IIEA Talks

In this interview, IIEA Researcher, Leanne Digney, speaks to UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, about the mandate of her office and the current challenges being faced by human rights defenders worldwide. This interview is part of the Global Europe UN podcast series which is sponsored by the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Joseph Quinlan, Managing Director and Head of Market Strategy for the Chief Investment Office at Bank of America & Michael O’Sullivan, Managing Partner at Harvest Innovation Advisory and a Senior Adviser at LandFall Strategy and WestExec Advisers, in conversation with Dan O’Brien, IIEA Chief Economist

From a shared Celtic past, to their politically and economically developed present, there is much that links Scotland and Ireland. The cultural and historical ties between Scotland and Northern Ireland are particularly close. In the past 10 years, and recently accelerated by Brexit, discussion and debate around the UK’s constitutional future have intensified. In particular, questions arise as to the impact that Scottish constitutional change would have on its relationship with Ireland, and what the implications of any such change would be for Northern Ireland. In this panel discussion, leading politicians and academics from Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Ireland discuss the Scotland-Ireland relationship, and the likely implications of Scottish constitutional change for Northern Ireland. About the Speakers: Mhairi Black is the SNP Member of Parliament for Paisley and Renfrewshire South. Since December 2022 she has also been the SNP Deputy Leader in the House of Commons. Ms Black was first elected as a Member of Parliament in the 2015 General Election while she was still completing her undergraduate degree at the University of Glasgow. At 20 years old, she was the youngest MP to be elected since the 1832 Reform Act and she remained the “Baby of the House” until 2019. Ms Black was reelected as a Member of Parliament in both the 2017 and 2019 General Elections. Mike Nesbitt is the UUP Member of the Legislative Assembly for Strangford. He was first elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2011, following a successful career in broadcasting for the BBC and UTV. Mr Nesbitt was elected as leader of the UUP in 2012. His time as leader coincided with several significant events in Northern Irish politics, including the decision of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, the 2016 centenaries of the Battle of the Somme and the Easter Rising, and the collapse of Stormont over the RHI scandal. Mr Nesbitt’s leadership of the UUP was notable for his engagement with political nationalism and with Irish culture and heritage in Northern Ireland. Nicola McEwen is the Professor of Public Policy in the University of Glasgow. Between 2001 and 2022, she taught politics at the University of Edinburgh, where she became Professor of Territorial Politics in 2014. She was also a founding co-director at the Centre for Constitutional Change, a leading Centre for the study of research the United Kingdom’s changing constitutional relationships. From 2019-2022, she led a major research project at the Centre, titled “A Family of Nations? Brexit, Devolution and the Union”. Professor McEwen has published widely on territorial politics, Scottish politics, devolution, identity politics, and nationalism. Graham Walker is an Emeritus Professor at the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests include the political history and contemporary politics of Scotland and Northern Ireland, particularly the politics of Unionism, religious identity in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the history and contemporary role of the Labour movement in the United Kingdom. He has published extensively on Scottish and Northern Irish politics, and most recently co-authored “Ties that Bind? Scotland, NI and the Union”, which examines the interaction and interdependence of politics in the devolved jurisdictions of Scotland and Northern Ireland. Dr Paul Gillespie directs the “Constitutional Futures after Brexit” Project in UCD's Centre for Peace and Conflict Research (formerly the Institute for British-Irish Studies). Dr Gillespie is also a columnist, and a former foreign-policy editor, with The Irish Times. He has published widely on British-Irish relations, European integration issues, Irish foreign policy, and Europe-Asia relations, and he is co-editor of “Britain and Europe: The Endgame: An Irish Perspective”. Dr Gillespie is also a longstanding member of the IIEA’s UK Group.

Sudan is in the grip of escalating armed conflict and on teetering on the edge of civil war. Two rival armed forces, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are fighting in the capital, Khartoum and in regional cities and towns across the country. Both are heavily armed and have regional backers. The crisis has its origins in Sudan’s failed internationally-backed political transition since the revolutionary events that led to the ousting of President Omar al-Bashir in 2019. In his remarks, Professor Srinivasan discusses how did the RSF, and its entrepreneurial leader Mohamed "Hemedti" Hamdan Dagalo, come to play a central role in Sudanese politics? How does this conflict play out regionally with Egypt, Libya, Chad, Ethiopia, and Gulf countries having clear interest and what role did western and international peacemaking play in precipitating Sudan’s violent unravelling? About the Speaker: Sharath Srinivasan is David and Elaine Potter Associate Professor at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Politics and International Studies, a Fellow of King’s College Cambridge, and Co-Director of the University’s Centre of Governance & Human Rights (CGHR). He lived and worked in Sudan in the early 2000s and has been researching on the region since then. His book, When Peace Kills Politics: International Intervention and Unending Wars in the Sudans, was published in 2021 (Hurst/OUP). He also co-edited Making and Breaking Peace in Sudan and South Sudan: The Comprehensive Peace Agreement and Beyond (British Academy/OUP, 2020). Sharath is a Fellow of the Rift Valley Institute and a Trustee of the British Institute in Eastern Africa. Alongside longstanding work on Sudan, his current research focuses on communication technology and politics and peaceful assembly. He co-edited Publics in Africa in a Digital Age (Routledge, 2021) and is co-founder of non-profit digital social research spinout, Africa’s Voices (www.africasvoices.org).

