Multilateral Perspectives on the War in Ukraine

13 décembre | 09h00

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the human and social sciences have strongly engaged the conflict from various disciplines and approaches, ranging from the study of social dynamics and their history to the more strictly geopolitical aspects of the conflict. This symposium proposes to focus on the forces driving international cooperation, particularly multilateral cooperation, and to articulate these with regional and local levels of  analysis.

By multilateral perspectives on the war in Ukraine we refer to the roles played by international cooperation institutions - intergovernmental organizations, but also NGOs, international think tanks, private actors, etc. - since the beginning of the war. While NATO, the UN – through the Security Council - and the EU initially retained media and political attention, other, less visible players, such as the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) or the ICC (International Criminal Court), with their regional dimension, are nonetheless interesting entry points for studying this conflict.

The repercussions of the war in Ukraine on the diplomacy of Eastern European countries – an essentialdim ension, however, as it underpins repeated calls for mediation – has so far received little attention Similarly, the role of  economic players, weighing in on- or being impacted by -sanctions or conditionality mechanisms, can only be understood by integrating this multilateral perspective, which emphasizes not only the interdependence between societies and states, but also between distinct dimensions of security provision and pressure on the adversary.

The question is not so much "what can international organizations do?", but rather, what do multilateral perspectives bring to the study of the war in Ukraine: what dimensions of this conflict and of the state of international cooperation do they allow us to highlight?

The symposium more particularly aims at tackling the following dimensions:

1) the operational aspects of multilateral cooperation, whether peaceful (mediation, investigation), coercive (sanctions) or assistance (military, economic) measures. Which multilateral and/or regional organizations are concretely doing what and how in the context of this conflict?
2) the normative issues raised by this conflict: whether in terms of the mobilization of international justice actors, the negotiation of resolutions within the UN, and/or the way in which these norms question traditional approaches to security (environmental norms, for example);
3) the reconfiguration of actor networks and cooperation chains, including the role of organized civil society and NGOs;
4) the reconfiguration of spaces and the extent to which intervention of international players - including via non-European multilateral forums and mechanisms - modifies or even disrupts the relationship to territory and borders.

Contact

Marieke Louis
marieke.louis  ( at )  cmb.hu-berlin.de

Programme

Multilateral Perspectives on the War in Ukraine

13th December 2024, Marc Bloch Center, Berlin

9h00-9h30: Coffee and Opening Speech

9h30-11h15: Multilateral Diplomacy at work - Discussant: Gwendolyn Sasse (ZOiS)

• The multilateral aspects of international peace efforts for Ukraine since 2022, Emilijia Pundziute Gallois (Vytautas Magnus University)
• The War in Ukraine and the “Peace formula”: the logic of parallel Multilateral diplomacy, Charles Tenenbaum (Sciences Po Lille)
• How International Organizations Punish a Member State: A typology of Membership Sanctions on Russia in Response to the War in Ukraine, Isabell Burmester (Sorbonne Nouvelle University)

11h15-11h30 Coffee break

11h30-13h:  Normative issues raised by the war - Discussant: Benjamin Beuerle  (CMB)

• Has the UNSC reached a fatal deadlock since the war in Ukraine? Mélanie Albaret (Clermont-Auvergne University) and Benoît Martin (Sciences Po Paris)
• The War in Ukraine and environmental norms: toward a multilateral politicization of ecocides? Adrien Estève (Clermont-Auvergne University)
• Empowering Ukrainian Citizens, Countering Disinformation: The Role of U.S. Public Diplomacy, Gabriel Porc (Universities of Nanterre and Poitiers)

13h-14h: Lunch break (Centre Marc Bloch)

14h-16h: International players and the reconfiguration of regional spaces - Discussant: Sophie Lambroschini (CMB)

• Security perceptions at the border triangle(s) between Poland and Lithuania, Nadja Douglas (ZOIS)
• Multilateral Dimensions of Border Contestation: Mapping Disruptions and Regional Dynamics in Post-2022 Georgia, Sofia Gavrilova (Leibniz-Institute for Regional Geography)
• “Glory to Ukraine and Abkhazia is Georgia”: changes in the production of space in the Georgian Abkhazian borderland, Gaëlle Le Pavic (Ghent University – United Nations University (CRIS))

16h-16h15: Coffee break

16h15-17h: Concluding discussion: Where are peace studies on the war in Ukraine going?

Lieu

Documents