Blog Posts
Posted by Henrik Syse on Tuesday, 20 December 2022
Last week, 50 years ago, Apollo 17’s lunar module left the moon. Since then, no one has set foot there. Let us pause for a moment to think about the signficance of that rather unique adventure called Apollo. The Apollo program defies belief. At a time when much of modern ... Read more »
Posted by Lars Christie, Bashshar Haydar & Kristoffer Lidén on Thursday, 17 November 2022
In spite of widespread support for the sanctions against Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, international economic sanctions remain a controversial instrument in world politics. In this blog post, we discuss how the ethical criteria of just cause, proportionality, last resort and reasonable chance of success can help us think ... Read more »
Posted by Giacomo Bruni on Wednesday, 26 October 2022
The United States recently announced a new set of restrictions on the export of advanced semiconductors, chip-making equipment, and supercomputer components to China. The interim final rule further escalates the geopolitical dispute between the US and China and raises concerns about the increasing fragmentation of the digital domain. The interim ... Read more »
Posted by Anna Marie Obermeier on Wednesday, 5 October 2022
Content Warning: This blog contains content related to sexual violence and sexual assault. The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) is steeped in a culture of sexual misconduct. CAF leadership has allowed an environment of sexual misconduct to fester for decades, stretching from military colleges through every branch of the military. Thirteen ... Read more »
In the weeks since Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine significant proportions of Ukraine’s population has gone on the move, the majority of whom are internally displaced. By 29th March 2022, 4 million people had fled Ukraine across borders to neighbouring countries: Poland (2 million in 3 weeks), Slovakia, Hungary, Romania ... Read more »
Posted by Kristian Berg Harpviken & Geir Ulfstein on Monday, 21 March 2022
The population of Afghanistan is facing a humanitarian catastrophe. Twenty-three million Afghans, more than half of the population, are starving. The UN warns of a risk that a million Afghan children will die. In this situation, there is no way of avoiding cooperation with those in control of the country, namely ... Read more »
Posted by Jon Elster on Sunday, 13 March 2022
Many commentators have claimed that Russia’s military leaders must have underestimated the Ukrainians’ resilience and battle morale. This is most likely correct, but would it even have been possible for the Russian commanders to have made a more accurate estimate? There is reason to doubt that they could have done ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin B. Sandvik & Adèle Garnier on Saturday, 5 March 2022
The Russian invasion of Ukraine February 24 2022 marks the start of a new displacement crisis. In a statement on February 24, Filippo Grandi, the High Commissioner for Refugees, emphasized that ‘The humanitarian consequences on civilian populations will be devastating. There are no winners in war, but countless lives will ... Read more »
Posted by Malcolm Langford & Geir Ulfstein on Wednesday, 2 March 2022
Vladimir Putin’s speech on 24 February was not only a formal announcement of his invasion of Ukraine, but also a defence of this use of force under international law. The fact that Russia is relying on international law is no surprise – Russia has always done so. The question is ... Read more »
Posted by Sverre Lodgaard on Thursday, 24 February 2022
It’s easy to condemn the opposing party in a polarized situation. But it’s more difficult to exercise self-criticism. It’s easy to condemn the opposing party in a polarized situation. Particularly when there are good reasons for such condemnation, as in the current situation. It’s easy to state that Russia’s lust ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin B. Sandvik, Anette Bringedal Houge & Solveig Laugerud on Sunday, 16 January 2022
During January 18-21, the Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik will have his request for parole adjudicated by the Telemark District Court over a four-day trial. In 2012, he was sentenced to preventive detention for a term of twenty-one years and a minimum period of ten years for the July 22, ... Read more »
Posted by Kelly Fisher on Tuesday, 21 December 2021
In September this year, Chief Software Officer for the U.S. Air Force Nicholas Chaillian, unexpectedly resigned. The reason for his resignation? To protest the slow pace of technological transformation taking place in the U.S. military, and where he argued the U.S. had already lost the race for AI dominance to ... Read more »
Posted by Anette Bringedal Houge on Thursday, 2 December 2021
As part of PRIO’s contribution to the 10 year commemoration of 22 of July, the author challenges perceptions of justice after mass atrocity that equates justice with law and criminal justice with closure. After mass violence, “the promised exercise of legal justice — of justice by trial and law — ... Read more »
