Gilberto Algar-Faria from SPAIS at the University of Bristol explores North Korea’s nuclear and military posture and suggests that the US and wider international community should consider a change of approach towards the country.

Photo by Roman Harak, published under Creative Commons with no changes made. 

We at Publish What You Fund applaud the UK’s role in furthering the case for transparency in general. Our particular priority is how aid transparency will improve effectiveness. As DFID is currently the most transparent aid agency, according to our , we think it would be a missed opportunity if UK does not use their leadership role to push the (IATI) in international forums as well. IATI is a cutting-edge global standard which offers a common standard for publishing aid information. It satisfies our four pillars of transparent aid, ensuring data is published in a manner that is timely, comprehensive, accessible and comparable.

Our message to David Cameron is that now he must go beyond talking about transparency and make sure world leaders deliver on it, at a time when the UK is in a unique position of influence in four major international development agendas:

• (OGP)
• (GPEDC)
• (MDGs)
•

The first three agendas involve both donor and recipient countries – a marked shift in the traditional power dynamics of international relations. The fourth (the G8) represents the world’s largest bilateral donors, i.e. countries that have a lot of influence over reducing poverty. In all these forums, transparency demands essentially boil down to the same thing: better governance, better use of public resources and improved accountability.

The G8, taking place in the UK in a week’s time, has three themes, including transparency. There has already been a lot of public discussion around tax transparency and an important push on transparency of extractive industries, with the UK and France signing up to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative in May.

We are keen that aid transparency will not be forgotten in the conversations at the G8. Aid sits alongside tax, corporate and government income transparency as different pieces of the bigger good governance puzzle. A clearer understanding of governments’ incomes and expenditures requires transparency on how they are funded from all kinds of flows. Only then can local campaigners hold governments to account for their decisions, disbursements and service delivery. Transparency across the piece is therefore a starting point for dynamic relations of trust between governments and citizens throughout the world.

Donor nations have been promoting good governance in recipient countries for over twenty years. Aid transparency is an important step here, too. It is high time that leading bilateral and multilateral aid agencies practiced what they preach. Anyway, the best way to achieve openness in developing nations is not to harp on in a discredited top-down way, but to exchange ideas on a more equal footing. The Open Government Partnership is the perfect setting for this. Currently co-chaired by the UK with Indonesia, the dynamic of the OGP is flat and co-operative, replacing donor-recipient power dynamics with national action plans and peer review. The OGP is not about development at all. It promotes openness and good governance everywhere, and provides a forum for sharing best practice and encouraging other governments. This means that although UK cannot preach, it can evangelise advantages of openness. This is a message that needs to be pushed proactively, as evidenced by Russia’s recent withdrawal from the initiative.

Once again, this is a forum that the UK could use more actively to promote IATI, which would particularly benefit aid-dependent countries in Africa and Asia. IATI allows these governments to track external development finance, and to properly align aid flows to their own budgets, helping them to decide where best to allocate their resources. In turn, those governments will be able to present a more complete picture of public spending to their citizens.

The UK is also co-chair of the GPEDC, which emerged from the High-Level Forum on Aid-Effectiveness at Busan. The GPEDC again reflects the changing power dynamics of development, including emerging powers and emphasising their importance for future of development cooperation. The co-chairs – Justine Greening, Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Armida Alisjahbana of Indonesia – represent donors, recipient nations and emerging South-South Co-operators respectively.

The GPEDC is a key forum for the UK to push transparency and benefits of openness, and although its first ministerial meeting has disappointingly been postponed from autumn 2013 to early 2014, it is still an important opportunity for different stakeholders – including civil society and private sector voices – to make transparency demands of each other. Donors have committed to comply with a common open standard for aid data – to include all aspects of IATI – by the end of 2015. The GPEDC will play a central role in ensuring compliance, as well as bringing new development actors into the fold.

Finally, David Cameron has positioned himself firmly at the centre of the Post-2015 MDGs agenda. The updated recommendations, released in late May, are a dramatic shift from the existing goals, and call for a ‘data and information revolution’. Transparency and accountability are at the heart of this new framework to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.

A focus on improved data and measurable goals will mean, for the first time, that policymakers and citizens will be able to track progress of the new goals, monitor the delivery of services and hold governments accountable for their actions.

Access to information can potentially transform the relationship between not only citizens and governments, and also donors and recipients. Open data for all to use has the power to reduce corruption, improve decision-making and allocation of resources, empower citizens and support good governance: all prerequisites for creating local ownership and responsibility and ultimately, successful poverty reduction.

