Western Sahara’s war has been active for 45 years, although there has been a relative calm since the cessation of hostilities signed in 1991. However, since Morocco broke the ceasefire on 13 November in Guerguerat, on the border between Mauritania and Western Sahara, the echo of the bombs sounds again in the desert. Keep reading
Ghana’s easternmost strip has been undergoing a tense situation since 2017, caused by a political conflict of growing intensity between the Western Togoland independence movement and the government of the West African country. Since September this year, a few violent clashes have raised fears of an escalation. We have spoken to Andrews Atta-Asamoah, an analyst at African leading think tank Institute for Security Studies, to help us explain how. Keep reading
Faced with a more than foreseeable total defeat, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian accepted the terms of an armistice to put an end to the Karabakh war, which will entail the loss of two-thirds of the territory of the Republic of Artsakh and will greatly complicate the rebuilding of the self-declared country. Keep reading
The outbreak of fighting, 4 November, between the Ethiopian federal army and forces loyal to main Tigrayan party TPLF has given rise to fears of a large-scale war. Clashes are the culmination of a growing political dispute between the Ethiopian government, led by Nobel peace prize winner Abiy Ahmed, and the TPLF, which held power in Ethiopia for nearly three decades. The dispute has led to a serious constitutional crisis in which no scenario can be ruled out —not even a secessionist conflict. Keep reading
Two weeks after heavy fighting broke out in Nagorno-Karabakh, the conflict has only intensified. Azerbaijan, emboldened by Turkey’s explicit support, is resolved to gain ground against Armenia, which feels alone in dealing with the crisis. Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, has been bombed with rockets, drones, and cluster bombs over the past fortnight, and an estimated 75,000 people —about half the population— have fled to Armenia. Besides, the Nagorno-Karabakh army has bombed Azerbaijani towns such as Terter, Horadiz, and Ganja. This new war in the South Caucasus has so far killed hundreds, including both soldiers and civilians. Keep reading
Self-determination is one of the great keywords in last century’s politics. Crossing the boundaries of legal and academic debate, it has gradually been incorporated as a programmatic goal of national movements throughout the world. Such a popularity has not been, however, accompanied by a consensus view, but rather by the difficulties of becoming an effective legal concept. Moreover, within the new global context in which we live, self-determination is faced with challenges of a magnitude unknown so far, as are other major concepts that have articulated the normative foundations of the political organisation at the global level in recent history. Keep reading