General Announcements - January 21, 2011
UN Advisers Luck and Deng Gravely Concerned About Côte d'Ivoire
While the UN Security Council voted on January 19, 2011 to bolster the UN peacekeeping force in the tense West African country by providing an additional 2,000 peacekeepers, UN Secretary-General Special Advisers Francis Deng and Edward C. Luck said in a joint statement, "We remain gravely concerned about the possibility of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing” in Côte d'Ivoire.
An article by Colum Lynch in the Washington Post reported that Mr. Deng and Dr. Luck, who is also the Senior Vice President for Research and Programs at the International Peace Institute, "were worried about a spike in ethnically charged hate speech and about 'allegations that the armed forces and militia groups that back opposing camps in the current political crisis are arming ethnic groups allied to each camp.'"
According to Mr. Lynch's article, UN officials have warned that the ethnically divided country—which emerged only seven years ago from a bloody civil conflict between Prime Minister Laurent Gbagbo's army and rebel forces—could return to war.
Read Washington Post article
Read December 29, 2010 statement from Francis Deng and Dr. Edward C. Luck on the situation in Cote d'Ivoire
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.