We have worked alongside and other partners to develop civil society training modules on how to use – and demand – transparent aid data, alongside other fiscal information. Aidinfo have worked in Kenya, Nepal and Uganda to support the use of open data and to improve its quality. They tell us that people in developing countries are increasingly realising the potential of open data and the role it can play in ending poverty.

We applaud the High Level Panel for recognising the critical importance of transparency. Its call for an “international initiative to improve the quality of statistics and information available to citizens” has the potential to be genuinely transformative.

But we can not stop there.

The Prime Minister needs to show imagination and perseverance to achieve an agenda that will deliver change and real outcomes. Organisations, like us at Publish What You Fund, believe that as more donors continue to publish information to the IATI standard, it will be easier for all stakeholders to hold their institutions and governments to account.

Publication of aid information to IATI is a flagship transparency initiative for the UK Government, with DFID publishing to the highest standard. This means we are able to point to the UK as an example for other large donor nations – such as the U.S. – of how they should be publishing their aid information.

The time for transparency and open data is now, and we want to see agreed goals and commitments. We know this is an issue that the UK takes this seriously, but the government cannot afford to be coy about pushing it. They are world leaders in aid transparency and should encourage others to follow.

June 2013
Dr David Hall-Matthews is Managing Director of

Photo by PNG Image. 

In this FPC Briefing Dr Simon Mabon explores the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran that has manifested itself in proxy competition in Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain and Syria. It suggests that while sectarian issues shape the rivalry it is important to consider other factors, namely a legacy of Arab – Persian tensions and geopolitical considerations to fully understand the nature of the rivalry and how this fuels across the Middle East.

Photo by Turkish Flame, published under Creative Commons with no changes made. 

FPC Research Associate Tom Blass analyses the use of international sanctions and their humanitarian and political impact, examining if their current application is appropriate.

Azerbaijan became the host of the contest through Eurovision’s normal process: the country whose entry wins the contest one year becomes host the next. Azerbaijan’s competitors, Ell & Nikki, won Eurovision 2011, and so Baku was set as the location for Eurovision 2012.

However, Azerbaijan’s poor human rights record made the country a . Over the past several years, Azerbaijan has become increasingly authoritarian, as the authorities have used tactics such as harassment, intimidation, blackmail, attack and imprisonment to silence the regime’s critics, whether journalists, bloggers, human rights defenders, political activists, or ordinary people taking to the streets in protest. When pressed, even the ineffective European Broadcasting Union, which organises Eurovision, that Azerbaijan did not respect the right to freedom of expression.

But Eurovision 2012 is by no means the only time the question has arisen: should international sporting and entertainment events be held in non-democratic countries? Other notable examples of controversial events include last month’s , , and .

The question of whether to boycott such events in non-democratic countries is complex, and responses are often divided, both among the international community and domestic groups, even those staging protests in connection with these events.

For example, during the protests in the run-up to the Formula One Grand Prix race in Bahrain, protesters did call for a boycott, chanting: “Your race is a crime”. However, Sheikh Ali Salman, the head of opposition bloc Al-Wefaq, which organised some of the protests, “We do not want to hold up the race, but we are trying to benefit from the increased media presence”.

Indeed, the increased international media attention on non-democratic countries when they host such events can help significantly in shedding light on human rights abuses that would otherwise not be exposed to the mainstream international public. But once this international attention has faded, local activists can be left in a worse position than when they started – as currently .

The Azerbaijan Eurovision experience
Rather than calling for a boycott of Eurovision 2012, Azerbaijani activists opted to use the higher than usual level of international media interest in the country to draw attention to human rights violations and press for democratic change. They, like most Azerbaijanis, did not oppose holding the event in the country, and in fact, many were proud to host Eurovision. But they wanted to ensure that , behind the “glitz and glam” of Eurovision, was exposed.

Most international human rights organisations also chose not to call for a boycott of Eurovision 2012. Instead, they supported the efforts of local activists through initiatives such as the which used Eurovision as a platform to expose human rights issues in the country and promote democratic reforms, and exposing human rights violations in the country.

This tactic was by some measures effective, as for a brief period, there was intense scrutiny by mainstream media outlets in countries with previously scarce media coverage of non-energy related issues in Azerbaijan. At the time I was working with ARTICLE 19, coordinating the , a coalition of international organisations working to promote and protect freedom of expression in the country, and was struck by the stark contrast in the media’s interest in our issues during this period as compared to the norm.

