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Following the ouster of President elect Mohamed Morsi after only one year in power, this paper looks at the future of elections in Egypt. Without any political party that holds the support of the masses, or the possibility of making up for this by building strong partisan alliances, the paper examines the rules of political practice and the nature of legislations based on the 2014 constitution in order to find a way forward amid a current deadlock. It finds a current legal and legislative condition that has restored Mubarak-era rules, characterized by weak partisan influence and a lack of the necessary political pluralism that accompanies democracy. It finds that, despite accelerating steps towards building partisan alliances and electoral consensuses, there are still structural obstacles hindering the establishment of a genuine parliamentary system, partly due to the weakness of political parties and the limitation of their legislative and procedural structure.

Sponsored by the “Safer World” foundation, based in the United Kingdom, this meeting held at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies examined possibilities for the spreading of peace and stability across conflict hotspots around the globe.

Sponsored by the “Safer World” foundation, based in the United Kingdom, this meeting held at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies examined possibilities for the spreading of peace and stability across conflict hotspots around the globe.

The rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and its capture of vast territories in the Fertile Crescent, has confounded the political calculations of a number of all major political players invested in the Arab region, including regional and global powers. With the failure of regional actors to contain the group, the United States was forced to backtrack on its military withdrawal from the region—when it pulled its troops out of Iraq—and become involved, anew, in the Middle East.

Book Title: La Chine-monde et Le Nouvel Homme [French]

Book Title: The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies [English]

Ukraine occupies a highly sensitive position between Russia and the Nato-member states because it is currently the main buffer state between them and also occupies more than half the extent of the eastern gateway to Europe, via which threats to Europe have passed throughout history. The continuation of European and Nato actions to incorporate and form partnerships with other states aims to curtail Russian influence in this region and reinforce control over it. Russia, deeply disturbed at the encroachment of Western influence to its wider immediate neighborhood, cannot abandon Ukraine to become part of the West's security and economic order. For, in addition to Russian nationalist feeling for Ukraine, it is part of its "special interest zone" and the final strategic stronghold buffering it from the West and its allies. The global tensions caused by the Ukraine crisis and the threat it poses to relations between two major global actors call for a discussion over the wider context to Ukraine's place in Western and Russian strategic thinking.

Rights to equality and non-discrimination in international law form the core of this paper. It begins with a preliminary study of the legal codes including the historical development of these principals in international and regional legal human rights instruments. It looks at the question of segregation, exclusion, derogation, and preference as elements that make up discrimination. It relates this to the standards of differentiation between legitimate discrimination and unlawful or prohibited discrimination. It goes on to present international standards that identify the meaning of equality and non-discrimination, and investigates the basis of prohibited discrimination in particular among the groups that are subject to it. Applying this context to Arab countries, the paper examines the need for a modern law on equality and non-discrimination that could be better enforced than current legal frameworks.​

Yemen’s Comprehensive National Dialogue document presents a key moment in the nation’s contemporary political situation. This paper examines the document with the aim of answering questions like: What are the document’s real outcomes? To what extent does the National Dialogue document meet the objectives of February 2011 revolution and the ambitions of the Yemeni people of building a civil democratic modern country? What are the winning and losing powers in this dialogue? To what extent can the damaged powers hinder the implementation of the dialogue’s outcome? To what extent can the political and social beneficiaries apply pressure on different official and unofficial actors to implement the outcomes of the conference? What are the outcomes that might be implemented and those of which implementations might face obstacles? Giving background to the document and the situation in Yemen, the paper makes an analysis of the document and forecasts its chance of success.​

Book Title: The Virtual Public Sphere in the Syrian Revolution [Arabic]