EUROPEANIZATION OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN THE EASTERN NEIGHBOURHOOD THROUGH THE APPLICATION OF EU INSTRUMENTS

Abstract: While much has been written about the European Union, most of the scholarly work is related to the developments only at the Union level. To address this deficit, this article is eminently concerned with the European Union’s relationship in its near Eastern Peripheries. The research places its emphasis on the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy and studies its efforts in fostering Europeanization of conflict resolution, as one of the crucial aspects of EU foreign policy setting. In order to arrive at a general understanding of the domestic impact of the European external conflict resolution pattern, the article foremost applies legal scrutiny of the EU’s involvement in peaceful resolving the secessionist Georgian-Abkhaz conflict via scrutinizing the EU-brokered instruments (EUMM) deployed in the region. The article also discusses the existing challenges posing to the EU’s engagement in the conflict as well as the Union’s potential of becoming more efficient in overall dispute resolution scheme

Ecosystems-based adaptation: Are we being conned? Evidence from Mexico

This paper scrutinises claims made about the promise and efficacy of ecosystems-based adaptation (EBA), through an exploration of EBA-relevant interventions in two fieldsites in Mexico. Our data starts to fill important gaps in current global debates about EBA. We find evidence of the important contribution of interventions relevant to EBA objectives at a small scale and under very specific conditions. However, the viability of similar interventions is substantially reduced, and arguably rendered null, as an incentive for conservation in a more populous fieldsites. Furthermore, evidence suggests that other adaptation options risked being overlooked if the context were viewed solely through the lens of EBA. We conclude that EBA needs to: a) engage with and address the trade-offs which characterised earlier attempts to integrate conservation and development, and; b) acknowledge the implications for its objectives of a globally predominant, neoliberal political economy