Typically, stories on Azerbaijan are a difficult pitch for the international press, and often even significant human rights developments are covered only by outlets with a strong focus on the Former Soviet Union, such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Eurasianet. But in the run-up to Eurovision 2012, journalists began to seek out those of us with expertise on human rights issues in the country, asking for information, interviews, and local contacts. Suddenly, television stations such as , , and the UK’s , and newspapers such as , , and were running in-depth coverage of human rights issues in Azerbaijan.

Eurovision’s aftermath
But this victory was short-lived, and not without costs. President Aliyev and other high-level officials have repeatedly called activists who were critical in the run-up to Eurovision “” and “traitors”, with a senior presidential adviser . Human rights lawyer Bakhtiyar Mammadov, who represented families who were forcibly evicted from the area where the Eurovision venue, Crystal Hall, was constructed, was on politically motivated charges of extortion. Photojournalist and activist with the Sing for Democracy campaign Mehman Huseynov if convicted of politically motivated hooliganism charges stemming from a pre-Eurovision protest. Human rights defenders Emin Huseynov and Rasul Jafarov, two of the organisers of Sing for Democracy, were , where they were studying law.

One year later, the human rights situation in Azerbaijan is markedly worse than before Eurovision. The authorities are currently engaged in an unprecedented crackdown to silence the few remaining critical voices in the country. NGOs argue there are now , including , two human rights defenders, and scores of political activists, including the opposition Republican Alternative (REAL) movement’s presidential candidate, . The authorities are making moves against local and foreign NGOs alike, and becoming . They are and applying it politically to target their critics. They are now crossing what many see as the last red line, by taking action to . The situation is likely to continue to deteriorate in the run-up to the country’s October presidential election.

Views of local activists
Despite this, most Azerbaijani activists stand behind their decision not to call for a boycott of Eurovision 2012. Further, many remain open to the prospect of other international events taking place in Azerbaijan in the future. For example, in January it was announced that the first European Olympics would take place in Baku in 2015. Some local groups are already planning campaign activities in connection with the event.

Human Rights Club Chairman and coordinator of the Sing for Democracy campaign Rasul Jafarov explained, “We knew the campaign wouldn’t solve all of our problems. We knew there would be retaliation, and it has happened. But Eurovision helped us to raise international awareness about the situation in Azerbaijan, and there were some positive results”. Jafarov believes that a temporary decrease in the level of political arrests and the early release of some political prisoners was a direct result of international attention related to the contest. He views the current crackdown as more connected to the upcoming presidential election than a lingering effect of Eurovision 2012.

Human rights defender Vugar Gojayev agrees that the 2012 song contest was beneficial from an advocacy perspective. “In recent decades, no other event has captured that level of international attention to human rights abuses on the ground”, he said. However, he also believes that Eurovision directly caused a number of violations. Gojayev himself was forced to leave Azerbaijan for safety after he and his family were threatened in connection with Gojayev’s human rights work in the period surrounding Eurovision. He pointed to new cases of political imprisonment and widespread violations of property rights as other examples of Eurovision’s impact.

As for the prospect of hosting Eurovision again in the future – which could be possible as early as 2014 as Azerbaijan’s representative, Farid Mammadov, has made it through to tonight’s final – the two have split views. Jafarov has been using social media networks to encourage people to vote for Azerbaijan. As he told me, “We wish we could win Eurovision again, in fact, as often as possible”.

But the cost of Eurovision 2012 has weighed heavier on Gojayev, who told me he would object to hosting Eurovision in the country again. “It is definitely not worth it when the basic rights of people are ignored for the sake of an entertainment event”, he said. While he would also think twice about other such events in the future, Gojayev said it was too early to make the call about whether to call for a boycott of the 2015 European Olympics. He said rights groups and international organisations should be working now to develop a clear strategy for how best to use the event as a platform to improve the human rights situation in the country and press the government to fulfil its international obligations.

The boycott dilemma
It can be difficult for international observers to determine their best course of action when it comes to these events being held in non-democratic countries. As a general guideline, we should take our cue from the local activists, assessing how to approach each event on a case-by-case basis. We should strive to abide by a “do no harm” principle, seeking not to make the situation unnecessarily worse for individuals already at risk. Activists in repressive countries are used to taking on a certain degree of risk, and are best placed to assess what tactic is more likely to be effective, and whether the potential gains are worth the potential costs. And most importantly, we should ensure that we remain attentive and supportive in the aftermath of these events, as local activists become more vulnerable to acts of retaliation once international attention has shifted from their country.

