Edward C. Luck, as Special Adviser to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, is charged with the conceptual, political, and operational development of the responsibility to protect.  An Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, he also serves as Senior Vice President for Research and Programs at the International Peace Institute, an independent think tank based in New York.  From 2001 to 2010, Dr. Luck was Professor of Practice in International and Public Affairs and Director of the Center on International Organization, both of Columbia University.  A past President and CEO of the United Nations Association of the USA, he has served the UN in a variety of capacities, taught at Princeton and Sciences-Po (Paris), and founded a research center co-sponsored by the NYU School of Law and Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School.  Among his books are United Nations Security Council: Practice and Promise (Routledge, 2006 and 2011), International Law and Organization: Closing the Compliance Gap, with Michael Doyle, (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), and Mixed Messages: American Politics and International Organization, 1919-1999 (Brookings, 1999).

About the speaker:

Dr. Franz Cede is a retired Austrian diplomat who served as the Austrian Ambassador to Russia (1999-2003) and to NATO (2003-2007). He also was the Legal Advisor to the Austrian Foreign Ministry. He has a strong California connection dating back to the time when he was the Austrian Consul General in Los Angeles 20 years ago. Dr Cede holds the degree "Doctor of Law" from Innsbruck University. He received an M.A. in international affairs from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C., and is currently an associate professor at the Andrassy University in Budapest, Hungary. Dr. Cede has published several books and articles in the field of international relations, international law and diplomacy.

Jointly sponsored by The Europe Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

Audio Synopsis:

In this talk, Dr. Cede details his views on Russia's evolving relationships with the EU, NATO, and the US, drawing on his experiences as Austrian ambassador to the Soviet Union from1999 to 2003. Cede first outlines his perceptions of present-day Russia-US and Russia-NATO relations. Russia, he explains, still thinks in Cold War terms of bilateral relations and considers the United States to be its primary strategic partner on global security issues, especially in light of the Obama administration's recent "reset" of relations and ratification of the new START treaty. In contrast, Russia views NATO as outdated and yet still a threat. Its expansion to the East is viewed with suspicion by Putin's administration, which considers these developments to be distinctly anti-Russian. Russia engages with NATO only to the extent that it believes it can influence the organization's behavior and policies toward Moscow.  Still, in Cede's experience, the NATO-US-Russia triangle continues to be at the forefront of Russian policymakers' dialogue. Russian leaders prefer to avoid dealing with the EU because it lacks a coherent foreign policy, and also because Russia prefers bilateral relations with countries that offer a strategic benefit. Dr. Cede quotes Timothy Garton Ash, who wrote in a recent op-ed that "much of the Russian foreign policy elite treats the European Union as a kind of transient, post-modern late 20th century anachronism: flawed in principle, and feeble in practice. What matters in the 21st century, as much as it did in the 19th century, is the...determination of great powers." Dr. Cede cites the Georgian military intervention and recent Ukrainian gas crisis as examples of Russia's renewed attempts to reestablish dominance in its neighborhood.  

In the second portion of his talk Dr. Cede traces the evolution of Russian views of the EU and NATO.  Ten years ago, the EU-Russia relationship was largely ignored in the Russian media. When Cede asked Russian citizens for their views on the EU, they "either didn't know or didn't care." As Ambassador, Dr. Cede found Russian officials better informed, but  disdainful of being given orders by EU donors and "treated like a developing country." Cede illustrates this dynamic by recounting the 2004 incident in which the EU forced the residents of Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast region to apply for EU Shengen visas, which then required special permits to travel throughout Russia.  Western assurances that EU expansion to the east was not an attack on Russia but rather an attempt to extend stability to the Eastern bloc fell on deaf ears. Cede believes that notwithstanding Russia's attitude, the country is too big to ever join the EU, or to be influenced by Europe in its policy decisions. Because Russia still views itself as "one of the poles in a multipolar world," Dr. Cede insists that any change must come from within the country. However, Cede views Russia's candidacy to the WTO, which would require a clearer commitment to democracy and open economic policies, as a glimmer of hope.