In his address to the IIEA, Amandeep Singh Gill, the United Nations (UN) Envoy on Technology, discusses the UN’s work in relation to the digital transformation and how digital technologies can affect peace and security, human rights and sustainable development. Mr Gill also discusses plans to create a Global Digital Compact at the UN Summit of the Future that is scheduled to take place in September 2024, which would outline shared principles for an open, free, and secure digital future for all. About the Speaker: Mr. Amandeep Singh Gill was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General as his Envoy on Technology in June 2022, and he joined the Secretary-General’s senior leadership team as Under-Secretary General in mid-July 2022. Before this, Mr. Gill was the Chief Executive Officer of the International Digital Health and Artificial Intelligence Research Collaborative (I-DAIR) project, based at the Graduate Institute, Geneva. In 2018-2019, Mr. Gill was Executive Director and co-lead of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation. Between 2016 and 2018, he was India’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

In this second event in a series of webinars co-organised by the IIEA and the European Parliament Liaison Office (EPLO) in Ireland, an expert panel of speakers discusses how the EU can help to deliver a sustainable and just energy transition for the Union and its Member States and citizens. The panel also discusses the crucial role that the European Parliament is playing in this transition. Speakers at this event will include: Ciarán Cuffe MEP, Member of the European Parliament, Greens/EFA Group, Ireland Claudia Gamon MEP, Member of the European Parliament, Renew Europe, Austria Professor Lisa Ryan, Professor in Energy Economics, University College Dublin

Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine has drastically changed the European security equation, prompting many European countries to re-prioritise security and defence policy. Poland has been among the EU's largest contributors of support to Ukraine in its defence against Russia's unprovoked war of aggression. Furthermore, as one of Europe's top military spenders in terms of its GDP, Poland is playing a growing role in European security dynamics at both EU and NATO level. In his address to the IIEA, Adam Bugajski discusses the impact of Russia’s war on European security from the perspective of Poland. About the Speaker: Adam Bugajski was appointed the Security Policy Director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland in November 2019. In this position he deals with Polish security policy with regard to NATO, the EU, the OSCE and other international organisations as well as bilateral cooperation in security and defence. Prior to his current assignment, Adam Bugajski was Permanent Representative of Poland to the UN Office and the International Organisations in Vienna. His previous roles include Security Policy Director at the MFA (2011-2015), Deputy Director of the Department of Strategy and Foreign Policy Planning (2010-2011), and Deputy Permanent Representative of Poland to NATO (2008-2010).

In his address to the IIEA, Jón Danielsson discusses the ideas contained within his new book, The Illusion of Control: Why Financial Crises Happen, and What We Can (and Can’t) Do About It. Prof. Danielsson challenges the conventional wisdom surrounding financial risk, and share his belief that easy solutions to control the financial system are doomed to fail. Instead of the buffers against shocks, it would be better, in his view, to increase shock absorption by diversifying the types of financial institutions we have, a policy that could result in more economic growth and a more stable financial system. He will apply his ideas to the lessons learned from the failure of the Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse. About the Speaker: Jón Danielsson is one of the two Directors of the Systemic Risk Centre and Reader in Finance at the LSE. Since receiving his PhD in the economics of financial markets from Duke University in 1991, his work has focused on how economic policy can lead to prosperity or disaster. He is an authority on both the technical aspects of risk forecasting and the optimal policies that governments and regulators should pursue in this area. He has written three highly regarded books: The Illusion of Control (Yale University Press, 2022), which was included on the Financial Times “Best books of 2022” list; Financial Risk Forecasting (Wiley, 2011); and Global Financial Systems: Stability and Risk (Pearson, 2013). He has also contributed numerous academic papers on systemic risk, artificial intelligence, financial risk forecasting, financial regulation and related topics to leading academic journals, including Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Econometrics. At the LSE, he teaches courses in technical risk forecasting and on how the global financial system operates. He has also worked for the Bank of Japan and the International Monetary Fund.

Russia and Ukraine have followed very different approaches to command during the course of their war. Drawing on his new book, Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine, Lawrence Freedman compares these approaches, looking at the respective role of Presidents Putin and Zelensky, along with the development and implementation of their military strategies. About the Speaker: Sir Lawrence Freedman is Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College London. He was Professor of War Studies at King's College London from 1982 to 2014, and was Vice-Principal from 2003 to 2013. Before joining King's he held research appointments at Nuffield College Oxford, IISS and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1995, he was appointed Official Historian of the Falklands Campaign in 1997. In June 2009 he was appointed to serve as a member of the official inquiry into Britain and the 2003 Iraq War. Professor Freedman has written extensively on nuclear strategy and the Cold War, as well as commentating regularly on contemporary security issues. His new book is Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine.

Eoin Drea,Senior Researcher in the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, Hélène Conway-Mouret, member of the French Senate and Laurence Norman, reporter at The Wall Street Journal, in conversation with Dan O’Brien, IIEA Chief Economist.