Posted by Ayse Bala Akal on Wednesday, 24 November 2021
The 2021 EU-Belarus border crisis was preceded by a rapid deterioration of the already strained European Union (EU)-Belarus relations, in most part due to the Ryanair 4978 incident and the concomitant wide-ranging sanctions imposed by the EU on the authoritarian government of the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has often been referred by the media ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin B. Sandvik on Monday, 13 September 2021
As of July 2021 the memorials commemorating the 22 July attack include the Government Quarter, with the temporary memorial plaque and the 22 July Centre; Hegnhuset on Utøya; the 1000 iron roses next to Oslo Cathedral; 52 identical commemorative stone sculptures in affected municipalities across Norway; and as well as ... Read more »
Posted by Kelly Fisher on Monday, 6 September 2021
When you think about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and war, you might find yourself thinking about killer robots, like those we have seen in movies such as The Terminator. In reality, AI and warfare looks quite different from these popularized images, and today we see many countries around the world exploring ... Read more »
Preface On the occasion of the 10th anniversary for the terror attacks in in Oslo and at Utøya on 22 July 2011, there is a renewed debate in Norway. The main focus is on the political motivations for the attack, as well as on how Norway has dealt with (or ... Read more »
Posted by Trond Bakkevig on Tuesday, 20 July 2021
22nd JULY 2011: a terrorist killed 68 young people and bombed the Government Quarter, where he killed nine people and injured many more, because the ‘Labour-Party state’ was promoting ethnic, religious and political diversity. “Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak out for ... Read more »
On 6 May 2021, something extraordinary happened in Norwegian academia: in an op-ed in the newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad, Ole Gjems-Onstad, a law professor at BI Norwegian Business School (BI), criticized the Labour Party and 22 July survivors for a lack of self-criticism. The op-ed was met with disbelief, horror and ... Read more »
Posted by Michael Bretthauer, Hans Petter Graver, Lise Helsingen, Mette Kalager, Hedvig Montgomery, Anna Nylund, Magnus Løberg & Kristin B. Sandvik on Wednesday, 31 March 2021
Quarantine hotels and Easter trips According to the Norwegian government, quarantine hotels are an infection-control measure. In this blog post we contest this view, and argue that the rules are penal in character. “We” are all Norwegian: four medical doctors, one psychologist, and three jurists. The rules distinguish between “necessary” ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin B. Sandvik, Michael Bretthauer, Anna Nylund, Einar Øverenget, Magnus Løberg & Ørjan Olsvik on Friday, 26 March 2021
Expanding the use of Covid-19 digital vaccine passports to domestic purposes would in practice represent a return to the checkpoint permit (in Norwegian ‘passerseddel’, in German “Passierschein”), a form of internal passport. This type of document is associated with authoritarian regimes and with war and conflict, last used in Norway ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin B. Sandvik, Hans Petter Graver & Peter Scharff Smith on Tuesday, 9 March 2021
The democratic struggle over the Norwegian Covid-19 curfew proposal. Up until a year ago, no one could have anticipated the scope, intensity, and character of the current Norwegian debate on some of the most central civil rights in a democratic society. With the advent of the COVID-19 lockdown and the ... Read more »
Posted by Neven Ahmad on Tuesday, 23 February 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered the acceleration of pre-existing technological trends. As states introduce new rules and technological solutions to fight the pandemic, it can be tempting to view these technological applications as neutral scientific decisions. However, we must critically examine these decisions because times of crisis set standards which ... Read more »
Posted by Neven Ahmad on Friday, 30 October 2020
To say that the world was not prepared for a pandemic is an understatement. The point was made early on that in order to overcome COVID-19 and make it to the other side, it was “all hands-on deck”. This included individuals, health experts, governments, the private sector and – the ... Read more »
Posted by Ilaria Carozza on Monday, 26 October 2020
As the ongoing confrontation between the US and China has entered the technological and digital realms, we are pushed to rethink the relationship between individuals, nations and the entire world as more fluid than it has ever been before. While we grapple with these changes, the EU is on the ... Read more »
Posted by Åshild Kolås & Anjoo Sharan Upadhyaya on Monday, 28 September 2020
