Ukraine at war

It was a moment few will forget. After weeks of escalating tensions, Russian forces finally crossed Ukraine’s borders in the early hours of 24 February.

Days earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced he was recognising the rebel-controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states. Until then, a full-scale invasion had seemed inconceivable. Suddenly, Europe was faced with its largest conflict since the Second World War.

Russia’s incursion and subsequent annexation of Crimea in 2014 was still fresh in everyone’s minds. The threat of further Russian aggression had been building for months as hundreds of thousands of troops lined Ukraine’s borders.

Published on 15-03-22. Read on here.

Kazakhstan: Unrest unseats oligarchy amid human rights concerns

Deadly unrest ripped through Kazakhstan in early January. Peaceful demonstrations against fuel price hikes galvanised outrage at three decades of leadership that has widened the chasm between the ruling elite and the general population.

As clashes between protesters and the authorities intensified, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev declared a state of emergency and took the extraordinary step of seizing control of the Security Council and removing its chair, his predecessor the former president. Nursultan Nazarbayev had ruled the country from 1990-2019 and his family and allies still control a large proportion of the oil-rich nation’s economy.

Tokayev also called on the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization to send in 2,000 soldiers to act as peacekeepers, bolstering Moscow’s military presence in a country where Russian influence is already significant. Nazarbayev later appeared on video denying claims that he had been forced to flee the country.

Published on 04-02-22. Read on here.

Climate crisis: claim at ICC to end impunity for destruction of the Amazon

COP26 has refocused the world’s attention on climate action. And the continuing flurry of litigation suggests citizens are now more serious than ever about pressing those in positions of power to address the climate crisis.

Two weeks before COP26, a small NGO was already taking matters into its own hands, filing a claim at the International Criminal Court (ICC) to end impunity for environmental destruction in the Amazon.

The complaint, submitted by Austrian NGO AllRise on 12 October, accuses Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his administration of committing crimes against humanity for their role in fuelling ‘the mass destruction of the Amazon with eyes wide open and in full knowledge of the consequences.’ Bolsonaro, who has been the subject of three previous ICC complaints since he assumed office in early 2019, denies all wrongdoing.

Published on 01-12-21. Read on here

Climate crisis: Undue influence undermines global efforts

As final preparations are being made for the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, there are serious concerns that undue influence and conflicts of interest are undermining the global effort to combat the climate crisis. Leaked documents have revealed how a handful of fossil-fuel producing nations have been attempting to influence the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to water down its draft recommendations on steps needed to address the crisis. Tens of thousands of comments by governments, corporations, academics and others were leaked to Greenpeace UK.

An IPCC spokesperson said its processes were ‘designed to guard against lobbying – from all quarters’. However, the leak illustrates how influence ‘can be exerted behind closed doors, including to manipulate science,’ says Brice Böhmer, who leads Transparency International’s work on climate governance integrity. Although not new, when countries are ‘running out of time to solve the climate crisis’, he says such practices ‘are not acceptable anymore’.

Published on 25-10-21. Read on here

Ukraine’s war on two fronts

This is my latest feature piece for IBA Global Insight:

Natural gas pipeline Photo Harald Hoyer Over the past 18 months, Ukraine hit the international headlines time and again as it battled months of widespread demonstrations, bloodshed, the annexation of Crimea, snap elections, the downing of Flight MH17 and a tumbling currency,  the beleaguered hryvnia. The country’s long-running spat with Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom, which has a monopoly over the European gas market, has also been well documented since the feud first began ten years ago.

Ukraine is still largely reliant on gas from Russia and disputes over payments have crippled supply numerous times over the past decade as the two countries continue to come to contractual blows. The pipeline that transits the country also carries around half of Gazprom’s exports to the rest of Europe, meaning that the problems have also been felt much further afield.

Over the years, contracts between Russia and Ukraine have been signed, amended and restructured in an unregulated and often arbitrary way. This finally came to a head last year when Gazprom launched a case against Ukraine’s state-owned gas utility, Naftogaz, in the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC), claiming the Ukrainian company owed it billions of dollars in unpaid debts on gas delivered since 2009.

Published on 07-08-15. Read on here