Publications

After years of conflict and displacement, returnees in Borno State (Nigeria) strive to rebuild amid insecurity and environmental challenges. This report analyses existing risks and offers proposals for safe resettlement, climate resilience and sustainable recovery.

Despite 25 years of the Women, Peace and Security agenda, feminist peacebuilding is stalling. Rising militarization and backlash threaten hard-won norms. The publication calls for a redoubling of efforts rooted in solidarity and structural change.

Enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions of Ukrainian civilians by Russian authorities are systematic and widespread, yet severely underreported. Germany and the EU must use diplomatic leverage to counter this deliberate tool of war.

Security, dignity, and self-determination for all people in Palestine and Israel are the basis for lasting security. An approach based on international law and feminism offers further options for action.

As Europe rethinks its security strategy in light of global shifts, a new initiative aims to ramp up defense efforts. This paper warns the plan lacks real coordination incentives and calls for deeper reforms that tie funding to shared priorities like democratic resilience and climate security.

The incoming German government will have to navigate challenges that are existential to Germany, Europe. This publication applies a feminist perspective to the far-reaching impact of the second Trump administration on global peace and security.

This report reviews climate security literature, identifies key players, and analyzes case studies. It highlights actors' needs in different contexts and offers recommendations for global, regional, and local engagement, with a focus on the global South.

The European Union has many candidates for membership. It is currently conducting negotiations with Albania, North Macedonia, Ukraine, Moldova and Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, the accession processes are complicated. The current policy paper on the reform debate analyses the arguments for and against a rapid enlargement of the EU and provides recommendations for policy-makers.

The EU needs a resolute and coherent common European foreign policy to strengthen its political weight worldwide.The recommendations for action in this paper are to be understood primarily as a call to Member States to make better use of the existing scope for action within the EU treaties.

Nuclear weapons remain at the core of modern security strategies, and all great powers of the 21st century rely on nuclear deterrence to some extent. A workshop organized by the European Leadership Network (ELN) focused on the impact of new and disruptive technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) or Quantum Computing on nuclear decision-making. The major findings of the workshop are summarized in this report.

Feminist foreign policy is emerging as a new paradigm in international relations. The concept raises expectations of a more peaceful and just foreign policy, but its theoretical dimension and practical implementation are often not clearly defined. This toolkit tries to close this gap and clarify key terms of feminist foreign policy, as well as outline the practical application of the feminist approach to international diplomacy, to security, environmental, development, trade and migration policy.

German foreign policy is often described as peace-oriented, moderate and scarcely militarized. But the image of Germany as a "civilian power" cannot be upheld against Berlin's record in defense spending and arms exports. There is little evidence that Germany prioritizes civilian instruments over military power in its foreign policy. A feminist critique by the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy and the German section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

Although political debates were for the most part overshadowed by the Corona crisis at the beginning of 2021, this E-Paper wants to address the question of how the European Union could find its place in a more competitive world. The buzzwords of this debate were the concepts of strategic autonomy and strategic sovereignty of the EU.

Feminist perspectives are gaining strength in foreign and security policy. This leads to new questions for the politically contested field of arms transfers. The authors of the policy paper analyse the phenomenon of gender-based violence, which can be exacerbated through the transfer of weaponry to certain regions, and call for a more gender-sensitive arms export policy.

More than half a century ago, France tested its first atomic bombs in the Algerian desert. This E-Paper examines the environmental and political legacy of these tests: a story of post-colonial injustice and radiological irresponsibility.

It is time to upgrade the current debate on multilateralism, to make it greener and more global. We tried to do just this at our 20th Foreign Policy Conference, which took place in Berlin on 30-31 January 2020. This reader provides some insights into our major topics, from trade to climate to security policy, with perspectives from South Africa, India, Brazil, the US and the EU.

The precarious balance between the need for security and the right to privacy will continue to characterize “risk societies” of the 21st century. This compendium by Thorsten Wetzling and Kilian Vieth provides robust oversight practices and good laws that can serve as bulwarks against the erosion of fundamental rights in Europe and America.

The instruments of bi- and multilateral nuclear disarmament and arms control are in a state of despair. Under the label of N.EX.T. (Nuclear Expert Talks), fifteen scholars from Europe, Russia, and the United States gathered in Berlin in November 2016 to discuss the current state of disarmament and arms control.

The reader for the 19th Annual Foreign Policy Conference about the current geopolitical power shifts in the Asia-Pacific region and their effects on Europe and Germany.

The future international security landscape will be critically impacted by the military use of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. Meaningful human control over weapon systems and the use of force must be retained.

Keeping in view the long-time security-centred nature of Pakistan-Afghanistan relations, Kabul River Basin, a highly significant geographical and thematic area of concern, requires immediate attention of authorities. However, the issue remains virtually absent from the script of inter-state relations and diplomacy. The key proposition in this study is that if the transboundary basin management discourse about the Kabul River Basin can be changed from water-sharing to benefit-sharing across the water, food, and energy sectors, the social conditions and political will needed for long-term state-to-state engagement can be created without jeopardizing the lives and livelihoods of basin-dependent communities during the intervening period.

In terms of having water resources, Afghanistan has a considerable advantage in comparison to its neighbors. However, war and other various factors have limited the country’s ability to make use of these resources. Water infrastructure—including dams, water storage tanks, irrigation and water supply networks, hydrometric stations and metrology systems, and sewage and sanitation systems—is limited and inefficient.