India’s e-governance and digitalization drive harnesses ‘smart’ technology in an effort to generate new economic opportunities, boost economic growth, govern more efficiently with less corruption, and distribute relief and benefits to the poor and disadvantaged more effectively. In April 2015, India’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by Prime Minister ... Read more »
This blog critically assesses the potential of legal tech for improving access to civil justice as measured by the new Sustainable Development Goals indicator 16.3.3. Unresolved legal issues engender marginalisation. The need for better legal aid services is significant not only in Least Developed Countries, but remains a challenge in emerging and ... Read more »
Posted by Bruno Oliveira Martins, Chantal Lavallée & Andrea Silkoset on Friday, 24 April 2020
The fight against the COVID-19 pandemic has mobilized national and international resources of all types, from funding of medical research to financial rescue plans, and has led to widespread state of emergency declarations. While the approaches adopted all over the world have differed from one country to another, an underlying ... Read more »
Posted by Anne Hellum, Kristin B. Sandvik, Tatanya Ducran Valland & Marta Bivand Erdal on Tuesday, 14 April 2020
On 1 April, the Norwegian News Agency (NTB) reported that rates of coronavirus (COVID-19) infection among Norwegian-Somalis were significantly higher than among other foreign-born inhabitants of Norway. Hospitals are reporting that 30–40 percent of patients who test positive for the virus are from immigrant backgrounds. The government has now granted NOK ... Read more »
Posted by Mareile Kaufmann on Wednesday, 8 April 2020
When I observe the surveillance and disciplinary measures spreading together with COVID-19, questions arise. It is not just professionals who should have the answers. Everyone asks themselves where this pandemic is headed. That is probably why the road towards monitoring measures is short, and often necessary. After all, a virus ... Read more »
Tirsdag 24. mars ble den nye koronaloven vedtatt av Stortinget. Dagen før arrangerte Juridisk fakultet og PRIO webinaret “Korona og rettsstaten: hva skal vi med fullmaktsloven”. Arrangementet gikk via Zoom og hadde 600 deltagere. En redigert versjon kan også sees på youtube. Webinaret – som i utgangspunktet skulle spisse kritikken ... Read more »
Posted by Henrik Syse on Monday, 16 March 2020
It has been interesting to see how many news outlets and broadcasters ask for angles and insights these days from what we can broadly call a philosophical perspective. As we face the COVID-19 pandemic, I am one of those to be asked, and I humbly try to contribute. So, what ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin B. Sandvik & Kjersti Lohne on Friday, 21 February 2020
Kristin Bergtora Sandvik and Kjersti Lohne ask: How can education help to realize the multiple goals and visions of transitional justice, and how can transnational justice be adapted to new educational objectives? This is the first post in an occasional series on the legal, bureaucratic and political aftermaths of the July ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin B. Sandvik on Monday, 17 February 2020
In the context of the rapid adoption and integration of legal technology at a global level, this blog post will problematize the consequences of the bias of current discussions on the ethics of legal tech in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs strongly emphasize the importance ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin B. Sandvik on Friday, 14 February 2020
Introduction This post addresses an emergent field of inquiry for critical geography, namely the transnational dissemination of legal technology for rule of law purposes. Whereas critical attention has been given to digital humanitarianism and the “marketization” of displacement through Big Data (Burns 2019; Taylor and Meissner 2019), little focus has ... Read more »
Posted by Indigo Trigg-Hauger, Bruno Oliveira Martins, Andrea Silkoset & Heiko Schaub on Tuesday, 4 February 2020
On February 12 PRIO will host a launch event for the report: Counter-Drone Systems: Implications for Norway in an EU and NATO context. The report aims to comprehensively address opportunities and potential risks, associated with the implementation of counter-drone technology (C-UAS). Together with Arthur Holland Michel, PRIO researchers Bruno Oliveira ... Read more »
Posted by Julie Jarland on Tuesday, 28 January 2020
Court proceedings don’t necessarily help bring about peace; sometimes they do quite the opposite. It is easy to agree that people who have committed gruesome crimes should be held accountable. But in the fight against impunity for international crimes, we risk ignoring the consequences of the legal systems we are promoting. Trials do not necessarily help bring about peace and are sometimes counterproductive. It might be time ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin B. Sandvik on Monday, 11 November 2019
