I have linked here previously to the wonderful smart writings of Professor Kenneth Anderson on some of the moral and legal issues arising from modern warfare. See eg here. He now looks at legal and ethical issues facing (sic) future robot soldiers. See how he starts by cleverly framing the […]
Update That one didn’t take long. Chen has left the Embassy with the US Ambassador, heading for a medical facility. It obviously suited both sides to cut some sort of quick deal, including the Chinese expressing strong dissatisfaction with the US willingness to take Chen in, and (according to the […]
While our political elite descends into fevered squabbling about who did what to which newspaper and vice versa, the United States and China are slugging it out in a battle for psychological (and military and commercial) dominance in the Pacific and South China Sea. Knowing next to nothing about that part of […]
What, you ask, are Honorary Consuls? The FCO gives the answer (ignore if you can the clueless gramar): Honorary Consuls are volunteers who help our Posts overseas provide a more accessible and responsive service to British nationals and other nationals for whom we have consular responsibility for (sic), particularly in difficult […]
News that Chinese democracy supporter Chen Guangcheng has sought asylum in the US Embassy in Beijing prompts me to link again to a piece I write for DIPLOMAT magazine about famed episodes of Embassies sheltering people fleeing from their own government. Not forgetting the diplomacy of Wonder Woman: This theme features […]
Here is my former FCO colleague George Fergusson, characteristically standing tall after a wretched mugging attack in which he lost an eye: The old Etonian and Oxford graduate, whose family has a proud history in the British Army and diplomatic service, underwent surgery on Saturday at Western Eye Hospital in London, but doctors […]
Back to Vienna today to give a course on Advanced Negotiation to a distinguished international organisation. Away all this week, so blogging may well be light. One of the points I make is that issues are like Shrek – they have layers. So part of any negotiation is working out […]
I have written at length here and else where about the moral and policy challenges arising from engagement with wicked regimes elsewhere in the world. See this piece in January about the lawsuit against former MI6 officer Sir Mark Allen over his alleged role in ‘rendition’ to Libya: In the real world […]
Our Consul-General in Miami is my old friend Kevin McGurgan, who learned some of the darker arts of public diplomacy when we served together in chaotic conditions in Sarajevo in 1996/97. Time moves on. KM is now busy in and around his corner of the USA promoting the London Olympics […]
Update I now also have a piece over at Commentator which elaborates on the material below. * * * * * The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has pronounced on a case brought against Russia by a number of Polish relatives of victims of the Katyn Massacres. Even […]
