An international trusteeship for Kosovo: attempt to find a solution to the conflict

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Secession - the Last Resort for Minority Protection

'Secession' is a word that brings fear to nations. It reeks of conflict, violence and instability. It is also a measure of last resort. It sometimes brings hope to minorities that are in despair and who feel permanently excluded from policy making. This article looks at some of the faces of secession. It investigates how international law is vague on the one hand and pragmatic on the other hand when it comes to secession. It shows how, in recent times, secession has been endorsed by the international community in cases such as East Timor, Eritrea and Kosovo while in Ethiopia and Canada legal mechanisms exist for managing demands for secession. Consideration is given to some of the pre-requisites for secession. Finally general observations are made about secession as a mechanism to protect minorities

The European Union and natural resources that fund armed conflicts: explaining the EU’s policy choice for supply chain due-diligence requirements

Natural resources can be an important source of funding for warring parties in armed conflicts. Curbing the trade in these so-called conflict resources is, therefore, part of the European Union’s (EU) conflict management policies. The article explores the EU’s policies in this field and asks, specifically, why the EU is using supply chain due diligence measures to achieve this goal. The author argues they are the response to enforcement problems of most existing multilateral and unilateral sanction regimes because of state weakness in the targeted regions. This approach results from a broader idea from the EU that transparency can improve resource governance and, therefore, safeguard both its political and economic interests in conflict zones, such as the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, when the issue became specific—as in the EU Conflict Minerals Regulation—translating this idea into concrete policies became more contentious as the different actors set different priorities for the final policy design.This work was supported by the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program [grant number 660245]; and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competiveness [grant number CSO2016-79205-P]