On October 23, 2019, 39 bodies were found inside a refrigerator lorry on an industrial estate in Essex. The vehicle was registered in Varna, Bulgaria, had entered the UK four days before and was driven by a man from Northern-Ireland. The victims – 38 adults and a teenager – were identified as ... Read more »
Posted by Neven Ahmad on Monday, 23 September 2019
The European Union’s vision for an integrated Europe has reached new heights. With the release of the highly anticipated guidelines for unmanned aircrafts, the EU takes a big step toward a singular sky. Violeta Bulc, EU Commissioner for Transport, stated that “the EU will now have the most advanced rules ... Read more »
On Thursday President Trump made the unprecedented move to use a foreign power to punish domestic political actors. He tweeted that Israel should bar two congresswomen from entering the country. Prior to this tweet Prime Minister Netanyahu had decided that the congresswomen should be allowed to enter, but after the ... Read more »
In the wake of the foiled terrorist attack at a mosque outside Oslo on 10 August, and the widespread solidarity seen outside mosques around Norway on the morning of Eid, we reflect on the prospects for hope and for the endurance of social fabric. We do so by drawing on ... Read more »
Biometric technologies are rapidly becoming integral to the governance of populations world-wide. Contemporary societies are networked by advanced biometric technologies of identity management that were inconceivable just a couple of decades ago. A report by Nina Boy, Elida K.U. Jacobsen and Kristoffer Lidén addresses the widespread ethical issues raised by ... Read more »
Note: On 18 March 2016, the EU and Turkey agreed on a deal to stop refugees from crossing the Mediterranean. At that time, Maria Gabrielsen Jumbert and Pinar Tank warned that the agreement was advantageous for Europe and Turkey but not for the refugees whose rights to protection were severely ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin B. Sandvik, Liliana Lyra Jubilut & Adèle Garnier on Monday, 29 October 2018
This fall, the 73rd General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) was held in New York. The 193 UN member states gather annually to discuss, and sometimes act upon, global issues. Refugees were on the agenda in 2018, not only because numbers are historically high (25.4 million at the end ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin B. Sandvik on Friday, 28 September 2018
In 2017, Latin America was described by the UN as the world’s most violent continent for women. The assassinations of women activists and community leaders have continued across the region in 2018. While the killing of Marielle Franco, a favela community leader, and the unraveling of government-private enterprise collusion in ... Read more »
The Norwegian government must have known that the 2011 bombing campaign in Libya could lead to the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, argues PRIO researcher Kristian Berg Harpviken. In light of the recent release of the commission’s official report on Norway’s participation in the military operation in Libya, Harpviken was asked ... Read more »
Since the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Linus Pauling in 1962, contributions to nuclear disarmament have recurrently been an explicit motivation for granting the Prize.1 According to the Nobel Peace Prize committee, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) received the Prize this year for creating new momentum ... Read more »
In selecting the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) for the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has made a daring move. This year’s laureate was the driving force behind the recently concluded Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. As of last Friday, October 6, the ... Read more »
Posted by Kjersti Lohne & Kristin B. Sandvik on Thursday, 31 August 2017
Legal sociology has paid significant attention to human rights, but in contrast to legal anthropology, little focus has been given to humanitarianism. In this contribution, we ask, what does a legal sociological research agenda for the humanitarian field look like? Humanitarianism is many things to many people. As described by ... Read more »
Posted by Francis Steen on Friday, 21 July 2017
As we discuss the relationship between public and private mourning and grief, consider the emotional handling of the Newtown school shooting in 2012, where twenty children were killed at Sandy Hook elementary school. Such a traumatic event destabilizes people, creating a felt deficit in emotional support. When President Obama visited ... Read more »
Posted by Odin Lysaker on Friday, 21 July 2017
After dehumanizing events – such as the 2011 Norway terror attacks – emotions play a significant role in the public sphere. Let me offer a couple of examples: On August 21, only one month after Anders Behring Breivik killed a total of 77 people, Norway’s King Harald held a deeply ... Read more »
Posted by Ida Rødningen on Tuesday, 2 May 2017
