Global styring

Arctic governance: fit for future challenges?

Discovering Opportunities in the Pandemic? Four Economic Response Scenarios for Central Asia

Emerging Lessons from Implementing Climate-Related Peace and Security Mandates

Seks av de ti største FN-ledede fredsoperasjonene i 2020 befant seg i land som er mest utsatt for klimaendringer. Både FNs fredsbevarende operasjoner og spesielle politiske oppdrag får i økende grad mandat fra FNs sikkerhetsråd til å vurdere og svare på klimarelaterte sikkerhetsrisiko. Som svar har FNs fredsoperasjoner forsøkt mer effektivt å svare på klimarelaterte freds- og sikkerhetsutfordringer ved å tilpasse eksisterende tilnærminger og utforske innovative nye måter å operasjonalisere disse oppgavene på. Arbeidet med å oversette disse klima- og miljørelaterte mandatene til politikk og praksis er et pågående arbeid og kan ha nytte av pågående læring, overvåking og tilpasning. I denne forbindelse begynner leksjoner og god praksis for å integrere klimarelaterte sikkerhetsrisiko i politikk, analyse, aktiviteter og rapportering.

Swiss-EU Relations With a Focus on the Current Situation

Michael Ambühl har forhandlet mange av Sveits’ avtaler med EU og gir i dette paperet sammen med Lara Lenz en oversikt over utviklingen i forholdet, som nylig har vært under press fordi EU har krevet en mer EØS-liknende avtale. Se også diskusjon på NUPI-seminar (scroll lenger ned på siden for å komme til seminaret). In 1992, Swiss voters rejected an accession to the European Economic Area (EEA). Among different reasons for this were institutional and sovereignty questions, such as the dynamic adoption of new EU legislation, and the Swiss Government announcement of the EEA being a training camp for a future EU membership. Instead of the multilateral EEA approach, Switzerland chose a bilateral approach with Bilateral Agreements I and II, which were signed in 1999 and 2004, respectively. The two packages regulate aspects of the economic, political, and cultural landscapes and benefit both parties with legal certainty and market access in selected policy sectors. About ten years ago, the EU expressed its desire for an Institutional Framework Agreement (IFA) with Switzerland to protect the homogeneity of the internal market, to remove legal barriers, and to introduce a more efficient dispute settlement procedure. The draft of the negotiation result (not initialed) presented in 2018 raised three concerns about which the Swiss Government sought clarification from the EU: wage protection, state aid, and the Citizens Rights Directive. These three issues continue to be central concerns for many Swiss voters because these rules could potentially create social or economic problems. Without acceptable clarification on these points from the EU, there is a considerable risk that the Swiss people could reject the IFA in a future referendum, which would put Switzerland and (to a lesser extent, of course) the EU in a difficult situation. To avoid such a consequence, Switzerland must exercise caution. If a satisfactory solution cannot be reached, Switzerland must consider alternatives to a premature submission of the IFA to avoid legal uncertainty during an interim period. Regardless of the upcoming bilateral developments, Switzerland, at the heart of Europe, traditionally has a positive relationship with the EU. These friendly relations are all the more important when considering today’s challenges, in which Switzerland can show solidarity with Brussels and support the larger-scale European goals of promoting peace, democracy, and human rights in the world.

Governance, Social Policy, and Political Economy: Trends in Norway’s Partner Countries

In 2017–2018, NUPI (the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs) headed a project where political economy analyses were undertaken in eleven of Norway’s partner countries. These analyses were published as eleven separate reports. The reports focused on power relations and political developments in the partner countries, but they also analyzed the nature of governance. After the publication of the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators for 2019, the MFA approached NUPI and requested that we summarize the findings of this report for Norway’s eleven partner countries and assess these findings in light of the political economy analyses. We were also asked to investigate whether there were any connections between the nature and quality of governance on the one hand, and the nature of social policies and the human rights situation on the other. This report presents the findings of this assessment of the governance scores in the light of the above-mentioned political economy analyses. The report is structured as follows: Firstly, after briefly describing the governance indictors used by the World Bank, we summarize the eleven countries’ scores on the various governance indicators. Secondly, we assess the evolution of governance in the eleven countries, by comparing the scores in the 2019 report with those from 2011. Thirdly, we summarize the findings of the political economy analyses of the eleven countries and discuss how they fit with the governance scores. Finally, we present the eleven countries’ expenditure on social policies, as reported in the ILOs World Social Protection Report, and the human rights situation for the partner countries, and then describe how these findings relate to the governance scores.