For Europeans and the international community, including the US until the Trump Administration, the Golan Heights represented the classical case of a frozen conflict where military action had come to an end but where no political agreement, let alone a peace treaty, had provided a mutually accepted solution among the conflict parties.

For years outside observers of Venezuela have followed the disastrous developments in the country under the leadership of Chavez and his successor Maduro with growing concern: the steep decline of the economy, growing violence and repression of human rights, the catastrophic living conditions of people without food or health care and the flight of 3 million Venezuelans into neighboring countries. The geopolitical implications of a growing influence of and indebtedness to China and Russia in addition to Cuba’s role in upholding the repressive regime created additional worries to Western governments. But reluctance to violate the principle of non-interference – always a particularly sensitive issue in Latin America – allowed the Venezuelan situation to deteriorate uninhibited over a long period.

If one contemplates necessary steps of the parties to the conflict, the nature of this war must be kept in mind. It started as a UN supported intervention by a Saudi-led coalition against the Iran-supported Houthi rebellion opposing the Hadi government. The domestic struggle for supremacy is inextricably linked to its international ramifications: Given the potentially enormous geopolitical consequences the prevention of an Iranian foothold on the Southern tip of the Arabian peninsula is by no means a goal of only Saudi Arabia. 

It was not until after World War II that human rights ceased to be considered the exclusive prerogative of the sovereign state. The horrors of fascism and the holocaust created a slowly growing consensus around human rights as an international norm culminating in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, now celebrating its 70thanniversary that enshrines these values. Though legally non-binding it became the foundation of a multitude of global and regional measures that established a body of human rights law.

In his latest article for Metro U.N., Karl Kaiser, Senior Associate with the Belfer Center's Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, shares his view on the impact of increased migration and refugee movements on Europe.

In his latest article for Metro UN, the Belfer Center's Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship Senior Fellow Karl Kaiser analyzes the European view of the Trump Administration's withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal.

Observing the US' global role under President Donald Trump, one is inclined to describe being in this era as "present at the destruction."

The war in Syria is the vortex of roughly three crisscrossing conflict fronts.  The origin and the center is the conflict between the Assad-government and the national opposition - enlarged regionally by Iran, Hezbollah and fighters from Pakistan and Afghanistan supporting the government while Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia support the opposition in a sort of Shia-Sunni confrontation. This conflict front has been enlarged geopolitically by the United States supporting the opposition and Russia the Assad-government, indeed, using the conflict to implant herself as a major actor the Middle East.

The debate about the effectiveness of the Security Council in creating peace and security in the world is as old as the institution. For many years practitioners and scholars have discussed how factors such as the role of major powers, the unrepresentative structure of its permanent membership, or their veto power affect the Council’s impact on world politics. Such debates are legitimate and profoundly necessary, but in the present international situation a more fundamental challenge has arisen, that threatens the very foundation on which institutions like the UN are built: the assault on multilateralism and on the concept of a rules based international order that relies on cooperation among nations as its guiding norm. Unless that assault is effectively resisted, attempts at reforming or improving this or that international institution have scant chances of success.