I represented the NECORE project at a one-day seminar held in February, entitled “Collective Memories after National Traumas: 22 July in an International Perspective”. The seminar was highly relevant to the themes explored by NECORE, and among the most important points raised during the seminar was that of a national ... Read more »
Posted by Henrik Syse on Friday, 28 April 2017
The relationship between memory and conflict is one of several themes highlighted by the NECORE project, and it has recently come into focus again in an emotional way, related to the tragic events of 22/7. The bone of contention is the projected Utøya memorial. Where should such a memorial for ... Read more »
Last fall I spent two months in Poitiers, France as a visiting researcher at Migrinter. The last time I lived in France before that was in 2008, just when the financial crisis fully hit. A lot has changed since then, some of it directly or indirectly linked to the financial ... Read more »
Posted by Henrik Syse on Thursday, 26 January 2017
Many people are afraid of what faces us with Donald Trump as president. Nonetheless, I recommend keeping a cool head. My area of research should be useful for analyzing and understanding politics, namely political philosophy. This is the branch of philosophy that investigates political ideas and attempts to put them ... Read more »
Posted by Marte Heian-Engdal on Friday, 20 January 2017
In the north-eastern corner of Jordan, thousands of Syrians are left stranded. In the north-eastern corner of Jordan, where the country borders both Iraq and Syria, a barrier resembling a mound of earth extends across the desert. Running parallel to this barrier is a second mound of earth, this time ... Read more »
Posted by Henrik Syse on Tuesday, 27 December 2016
Decency, humility, and thoughtfulness are core virtues in a civilized society. Now we need to fight for them. «Political correctness» can be a sinister labeling for common decency «Political correctness» can be a sinister labeling for common decency. A wish to preserve dignity and openness, and to avoid willfully disrespecting others’ ... Read more »
We all have a “data double”. But how well do you really know this other aspect of your identity? Unless you know what your entirely digital identity looks like, you should take responsibility for finding out and, at the same time, contribute to a digital drive to ensure that we ... Read more »
Posted by Henrik Syse on Friday, 22 July 2016
Five years have passed since the shocking events of 22 July 2011. We still notice how these events have taken hold of us. We notice it all the more when similar terrorist attacks take place elsewhere in the world: in Istanbul, Dallas or Nice. We shed tears in sympathy with ... Read more »
In contrast to the impression one may derive from “the debate about the debate” in Norway, “we” – the overwhelming majority – can agree on many points, including the fact that we stand united in the struggle against extremism. We succeeded in doing so in the “rose marches” five years ... Read more »
The 22 July attacks, now five years ago, bore horrific testimony to what an ideology of exclusion and hatred, at the hands of one man, can do. Whilst the terror was of such a scope that the moment called for a unified response, ideological cleavages along the Eurabia, anti-Islam, and ... Read more »
Posted by Henrik Syse on Wednesday, 20 July 2016
As 22 July 2011 becomes a more distant memory, we are overwhelmed with massacres and terrorist attacks in other parts of the world, including fierce attacks in Turkey, France, and the United States. At the time of writing, the terrorist attack in Nice, France, is the most recent. Many of ... Read more »
Posted by Francis Steen on Monday, 18 July 2016
Wednesday June 1st was my last day of Spring Quarter teaching at UCLA. At 9:50am, a BruinAlert trickled into my inbox announcing “Police Activity at Engineering Building 4. Avoid area until further notice” and a few minutes later “Shooting at Engineering 4. Go to secure location and deny entry (lockdown) ... Read more »
Tony Blair took the decision to take part in the military intervention in Iraq in 2003 more or less on his own, and based it on very scant knowledge. Are there reasons to fear the same happening again? The British Chilcot Commission has released a crushing verdict over former PM ... Read more »
Posted by Åshild Kolås on Tuesday, 28 June 2016
Five years ago, the Basque militant group ETA (Basque Homeland and Freedom) announced a unilateral and permanent cessation of operations. Since then, the disappearance of political violence has given rise to a new debate on Basque nationhood: more inclusive, more open, more civic, and at the same time stronger in ... Read more »
Posted by Åshild Kolås & Katrine Fangen on Wednesday, 22 June 2016
Foreign fighters returning from Syria have emerged as a looming security threat in many European countries, so also in Norway. As well as preventive measures against radicalization and mobilization by the Islamic State, there have been calls for the withdrawal of citizenship and deportation of returned foreign fighters. This raises a number of questions: Are Norwegians more secure ... Read more »
