Death of a Visionary: Allan Gotlieb, 1928-2020
Canada – from International Wannabe to Serious Citizen
The Signal Board
Ben Rowswell on The National: Going Toe to Toe with China
On September 23, 2021, CIC President Ben Rowswell joined Ian Hanomansing on The National to discuss the diplomatic levers used in the negotiations that led to the release of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig following 1020 days of imprisonment in China.
Ben Rowswell on CBC News: Contextualizing recent actions by the Taliban
Ben Rowswell, president of the Canadian International Council is interviewed by the CBC's Suhana Meharchand in this September 9, 2021 broadcast.
The Problem With Election Observation Missions
What might the international community of democracy promoters do better to support free and fair elections? One solution is to reassess how civil society organizations and democratic practitioners pass judgment on elections.Photo by Arnaud Jaegers on...
Time for a Canadian Agency to Support Democracy Abroad
Why is Canada lagging behind in global democracy promotion? Canadian flag waving in front of the Parliament Building in Ottawa. Photo by Jason Hafso (Unsplash) Canada has nurtured one of the world's founding democracies. Among major nations, only the United States...
Myanmar: What If You Knew Her Dead and Lying On the Ground!
The first news flashes across your phone in text form: "Myanmar security forces open fire on protesters, killing at least 18, according to United Nations.” The death toll is rising and, many weeks later, is over 700. Protests Against Coup, Photo from Wikipedia...
Joe Biden’s Challenges in a Post Trump World Order
The following piece is based on the author’s extensive experience dealing with Canada-US Relations at Global Affairs Canada. It focuses on the challenges that the Biden Administration is facing domestically and in foreign policy terms, including how the U.S. will try to regain its place as a leader within the liberal international order and mend its tattered reputation abroad.
Three Mistakes From 1989
Three major challenges we are facing in 2020 – a worsening conflict in Afghanistan; an aggressive Chinese Communist Party; and an irredentist Kremlin – have their roots in major decisions taken in 1989.
Ben Rowswell on The Agenda: Time for Canada to Scrap Pearsonian Diplomacy?
As the rules-based international order faces unprecedented threats, what's Canada - a country that has thrived in traditional multilateralism - to do? Is it time to for Canada to abandon its historical "Pearsonian approach" to world diplomacy and focus more on power?...
Introducing Élisabeth Vallet
It was several days after the fall of the Twin Towers, in the aftermath of September 11, before we could gradually resume air travel in North America. But this brief incident heralded a trend driven by a growing paranoia directly linked to the fact that the enemy was...
Introducing Imre Szeman
Over the course of this century, we will need to undergo an energy transition—a shift from a global society still heavily dependent on fossil fuels to one using sustainable and renewable forms of energy. Transition will depend on more than just development of new...
