October 9, 2025

Archives for 2009

Abu Garda vs. Omar Al Bashir

Below I’ve (belatedly) written up some of the notes I took while attending Abu Garda’s first appearance before the ICC last week: May 18, 2009 There are two men. They are both Sudanese. They both have leadership positions. And they are both charged with serious crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC). But that is […]

Questions for the Advocacy Community – Part III

In the final section of this series, advocates respond to the question: What are the costs/benefits of single issue advocacy? Does the focus on a single issue crowd out the potential to focus on structural changes that would be required to deal with both the single issue and other related issues? The question arises from […]

Questions for the advocacy community: Q3 – Alex de Waal

What are the costs/benefits of single issue advocacy? Does the focus on a single issue crowd out the potential to focus on structural changes that would be required to deal with both the single issue and other related issues? Alex de Waal: The big question facing the landmines campaign was how to relate to the […]

Questions for the advocacy community: Q3 – John Norris

What are the costs/benefits of single issue advocacy? Does the focus on a single issue crowd out the potential to focus on structural changes that would be required to deal with both the single issue and other related issues? John Norris: Much has been made over the influence of single issue advocacy and its supposed […]

Podcast from Sarajevo

This 35-minute podcast is what I would call an “audio postcard” from Sarajevo. As I make clear in the recording, I did not go to Sarajevo as part of my research – I went because friends from there had impressed upon me how beautiful it is, and so when I found some budget flights, I […]

What would you ask Zeid Al Sabban?

Zeid Al Sabban is Head of the African Affairs division at the League of Arab States. I’ll be speaking with him in Cairo early next month. He has just agreed “in principle” to do a podcast – it will just be contingent on timing. You have between now and June 6 to submit a question […]

Clarification on podcast summary

Thanks to Marc Gustafson for his comment on the Pronk podcast, where he pulls me up on the incompleteness/bias in my summary. Marc writes:

Jan Pronk answers your questions

In this 30-minute podcast I ask former UN Special Representative to the Secretary General for Sudan, Jan Pronk, questions that you submitted through the website, plus a few follow-up questions of my own. (My apologies for the poor sound quality at the beginning of the interview – it gets better once Pronk starts speaking at […]

Coming up this week

Hi everyone Apologies for the scarcity of posts the past fews days – my travel schedule has made accessing internet time a little tricky. [And on a personal note, it meant I missed reaching my foster brother by phone back in Australia  on his 25th birthday – so great to speak to you today though […]

From Sarajevo

I’m in Sarajevo right now, which is a stunningly beautiful city, but the recent past is viscerally present – not only in the buildings ridden with bullet holes, but in other ways too.  An explosion went off in the hills that surround the town yesterday morning – people were speculating a landmine, but it sounded […]