Posted by Anab Ibrahim Nur on Sunday, 12 June 2016
As the blessed month of Ramadan begins, many here in Mogadishu are concerned about the security situation, with talks of increased numbers of Al-Shabaab insurgents entering the city in preparation of carrying out attacks. Driving through the Makka Al Mukram road, considered to be in the safe zone, that is, ... Read more »
Posted by Åshild Kolås on Monday, 30 May 2016
On Friday 27 May 2016, PRIO celebrated Ola Tunander’s 30-year academic career with a seminar on ‘Sovereignty, Subs and PSYOPS’, and a reception. The celebration was, of course, focused on Ola and his work, spanning topics from the geopolitics and organic state theory of Rudolf Kjellén to the 27 October ... Read more »
Posted by Kjersti Lohne & Anette Bringedal Houge on Wednesday, 11 May 2016
Dominic Ongwen has been charged with committing the same crimes that were committed against him as a child soldier in the Lord’s Resistance Army. To what extent is Ongwen responsible for his actions as an adult, given that he himself was abducted as a 10-year-old child? The International Criminal Court ... Read more »
Posted by Arne Strand & Lovise Aalen on Tuesday, 3 May 2016
Many asylum seekers who choose assisted return are from a country destroyed by war and conflict. More than half of those who return to countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq plan to migrate again. Assisted return is a viable type of support to assist with the return, but is not ... Read more »
The agreement reflects the EU’s self-interest just as much as Turkey’s, but takes little account of the interests and rights of the refugees. On Friday 18 March, Turkey and the EU concluded a deal designed to put an end to refugees’ use of the sea route to travel from Turkey ... Read more »
I have been tracking the Iranian nuclear issue for about ten years. Important in its own right, this issue also has significant implications for the international agenda on nuclear weapons disarmament. Let it be noted at the outset that the expression in question – “Iranian Nuclear Issue” – is a freighted ... Read more »
Last week I received a call from a journalist doing background research for an article. The journalist wanted to know whether I thought a nuclear weapon could be used against ISIS. I was admittedly surprised at this question. But apparently the journalist queried me about this issue because others are ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin B. Sandvik & Kjersti Lohne on Wednesday, 2 December 2015
The politics of rape denunciation is fast becoming the politics of lobbyists, vendors and military manufacturers seeking access to new customers and markets. The recognition of wartime rape as a fundamental violation of international law has been a hard-fought victory. Ending rape and other forms of sexual violence in war ... Read more »
Posted by Henrik Syse on Friday, 27 November 2015
In his New Year’s Eve speech last year, King Harald used the expression “We should say kind words”. Some weeks later, many of us were saying “Je suis Charlie”, expressing solidarity with a periodical that published satire that many people certainly found was not kind at all. Can we reconcile ... Read more »
Posted by Henrik Syse on Wednesday, 9 September 2015
We must both take in refugees and preserve our culture and way of living. A flood of migrants is coming to Europe. They are fleeing chaos and war. They are from all levels of society. The vast majority would have remained in their homelands if they had been able. But ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin B. Sandvik & Kjersti Lohne on Thursday, 13 August 2015
Earlier this spring, we debated a law professor who insisted that lethal autonomous weapons (LAWS) could clean up war. The professor posited that a war fought with autonomous weapons would be a war without rape. Taking humans out of the loop would, the argument goes, lead to more humane war. ... Read more »
Posted by Henrik Syse on Wednesday, 22 July 2015
Four years have passed since the biggest terror attacks on Norwegian soil during peacetime. Once again we are solemnly commemorating the dead and expressing our solidarity. The debate about the potential uses of the actual sites that were affected is also very much alive and continuing. But are there other ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin B. Sandvik & Julieta Lemaitre on Wednesday, 1 July 2015
What are the challenges of responding to displacement as a problem of transitional justice? In the Colombian context, pervasive violent conflict coexists with constitutional democracy. In recent years, the legal framework for dealing with internal displacement has been altered by the 2011 Victims’ Law. Based on newly published work on ... Read more »
Posted by Inger Skjelsbæk, Nora Sveaass & Rikke Marie Gjerde Kvale on Wednesday, 6 May 2015
