In the Issue

• Energy and the Changing Global Order
• Iowa Floods Underscore Local, Global Connections
• Selective Engagement Is the Way Forward With Iran
• New Regional Organizations: Are They on the Rise?
• South African Takes Human Rights Helm

Features

Energy and the Changing Global Order. Across politics, economics, culture, military strength, and more, a new group of countries have growing influence over the future of the world. And a number of issues vital to US and global security are rapidly evolving due to a changing global order. Energy security is one of four cross-cutting issues the Stanley Foundation sees shaping the global scene. Learn more about energy's influential role in international affairs and the challenges it poses for the changing global order. This article is part of a series related to the Stanley Foundation effort "Rising Powers: The New Global Reality."

Iowa Floods Underscore Local, Global Connections. The flooding that hit the Midwest this spring and summer is local, national, and global in scope. Certainly, directly effected residents and neighborhoods feel the losses personally. But global forces are likely contributors to the disaster, and people around the world will feel the effects, says Jeffrey G. Martin, the Stanley Foundation's senior vice president, in a recent opinion piece. This article is adapted from an op-ed published in The Des Moines Register.

Selective Engagement Is the Way Forward With Iran. US policy toward Iran will hold great importance over the next six to twelve months. For this reason, in July the Stanley Foundation hosted two Persian Gulf experts in Washington, DC, to discuss with audiences of all kinds the precarious nature of US-Iran relations. Iran scholars Dr. Riccardo Redaelli of Como, Italy, and Dr. Anoush Ehteshami of Durham, United Kingdom, were featured speakers at several events. Read more in a synopsis of their presentations.

Beyond the Headlines

New Regional Organizations: Are They on the Rise? The formation of two new organizations, UfM (Union for the Mediterranean) and UNASUR (Union of South American Nations), has recently expanded the list of regionally focused country alliances. UfM made headlines immediately upon its formation by having the Syrian president and the Israeli prime minister seated at the table together for the first time in history. While its name is a little misleading because it includes European countries that do not border the Mediterranean like Germany, it has the potential to bring together its member nations to tackle some tough issues related to environment, immigration, and trade. Yet some question whether it will be able to gain agreement on the technicalities of its structure let alone the larger issues it was designed to get at.

Meanwhile, UNASUR is suffering birth pains of its own. Brazil's President Ignacio Lula da Silva, who led the efforts to bring UNASUR to fruition, said the organization will allow South America to become a “global actor.” The union was created to put economic and political integration of the region on the fast track, but members are already divided over how to handle aspects of its constitution, like military cooperation and relations with the United States.

South African Takes Human Rights Helm. The South African judge Navanethem Pillay, who has served on the International Criminal Court since 2003, has been confirmed as the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. While a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda where she served from 1995 to 2003, Pillay led the court’s landmark decisions that officially made rape an institutionalized weapon of war and a crime of genocide.

The highly publicized trials, arrests, and indictments of individuals such as Charles Taylor, Rodovan Karadvic, and Omar al-Bashir have brought much attention to human rights issues. Pillay takes office at a time when human rights are being integrated into all activities in the UN system and as the UN commemorates the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Security Council is deadlocked over human rights issues in Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burma, and Israeli-occupied territories.

Pillay, 66, hails from KwaZulu Natal, a poor Indian neighborhood of Durban, and thus experienced apartheid firsthand, as a Tamil minority. The daughter of a bus driver, she became a lawyer thanks to contributions from her community. She later studied at Harvard before opening her law practice in Natal Province, the first woman to do so. Colleagues describe her as a unique blend of a sensitive adept lawyer who is also a humble skilled diplomat "just as comfortable with activists in a mud hut as with heads of state at a dinner table."