeling. Growth of common ethics across borders correlates to some extent with economic, cultural, religious and other contacts. But we know from the relations between France, Germany and Great Britain in the 19th century that intensive interchange in commerce, academia, religion, philosophy and the arts does not simply lead to peaceful progress. Violence and war, even irrational mutual destruction, is as much an aspect of internationalisation as feelings of mutual interest and community. The First World War came after many decades of progress and rapid internationalisation.

I have been asked to speak about the new directions of research in the use of the capability perspective in the epistemology of human flourishing and the ethics of public policy making. In a recent book, The Idea of Justice, published in 2009, I have tried to argue that our understanding of the idea of justice and of its conceptual as well as practical implications demands some fairly radical departures from the mainstream theories of human prosperity and of social justice that are dominant at the present time.

The Genocide Convention of 1948 was a major step towards recognition of the other grounds. All groups of people have a right to live and develop in peace, not be destroyed in war or civil war, or be eliminated by other measures such as starvation. The convention makes those persons aiming at the destruction of such groups punishable under international law. The general concept of crimes against humanity, which played already a key role in the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals, was specified by this convention against the wilful destruction of specific population groups.

What measures are to be taken by the international community to protect civilians in a war which cannot be ended by an external humanitarian intervention? How to execute more effectively the Responsibility to Protect? This book tries to answer these questions by comparing 15 cases in recent international history. From 1948 till 2014 eight more or less succesfull interventions by the international community stand against 7 serious failures.

Gross domestic product (GDP) is the most widely used measure of economic activity. In reality, however, things are more complicated. First, prices may not exist for some goods and services. This raises the question of how these services should be valued. Second, even where there are market prices, they may deviate from society’s underlying valuation. In particular, when the consumption or production of particular products affects society as a whole, the price that individuals pay for those products will differ from their value to society at large (Stiglitz, Sen & Fitoussi: 2009). Emphasizing the required shift from measuring economic production to measuring people’s wellbeing, a renewed framework for measuring a country’s performance is needed. This paper proposes an alternative framework for measurement.

Singapore gained full independence in 1965. This young state propelled itself from a considerably poor state with few natural resources into one of the most efficient and rich states on the globe. A centre of industry and education, Singapore can be seen by many as a role model for development. Can Singapore’s success be replicated elsewhere and be used as a new framework for developing countries to employ?

This research explores the extent to which Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) explains the difference in the asylum policy approaches of Germany and the Netherlands during 2015. Both countries had been conducting restrictive asylum policies during the past 20 years. However, in 2015, at the peak of the European refugee crisis, Germany abruptly transformed its approach to refugees into an open-door policy while the Netherlands continued with its restrictive approach. This led to a remarkable difference in the number of asylum seekers both countries received in 2015; a divergence which served as a point of departure for this research. This paper mainly focuses on the case study of Germany’s asylum policy.

This thesis is a comparative study between French and Dutch integration models. It attempts to answer the question which model is more effective in integrating immigrants. The period selected for this study is the 1980s and the 1990s, when the French integration model was assimilationist and the Dutch model was multicultural. The results of this thesis are mixed. On the one hand, the French assimilationist integration model seems to enhance the relative participation rate of immigrants, to reduce their relative unemployment rate and to enhance their proficiency in French. On the other hand, the Dutch multicultural integration model seems more effective when measured through the level of education of immigrants, their rate of naturalization and the rate of exogamy. Indeed, on these three indicators, immigrants in the Netherlands score higher. At the end of this thesis, the limitations of this research will be developed.

How Greater Commitment towards Human Rights Can Contribute to Global Economic Stability?

The financial crisis that erupted 2008 in the United States, spread all across the globe and spilled over into the real economy, has unveiled the extreme volatility and interconnectedness of today’s global economy. Since then, economic experts, accomplished authors and university professors alike have furthered their arguments as to the causes of this event: their analyses range from liquidity floods (Chandrasekhar 2011) to global imbalances (Helleiner 2011b), from excessive risk-taking behaviour of bankers (Lane and Maeland 2011) to ever-growing income inequality (Stiglitz 2012). Together, they paint a complete picture of the state of today’s global economy. At its core, it is one in which private profits and social returns have become increasingly misaligned.

