Wife of jailed Russian dissident addresses UN
Evgenia Kara-Murza, the wife of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza, spoke today on behalf of UN Watch, a leading voice at the United Nations for human rights in Russia,… Read more »
Africa’s coup epidemic: Has democracy failed?
Seven countries in Africa have experienced successful coups since 2020, notes CSIS (above).* Six of the countries that have experienced military takeovers in recent years – Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso,… Read more »
Rethinking MENA’s political settlements: ‘stability’ vs accountability
In their attempts to reach political settlements among rival elites in the Middle East and elsewhere, international policymakers have repeatedly prioritized ‘stability’ over accountability, analysts Renad Mansour, Tim Eaton and… Read more »
Will the New Cold War split Africa?
The conventional wisdom that the new geopolitical competition will not spread to the global South, as it did during the first Cold War, is wrong, at least when it comes… Read more »
‘Mafia state’ Iran’s $6bn hostage deal is part of a broader strategy
#BREAKING The @CFR_org told Iran International’s Arash Aalaei that it has cancelled its meeting with Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi which was due to be held today, but did not give… Read more »
As autocrats contest Human Rights Council, ‘Who Guards the Guardians?’
The rights situation in Russia has “significantly deteriorated” since President Vladimir Putin launched his war against Ukraine in February last year, an expert commissioned by the U.N.’s top human rights… Read more »
Slovakia to strengthen fragile democracy or veer towards autocracy?
Slovakia is faced with a decision between strengthening its fragile democracy or potentially veering towards autocracy driven by xenophobia, alignment with Russia and illiberal leaders feeling that it’s their time… Read more »
How China and Russia facilitate North Korea’s human rights abuses
Combatting autocratic powers like Russia and China may require the kind of “transformation in the exercise of American leadership” that emerged when Republicans and Democrats joined forces in a bipartisan… Read more »
How democracy can defend humanity against AI’s catastrophic outcomes
In the context of the possible emergence of rogue artificial intelligence, there are three reasons why we should focus specifically on the preservation, and ideally enhancement, of democracy and… Read more »
Democratic backsliding is real, but hard to measure
To support claims of “democratic backsliding” or “autocratisation”, analysts usually turn to annual quantitative scores of countries’ democratic vigor, The Economist observes. These widely cited indices, published by think-tanks like… Read more »