Assessing the therapeutic potential of criminal prosecution of international crimes at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Over the past twenty years, the global community has shown a renewed commitment to the pursuit of international criminal justice. A hallmark development in this regard is the establishment of the permanent International Criminal ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin B. Sandvik & Julieta Lemaitre on Monday, 13 April 2015
Based on extensive field research in Colombia, our new article “Beyond Sexual Violence in Transitional Justice: Political Insecurity as a Gendered Harm” examines political insecurity as a specifically gendered harm that must be addressed in the ongoing Colombian transitional justice process. In a previous blogpost we described the tragic plight ... Read more »
Posted by Henrik Syse on Thursday, 9 April 2015
The Hitler analogy – also known as the Munich analogy – is deployed frequently in political debate. In Munich in 1938, the British prime minister made the historic error of failing to comprehend the extent of the evil represented by Adolf Hitler. Chamberlain signed a peace agreement with Hitler that ... Read more »
Posted by Trond Bakkevig on Friday, 30 January 2015
In his opinion article in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten on 21 January, Per Edgar Kokkvold (secretary general in the Norwegian Press Association) stated the obvious, “It is people who must be protected – and who are protected under current legislation, under the law that prohibits discriminatory or hateful utterances, persecution ... Read more »
Posted by Henrik Syse on Thursday, 15 January 2015
Why do satirists and critics of religion have to be so provocative? Why must they publish images that they know to be offensive to some people’s beliefs and traditions – and that brutal extremists may use as a pretext for terrorist acts? That such questions are asked is understandable. But ... Read more »
Posted by Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh on Wednesday, 14 January 2015
In the wake of a vicious crime, caution and restraint are a virtue. Once upon a time, in the realm of Xanadu, two and a half dim-witted but well-armed, well-funded and well-trained professional criminals committed cold-blooded murder, commando-style. While committing their crime, they uttered two sentences vocally and publically, following ... Read more »
On Sunday 11 January France witnessed the largest rally on records of people taking to the streets with close to 4 million people all over the country, of which almost 1,5 million in Paris. The world saw one of the largest gatherings of state leaders in one place outside of ... Read more »
Posted by Marta Bivand Erdal & Tove Heggli Sagmo on Monday, 20 October 2014
The war in Syria, the threat of Islamic radicalisation, and fears that terrorists may recruit Norwegian citizens have sparked renewed debate about Norway’s citizenship legislation. Meanwhile, another debate continues to be forgotten: We call for a reopening of the debate on dual citizenship, as Norway’s antiquated legislation is out of ... Read more »
Posted by Henrik Syse on Thursday, 21 August 2014
Recent weeks have shown us – yet again – how complex and terrible war is. We can all agree that terrorism and brutal fanaticism must be met with robust responses. But it is easy to say that one must do “something” (not to mention that one must do “more”). When ... Read more »
Posted by Tine Ustad Figenschou & Kjersti Thorbjørnsrud on Friday, 27 June 2014
In times of crisis, citizens and victims typically look to the government for leadership, protection, direction, and order – what is often characterized as a ‘master narrative’. Faced with terror and tragedy journalists seek to comfort and reassure the public, and willingly and instinctively move from their professional, neutral critical ... Read more »
Posted by Henrik Syse on Friday, 27 June 2014
One of the most famous anecdotes about the passing of time is from the early 1970s, when Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai was asked what he thought about the French Revolution, to which he replied: ‘It is too early to say’. The fact that the interpreter has later pointed out that ... Read more »
On July 22nd 2011, I was home from work when I heard a loud blast. It sounded like thunder. Strange that I had not seen any lightning, with a sound this loud, I thought before carrying on with household chores. Half an hour later I took a break, logging onto ... Read more »
Posted by Henrik Syse & Odin Lysaker on Wednesday, 30 October 2013
”This is moralism‘, we were told after having published an op-ed in one of the largest Norwegian newspapers, Aftenposten, in June 2013. This reaction made us even more curious about whether ethics is of any relevance to citizens’ freedom of expression. In our view, the critique is due to the ... Read more »
Posted by Mareile Kaufmann on Tuesday, 25 June 2013
For my research on post-22/7 resilience and social media, I am drawing on data sources from the internet. Even though this data is publicly available, there are several ethical issues to be considered. A core controversy of internet-based research is the definition of public and private space: speakers may assume ... Read more »