Unscrambling the price spike
February 2011

The brutal drought in China's grain-producing heartlands is compounding global fears over rising food prices. Now facing the spectre of hoarding and export bans, governments must find a way to work together, writes Alex Evans.

Will South Sudan be Ban Ki-moon's Finest Hour?
January 2011

For Ban Ki-moon, the past few weeks have arguably been the most dramatic he has encountered since becoming United Nations secretary-general nearly four years ago. In Côte d'Ivoire, UN peacekeepers are guarding the internationally recognised winner of this month's presidential election while the country slides toward chaos. Meanwhile, in New York, the Security Council spent Sunday locked in fruitless debates on the simmering Korean crisis.

Read the remainder of this article by Richard Gowan - here.

What Egypt Means for the EU
February 2011

To understand the European Union's efforts to forge a common foreign policy, we must look to the Egyptian crisis. Not the crisis unfolding today in Cairo and Alexandria, but the one that occurred in 1956, when France and Great Britain intervened in Egypt in an attempt to overturn President Gamal Abdul Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal.

Read the remainder of the article by Richard Gowan here.

The Case of UNMEEE
Winter 2010

This paper by Richard Gowan with Teresa Whitfield, explores the links between the Security Council's working methods and the evolution of the United Nations Mission to Ethiopia and Eritrea from 2000 to 2008. Its goal is to identify broader lessons for the Council's application of its working methods to the mandating and oversight of peacekeeping operations.

Security Council Working Methods and UN Peace Operations: The Case of UNMEE