This study aims to examine the impact of IMF programs in Ukraine during the period between 1994 and 2002. Many questions have been raised about the effectiveness of IMF-backed adjustment programs. Some Ukrainian politicians and academics have been eager to blame the Fund for Ukraine’s transition woes. Actually, the IMF helped Ukraine to limit its severe economic trouble.

Algae is not yet a well-known source for the needs of humans. In the last decades however, increasing numbers of people see the advantages of this very versatile organism. Scientists across the world are trying to develop different techniques to use algae for food, fodder, medicine, bio fuel or environmental purification. How can algae help solve the water and food shortage especially in the poorer countries?

Considering the above context, the International Institute of Governance & Leadership, organized the 2nd Global Governance & Leadership Forum in India on 10th September 2018 at Hotel Taj Mahal Palace, Colaba Mumbai. The theme of the Forum was appropriately chosen to be the ‘Challenges in Global Governance – Collective Governance of the Planet’. Here, our Director and Former Defence Minister of Netherlands & Member of the Global Board of IIGL,  Joris Voorhoeve, being an expert on Peace, as he was co-chair of global partnership for the prevention of armed conflict, which is a ‘UN Peace Keeping’ initiative, shared his thoughts on the ‘Role of Peace in advancing achievement of SDGs’.

Download Article

When Edmund Burke declared in his Reflections on the Revolution in France, “the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever,” his obituarial note gave very little hint that Europe was, right at that time – in the eighteenth century – ushering in a transformative phase in world history. The European Enlightenment not only changed the institutional structures governing societies and states, it was a gigantic influence in establishing the basic understanding that public reasoning is essential for making societies better. Social improvement through systematic reasoning was a prominent component of the intellectual animation of the European Enlightenment. I will argue that the role of Europe in our troubled world today can be more sure-footed as well as more constructive if greater use is made of that heritage. What emerged firmly in eighteenth century Europe, riding on the back of the European Renaissance earlier, remains deeply relevant and constructive today.

Good governance improves human rights. Full implementation of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights is the highest goal. The UN treaties on human rights specify all. The best system of government is free representative democracy. Illiberal democracy, populist direct democracy, referendum democracy, theocracy and autocracy do not lead to good government.

What measures are to be taken by the international community to protect civilians in a war which cannot be ended by an external humanitarian intervention? How to execute more effectively the Responsibility to Protect? This book tries to answer these questions by comparing 15 cases in recent international history. From 1948 till 2014 eight more or less succesfull interventions by the international community stand against 7 serious failures.

Much of what is wrong in our world has a common cause: the abuse of political, economic, military and media power. Full rule of law curbs the perennial inclination of the powerful to abuse the powers entrusted to them. Are governments seeking to serve the well-being of their citizens, or are government leaders seeking less elevated personal goals? Do they restrict or eliminate their critics, upset the international status quo, change borders, or create confrontation, encouraging nationalism to solidify popular support in the short run? The latter approach fuels military expenditure and conflict and harms the long-term interests of countless people.

Global communications encourage global values. The ideal of global values gives us a warm feeling. Growth of common ethics across borders correlates to some extent with economic, cultural, religious and other contacts. But we know from the relations between France, Germany and Great Britain in the 19th century that intensive interchange in commerce, academia, religion, philosophy and the arts does not simply lead to peaceful progress. Violence and war, even irrational mutual destruction, is as much an aspect of internationalisation as feelings of mutual interest and community. The First World War came after many decades of progress and rapid internationalisation.

I have been asked to speak about the new directions of research in the use of the capability perspective in the epistemology of human flourishing and the ethics of public policy making. In a recent book, The Idea of Justice, published in 2009, I have tried to argue that our understanding of the idea of justice and of its conceptual as well as practical implications demands some fairly radical departures from the mainstream theories of human prosperity and of social justice that are dominant at the present time.

The Genocide Convention of 1948 was a major step towards recognition of the other grounds. All groups of people have a right to live and develop in peace, not be destroyed in war or civil war, or be eliminated by other measures such as starvation. The convention makes those persons aiming at the destruction of such groups punishable under international law. The general concept of crimes against humanity, which played already a key role in the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals, was specified by this convention against the wilful destruction of specific population groups.