Panel Discussions - Sunday, April 03, 2011
First IPI Vienna Workshop on OSCE Issues
A workshop at IPI's Vienna office on April 3rd focused on confidence-building measures (CBMs) and how they have been used to reduce tensions and build trust between parties in several conflict situations throughout the world. It also briefly reflected on experience with CBMs in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) area.
This event, held under the Chatham House rule of non-attribution, involved international experts and representatives of OSCE-participating states such as Eugin Carpov, Deputy Prime Minister of Moldova, and Vladimir Yastrebchak, the Chief Negotiator for Transdniestria.
Participants outlined both top-down and bottom-up approaches to increase confidence and repair distorted relationships between parties. They underlined the importance of political will, and taking a “leap of faith” that should be reciprocated. It was stressed that CBMs are a process, and cannot be prejudiced by a pre-conceived result.
"The main issue is trust," said one participant. He pointed out how the word "confidence" in English has a double meaning: either positive, in the sense of building trust, or derogatory in the sense of con men and con tricks. "We have to move from confidence tricks to confidence measures," he said.
"In order to build trust, parties have to demonstrate their own trustworthiness," observed another participant.
The workshop--which took place on the eve of the "5+2" settlement negotiations involving Moldova, Transdniestria, the OSCE, Russia, and Ukraine, plus the United States and the European Union--also reviewed the process of building confidence between Moldova and the break-away region of Transdniestria over the past twenty years.
It was the first in a series of IPI workshops designed to focus on issues related to the OSCE.
Read the meeting note
Related Links:
Bridge over the Dniestr: Confidence-Building Measures in Moldova
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.