On August 27, 2015, under the chairmanship of Amr Moussa, former Secretary General of the League of Arab States, the International Advisory Board of the Cairo Center for Conflict Resolution and Peacekeeping in Africa (CCCPA) held its first meeting in Cairo, Egypt. Please click here for more about the meeting and documents discussed by the Board.
One day before Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made his statement or “danwa” about the 70th anniversary of the end of the War, Mr. Yohei Kono spoke on 13 August 2015 about its implications and ramifications in his appearance in a BS Fiji TV Prime News program (part1 / part2). Please click here for main points made by Mr. Kono and his statement issued in 1993.
During the workshop held from 6 to 8 August 2015 in Tokyo, the JCK students reviewed NHK reports on why and how Japan engaged in the acts of war in Asia and the Pacific during the 1930’s and the 1940’s. Please click here to find out what the students found out from the NHK reports.
On 1 July 20015, Mr. Yasushi Akashi, former Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the former Yugoslavia spoke to a group of policy makers, scholars and specialists at an international conference held in the Hague on the international decision-making process with reference to the Srebrenica genocide. Please click here for the full text of his opening remarks.
On August 10, 2015, the Executive Committee of Academic Council on the UN System and its Board of Directors unanimously decided to establish its Liaison Office and to appoint Professor Hasegawa as the first ACUNS Liaison Officer in Tokyo. Prior to this appointment, Hasegawa chaired an ACUNS session at the Hague Institute of Global Justice in the Netherlands on June 11.
On 7 July, Mr. Yasushi Akashi, Vice President of the UN Association of Japan spoke for one hour to a group of ‘best and brightest’ students who will participate in the JCK youth forum symposium to be held in Gyeongju, South Korea in September 2015.
At a seminar held on 23 June 2015 at the University of Tokyo, Professor Hasegawa identified leadership traits that proved decisive in preventing Timor-Leste from relapsing into intractable conflict and civil war in 2006. Please click here for his presentation.
According to Junya Nakano, Director for Climate Change of MOFA, Japan will call for a new framework to be adopted by COP21 in Paris that will bind all the developed and developing countries together. Please click here for a detailed note written by Rise Katsuda on Nakano’s explanation given on July 4, 2015.
On July 4th, 2015 at a seminar held in Tokyo, Professor Masako Yonekawa of Rikkyo University made a detailed briefing about the political factors that impacted humanitarian assistance as she spoke to Japanese students who are participating in the JCK youth forum in Korea in September 2015.
Please click here for the content of the presentations made at the JCK seminar and the statements issued by Japanese political leaders, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono in 1993, Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama in 1995, Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto in 1996 and other Prime Ministers in subsequent years.
At an international symposium organized by the Academic Council on UN System (ACUNS) on East Asian contributions to UN peace operations held in Geneva on 15th June 2015, former SRSG Professor Sukehiro Hasegawa informed the participants about the past, present and future of Japan’s contributions to UN peace operations. Please click here for the full text.
Mr. Shigeki Takizaki, Deputy Director-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan made an informative presentation on territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Both island and maritime claims are made by several states including the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Their disputes concern in particular both the Spratly and the Paracel islands. The interests of different nations include securing fishing areas around the archipelagos; the potential exploitation of crude oil and natural gas under the waters of various parts of the South China Sea.
Professor Kazuhiko Togo of Kyoto Sangyo University explained to selected Japanese participants of JCK Youth Forum to be held in Gyeongju, South Korea, in September 2015. He explained how Japan ascended into peaks in its position in the international community after the victories in Japan`s wars again China and Russia and lost all its achievements at the end of World War II in 1945.
At a television talk on Japanese participation in UN peacekeeping operations, Professor Hasegawa, former Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Timor-Leste, emphasized the importance of having a Security Council resolution authorizing any particular security operation. Please click here (summary text) for his views.
On 11th July 2015, Mr. Shigeki Takizaki will speak about the challenges for peacebuilding in the South China Sea. After his speech, Ms. Ai Kihara-Hunt will make a presentation on the individual criminal accountability of the UN Police. The provisional program of this seminar can be found here. If you are interested in participating in this seminar, please send your message to Professor Katsumi Ishizuka (石塚 勝美), Secretary-General of the Global Peacebuilding Forum of Japan (ishizuka@kyoei.ac.jp).
Chairman of the High Level Independent Panel on UN Peace Operations, former President José Ramos-Horta was welcomed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on 19 June 2015.
At a working lunch hosted by Mr. Satsuki Eda, Supreme Adviser of DPJ and former Minister of Justice, Chair of UN Panel on Peace Operations José Ramos-Horta explained the outcome of its consultations and reviews of UN peace operations.
Ambassador Oshima in his one-hour presentation to the participants of a peacebuilding seminar held at Hosei University on May 30, 2015 appraised some important achievements made in the ‘Outcome Document’ of September 2005, on the occasion of the summit meeting commemorating the UN 50th anniversary. They included the establishment of Peace-building Commission (PBC), the Human Rights Council (UNHRC), and the formal launching of new concepts such as ‘Responsibility to Protect’ and ‘Human Security’. (Click here for the rest.)
Zhang Guihong is a senior research professor of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University, a leading center of research on China’s emerging role on the world stage. The Institute contains a number of research centers covering the various regions of the world, as well as the Centre for Chinese Foreign Policy Studies. Click here his PowerPoint slides on China’s participation and contributions to UN peace operations.