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Can Ecowas really intervene militarily in Africa?
In late July 2023, the leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) set: “within one week, take all measures necessary to restore constitutional order in the Republic of Niger”, and they do not exclude that “[s]uch measures may include the use of force”, and therefore to intervene militarily in Niger. Indeed, in international politics, sometimes a State or group of States claims the existence of a “right of intervention”, which may be “humanitarian”, to justify a military intervention such as NATO’s operation in Kosovo in 1999, which was not authorized by the United Nations Security Council. However, in the current state of positive international law, it…
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Holocaust in the (Belgian) Congo
“Ten million” of African perished in the (Belgian) Congo due to the King Leopold II of Belgium and his servants over the period from 1884 to 1908. According to the historian Adam Hochschild, professor at the University of Berkeley who graduated from Harvard, this number of “ten million” of African victims is an estimated figure. Indeed, the number of casualties is undoubtedly underestimated, to the point where researchers speak of a “Holocaust” perpetrated in Central Africa, and more precisely of a “Holocaust in the (Belgian) Congo”. In the 1880s, this Belgian monarch took possession “on a personal basis” of the tremendous wealth contained in the Congo River basin, which…
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The end of monopoly of state diplomacy
In 1994, Susan Strange wrote the article “Wake up, Krasner! The world has changed!” (Strange, 1994), in order to highlight that paradigm of our contemporary international system has transformed since “structural change” occurred in the areas of production, finance, knowledge and communication. Indeed, Susan Strange contests the neorealist view that foreign policy is based on conventional diplomatic and military issues driven only by states, but also she calls them to take into account the role of market and corporations in foreign policy. Definition and research question By “diplomacy” we mean the foreign representation of interest of one country or a political community, so this role is not anymore exclusively…
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How can we save the planet ?
“Brazil seeks $1bn cash upfront for preservation of Amazon” (Financial Times, 2021). Of course, one could argue that this request is a kind of black mailing (to some extent it is) but it is also a strategy that is coherent with these two concepts : ‘environmental financialization’ and ‘degrowth’. The former notion is a process that foster the creation of environmentally based commodities and tradable financial assets for protecting ecosystems (Kemp-Benedict and Sivan, 2019). Whereas the later notion is a “planned, coherent policy to reduce ecological impact, reduce inequality, and improve well-being” (Hickel, 2020), through policy measures that reduce the pace of production (or throughput)…
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What could be done against inequalities ?
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What could be done against inequalities ?
Since 1980 we have seen an “Inequality Turn” (Atkinson, 2015), and that the 21st century brings challenges on reducing economic disparities, which threatening the sustainability of international economic system. It is true that inequalities increased since the pandemic and even more in this inflationist context. But, what “economic inequality” means? According to Anthony Atkinson, it is the gap between “household disposable income”, which there are many dimensions such as individual income, investments, private and State transfers (Atkinson, 2015). Whereas for the economist Thomas Piketty, it is the gap between the rate of return on capital and the economy’s growth that contribute…
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How can we save the planet ?
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The game and the stakes of the conflict in Ukraine
What is at stake in this new geostrategic “Great Game” is the rivalry between, on the one hand, the old empires (Russia, China, Turkey or the former Ottoman Empire, Iran or the former Persian Empire, etc.) and, on the other hand, the “American hyperpower” (Védrine, 1998). More precisely, we are on the verge of the emergence of a world that is not multipolar, but “Apolar” or “non-polar”, i.e. an international situation in which no major military or economic power (such as the United States, China, etc.) or even a group of powerful states (for example, the G7) can have total influence over the rest of the world. In other words,…
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Manufacturing Political Violence
In this article, we will briefly present a state of the art on the factors leading to political violence applicable to various configurations of armed conflicts (terrorism, civil war, etc.) in the French and English-speaking scientific literatures. Let us start with the Francophone literature, which identifies four main factors leading to political violence. The first factor to political violence refers to the “general context” (Coolsaet, 2015) or structural context, such as socio-economic and political marginalisation. Thus, the majority of political violence are individuals in a state of precariousness (Khosrokhavar, 2014) and political exclusion (Burgat, 2016). The second factor corresponds to...
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Security Council stalemate: can the UN General Assembly adopt a resolution authorizing military action?
To put it in simple terms: no, it is not possible in the current state of international law. This question concerns the articulation of competences between the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations (UN). As a matter of principle, Article 12 of the UN Charter specifies that while the Security Council is fulfilling its functions, the General Assembly cannot make any recommendation unless the Security Council requests it to do so. Specifically, Article 12(1) of the UN Charter declares that: “While the Security Council is exercising in respect of any dispute or situation the functions assigned to it in…
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Nuclear weapons under the scrutiny of international law
In 1996, in its advisory opinion on Nuclear Weapons (ICJ Reports 1996), the International Court of Justice (ICJ) examined the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. Moreover, it is worth to mention that nowadays the creation of such a treaty is under discussion, particularly in the context of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Let us turn to this advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice in order to understand what is at stake on Nuclear Weapons. Thus, the Court analyses treaties (concerning the environment, humanitarian law, human rights, the UN Charter, and so on…) for rules concerning nuclear weapons. In addition, the Court examines treaties…
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