From Vienna to New York: Diverging attitudes and expectations among NPT members spell trouble for the 2015 NPT Review
The resurgence of Cold War style rhetoric between Russia and “the West”, ongoing concerns over North Korea’s nuclear program, a still elusive nuclear deal with Iran, and the recurrent fear of nuclear-armed non-state actors all stand as stark reminders that humanity still lives with the unacceptable risk of nuclear war. In this timely and important article, Rob van Riet reviews the promises and ambiguities of recent conferences, summits, working group sessions, legal actions, and negotiations on nuclear weapons, and evaluates the potential of the NPT review conference in May this year to make real political progress towards the goal of nuclear disarmament.
Nepal: Withering Peace
Nepal: Withering Peace Author: Nihar Nayak Originally published at Peace and Conflict Monitor on 02/01/2006 The shimmering prospect of peace in Nepal has ended, for the time being, with the withdrawal of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-Maoist) from unilateral truce on January 2, 2006. Despite the warnings and concerns of the international community over […]
The Japanese Constitution as Peace System
The wars in Asia would seem to demand that certain European countries, the U.S., and Japan all re-examine the value systems that presumably provided the justification for those wars. Many situations of “instability” in this century were actually based on the preconceptions and deeds of the nations that applied that label. Now as ever, if a country has reason to be opposed to something, it will typically display a tendency to assume that other countries are engaged in strategic designs or acting from an adversarial position.
Talking Peace for North Korea
The announcement last week that China, Japan, North and South Korea, Russia and the United States will meet within one month for multilateral talks on the North Korea issue has been greeted worldwide with unbridled optimism (‘A Welcome First Step on the Path to Korean Peace’, South China Morning Post, 2 August, 2003). A military solution has largely been ignored or downplayed, with the exception of a predictably hawkish article by former CIA Director R. James Woolsey in the Asian Wall Street Journal, detailing why an invasion of North Korea would be logistically easier and politically less sensitive than the invasion of Iraq.
Under the Guise of Protecting Human Rights and Establishing Democracy: US Intervention in Sri Lanka
The paper argues that strong US intervention in Sri Lanka after the end of the island’s armed conflict in 2009 is not based on altruistic efforts to protect human rights as presented in mainstream sources, but stems from deepening US geopolitical and ideological interests in the Indian Ocean region. Keywords: Sri Lanka-US relations, US foreign policy, North-South relations, Neoliberal policy, interventionism, Indian Ocean, US-China relations