Speaker Events - Thursday, October 19, 2006
Conflict and the Challenge of Mediation in Southeast Asia
IPI welcomed Surin Pitsuwan and Martin Griffiths who discussed emerging approaches to conflict mediation in Southeast Asia.
At this time, there are no formal regional mechanisms to resolve conflicts in the region and no consensus on external involvement in conflict mediation. Principles of state sovereignty and non-interference are largely held to be absolute. The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) could be seen as a potential mechanism for conflict mediation, but there seems, at present, little support for the ARF to play a more active conflict prevention or mediation role. At the same time, there are important lessons to be learned, both from recent and successful conflict resolution in Southeast Asia and from ongoing challenges.
Present at the event were Surin Pitsuwan, the former Foreign Minister of Thailand, Martin Griffiths, Director, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, and Thant Myint-U, Visitng Senior Fellow, International Peace Institute on our panel. Terje Rød-Larsen, IPI's President, served as Chair.
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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
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April 27, 2012
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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.