Finally, Dr. Cede outlines several "permanent" features of Russia's relationship with the world, including economic interdependence, lack of cooperation on security policy, and weak relations with stateless organizations like the EU and NATO. He lays out several recommendations, which are elaborated on during the Q&A session:

1. EU policymakers and other Western powers (notably the US) should strengthen their common Russia policy. Given the EU's dependence on Russia for oil and gas, it should also diversify its own energy sources to strengthen its bargaining position.
2. The EU should consider membership for "bridge countries" such as Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus.
3. Personal diplomacy between universities, civil society, and citizens is important.  This includes reevaluation of visa policy. Cede hopes that the advent of the internet will also help improve attitudes between Russia and the rest of the world.

In this special seminar event, Dr. Szu-yin Ho will examine the current Taiwan-China relations within the framework of international relations theory. He will elaborate how both sides of the Taiwan Strait perceive this relationship, what the implications for the building of new institutions are after President Ma Ying-jeou took office, and what kind of signals these new institutions have delivered. Dr. Ho will also give his concerns and predictions about the future relationship across the Taiwan Strait. In this special seminar, Professor Wei-chin Lee from Wake Forest University will comment on Dr. Ho's speech.

Szu-yin Ho is Professor of Political Science at the National Chengchi University. He received his BA degree (1978) in English Literature from National Taiwan University, MA (1983) and Ph.D. (1986) in Political Science from the University of California at Santa Barbara. After receiving doctoral degree, Professor Ho first joined the Academia Sinica, then moved to the Institute of International Relations, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan. He later served as the Deputy Director of the Institute from 1994 to 1999 and the Director from 1999-2003. From 2003 to 2008 he served as the Director of International Affairs of the KMT, Taiwan's current ruling party. After the presidential election in 2008, he moved to become the Deputy Secretary-General of the National Security Council in the Presidential Office, overseeing the country's foreign affairs. After two years of service in government, Mr. Ho went back to academia. Professor Ho specializes on international relations, comparative political economy, sampling survey, and Chinese politics. He had published books and articles, in both Chinese and English, along these lines of research.

Wei-chin Lee received his Ph.D. in Political Science from University of Oregon. He is Professor of Political Science at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. He has published several books, including the latest edited volume on Taiwan's Politics in the 21th Century (2010). His articles have appeared in various scholarly journals. His teaching and research interests include foreign policy and domestic politics of China and Taiwan, US policy toward East Asia, international security, and international institutions. He is currently serving as an advisor to the Taiwan Benevolent Association of America.

This is a special event cosponsored by CDDRL and Taiwan Benevolent Association of  America.

Karen Alter's current research investigates how the proliferation of international legal mechanisms is changing international relations.  Her book in progress, The New Terrain of International Law: International Courts in International Politics provides a new framework for comparing and understanding the influence of the twenty-four existing international courts, and for thinking about how different domains of domestic and international politics are transformed through the creation of international courts.     

Alter is author of The European Court's Political Power (Oxford University Press, 2009), and Establishing the Supremacy of European Law: The Making of an International Rule of Law in Europe. (Oxford University Press, 2001) and more than forty articles and book  chapters on the politics of international law and courts.  Recent publications investigate the politics of international regime complexity,  how delegation of authority to international courts reshapes domestic and international relations, and politics in the Andean Community's legal system.

Professor Alter teaches courses on international law, international organizations, ethics in international affairs, and the international politics of human rights at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.

Alter has been a German Marshall Fund Fellow, a Howard Foundation research fellow and an Emile Noel scholar at Harvard Law School. Her research has also been supported by the DAAD and France's Chateaubriand fellowship. She has been a visiting scholar at the American Bar Foundation where she is an associate scholar of the Center on Law and Globalization, Northwestern University's School of Law, Harvard University's Center for European Studies, Institute d'Etudes Politiques, the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Auswartiges Politik, Universität Bremen, and Seikei University. Fluent in Italian, French and German, Alter serves on the editorial board of European Union Politics and Law and Social Inquiry and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.