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Ethnic and religious conflicts have increased significantly. The international community was largely helpless in the face of genocide in Rwanda and the Balkan wars. Nation building and state building in fragile states has thus become an instrument of international policy. Managing ethnic and and religious conflicts involves finding equilibrium between the territorial integrity of a state and its inherent promise of stability and the principle of a peoples' right to self-determination.

The Heinrich Böll Foundation has awarded Chinese defence lawyer and human rights advocate Zhang Sizhi with the Petra Kelly Prize 2008. Sizhi is known among Chinese lawyers as “the conscience of lawyers”.

Twenty per cent of the world population consume 80% of the world’s resources and contribute 80% of total carbon emissions. These 20% live in the richest industrial nations, which also have the capacities and the resources to deal with climate change appropriately, but are least affected by the consequences.

Significant efforts are required to reduce carbon emissions and to prevent an increase in temperature of more than 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels.

The less developed the capacity of a state is to deal with conflicts and the less its ability is for adaptation and regeneration, the harder the state will be hit by the impacts of climate change.

Even antagonists have realised that ecology and economy are inextricably linked and that sustainable policy is politically realistic. A responsible resource policy with a view to climate change is not only becoming more important, but is the best protection against the threat of a lack of resources.

Never before have such important decisions had to be taken within a period of two years. The agendas for the next negotiations in Poznan (2008) and Copenhagen (2009) were passed in Bali in 2007.

Future projections of effects and costs of climate change are highly uncertain. Many scientific findings are required to make the projections as exact as possible.

On November 6-7, 2008 South Caucasus Regional Office of the Heinrich Boell Foundation and Bertelsmann Foundation initiated a strategic cooperation dedicated to "A European Strategy for the Southern Caucasus".

After the five-day war between Russia and Georgia, actors, issues and the agenda involved need to be identified. A discussion paper for the conference “A European Strategy for the Southern Caucasus” in Tbilisi on 6-7 November 2008, jointly organized by the Bertelsmann Foundation, Guetersloh and the Heinrich Boell Foundation’s Southern Caucasus Office.