Conferences - Wednesday, April 28, 2010
IPI Hosts Seminar on Africa at West Point
At IPI’s 2010 West Point seminar, African and UN practitioners and academics presented a wide range of insights on African institutions in a changing regional and global security environment.
The seminar, in which over forty members of UN Missions and the UN Secretariat participated, examined security issues on the African continent eight years after the establishment of the African Union and three years into the UN’s Ten Year Capacity Building Plan to assist the AU to respond more effectively to continuing and potential conflicts.
The seminar highlighted the transition from the Organization of African Unity’s (OAU) approach of non-interference in the internal affairs of states to the African Union’s endorsement of the principle of non-indifference reflected in AU peacekeeping interventions in Burundi, Sudan and Somalia.
Speakers highlighted the notable reality that the AU’s Constitutive Act of 2000 presaged the key concepts of the Responsibility To Protect adopted by world leaders at the General Assembly in 2005, committing the AU and the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) to the prevention of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. Against this backdrop presentations by Ambassador Téte António, Permanent Observer of the African Union Mission and Anthony Okara, Deputy Chief of Staff of the AU Commission in Addis Ababa, highlighted the ongoing evolution of the AU’s African Peace and Security Architecture.
The seminar also discussed ongoing UN efforts to support the development of the African Standby Force and to strengthen post conflict peacebulding as well as the broader challenges of dealing with issues of governance, corruption and transnational organized crime.
Overall, the seminar emphasized the importance of long term, sustained and reliable engagement in the evolving partnerships between African institutions and international donors and supporters. While aware of the complex security and development challenges still facing the Continent, there was also recognition of the significant progress which the African Union and the Regional Economic Communities have made in the past decade in strengthening their institutional frameworks, developing new connections to civil society and the African diaspora, and seeking to promote human rights and good governance.
The Global Observatory
Interview with John Prendergast, Co-Founder, Enough Project
Mr. Prendergast discusses the international justice system and the new ground forged by Invisible Children's Kony2012 campaign.
Key Global Events to Watch in May
A list of key upcoming meetings and events with implications for global affairs.
The Global Observatory is a new website by IPI, providing timely analysis on peace and security issues, interviews with leading policymakers, interactive maps, and more.
Recent Events
May 10, 2012
Arbour: What the Rule of Law Means
“In my understanding of the rule of law, fundamentally, what the rule of law means is that it embraces the principle of equality before the law,” Louise Arbour, president of the International Crisis Group (ICG), told an IPI audience on May 10, 2012. Ms. Arbour outlined that this means that no one is above the law and everyone has both equal protection and equal benefit of the law. 
May 03, 2012
Shachtman: Cyber Threats Akin to South Bronx, Not Pearl Harbor
“There’s not a danger of a cyber Pearl Harbor… it’s more like the South Bronx circa 1999, where there’s a danger that it becomes such a tough neighborhood that no one wants to set up shop there and people move out,” Noah Shachtman, editor of the Danger Room blog at Wired magazine and non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution, told an IPI audience at a panel on cyber security on May 3, 2011.
April 27, 2012
Preventing Conflicts in Africa: The Role of Early Warning and Response Systems
An April 27th roundtable discussion at IPI titled “Preventing Conflicts in Africa: The Role of Early Warning and Response Systems” examined the progress, prospects and challenges of regional and international early warning and response mechanisms to monitor, anticipate, and mitigate potential conflict situations in Africa.