Although there certainly were repercussions against activists who were critical in the run-up to Eurovision and other international events in Azerbaijan in 2012 (and in fact, I was in connection with my human rights work shortly after the country hosted the Internet Governance Forum in November 2012), I stand by the decision we took not to call for a boycott of the event. Because of the courageous efforts of local activists in the run-up to Eurovision 2012, the world now knows more than it used to about human rights violations in Azerbaijan. These brave individuals deserve international support and protection as they face retaliation for exposing unsavoury truths.

And tonight, as Europe’s eyes are on Malmö, it is worth remembering the words of Eurovision 2012’s winner, Swedish pop star Loreen, who was the only competitor to take the time whilst she was in Baku to visit local rights groups and ask questions about the human rights situation in the country. When by a local newspaper, Loreen said “Human rights are violated in Azerbaijan every day. One should not be silent about such things”. Indeed, one should not.

What does the law say?
Law No. 76 ‘On the Public Monitoring of the Protection of Human Rights in Places of Detention and Assistance to Persons in Places of Detention’ was formulated by human rights activists Valery Borshchyov and Andrey Babushkin in the 1990s and responded to a Council of Europe that member states’ detention facilities should be monitored by an independent body. The bill was introduced into the Duma in 1999, and shunted back and forth between its authors, the Duma (lower house) and the Federation Council (upper house) for nearly ten years before Medvedev eventually signed a much watered-down version into law in June 2008.

The law allows members of organisations whose charter specifies protecting rights (up to two from each organisation) to submit an application to the Public Chamber to join a PMC through which members check that detainees have access to adequate food, space, medical facilities, and so on, and provide assistance to prison authorities in the enforcement of human rights. The Commissions have three main tasks: to perform inspections of detention facilities, prepare recommendations for improvement to the facility authorities and handle complaints by inmates. PMC members make inspections in pairs, and the cost of travel to the various facilities is covered by the NGO that put the member forward.

Importantly, the law requires PMC members to work with a string of government bodies: the prison authorities, with whom PMC members must discuss any immediate complaints and recommendations, as well as arrange visits; the regional administration which handles more serious complaints by the PMC regarding violations at the facility; the regional Public Chamber which organises training seminars and round tables and can be involved in the selection process; and the human rights ombudsman, who provides material and other support.

On the surface, it sounds like a much-needed breath of air into Russia’s historically closed and severe prison system. But, as with other similar monitory bodies, their structure and selection process favour compliant individuals, and NGOs are only allowed to perform public scrutiny if they are members of these Commissions. State control over membership is, albeit somewhat obliquely, retained by the fact that the Public Chamber, a third of whose members are directly chosen by the President, must approve applicants. Furthermore, the kind of close and often integrated work with government bodies required by the PMC work means, first, that it is in the Public Chamber’s interests to select members with whom they know the authorities can work well and, second, that it becomes much more difficult for PMC members to take a critical position on conditions inside detention facilities.

A testament to its controversial place in Russian legislation, law No. 76 has barely been left untouched since it was passed. In 2011, the term of service in PMCs was increased from two to three years, and the maximum number of PMC members was raised from 20 to 40. Another change has been introduced for debate in the Duma which would allow religious organisations and political parties to be represented within PMCs, with its authors claiming that the inclusion of such figures will ‘increase the performance of public scrutiny.’ This is unlikely, as political parties and religious organisations are known for their close relationship to incumbent authorities. Rather, it will undoubtedly decrease the critical capacity of PMCs.

More Problems in the Law
Overall, there are a number of problems with the law as it stands. Firstly, and most importantly, there is no description of what is understood by a ‘human rights organisation’ – and most organisations claim to protect the rights of their members, be they the Interior Ministry advisory council (as in the case of Moscow PMC) or the society of law enforcement agency workers (as is the case in Samara PMC). As such, organisations which have at best a tangential relation to human rights work – and at worst, may actively hinder the protection of human rights in prisons – have been accepted into the Commissions. During the selection process of the second convocation, human rights activists were rejected in favour of members of organisations for veterans of law enforcement agencies, among which is the Federal Penitentiary Service, the very institution the PMCs are supposed to be monitoring.

Second, in one paragraph the law states that PMC members can turn up for an inspection without prior warning, but in another paragraph it contradicts itself and states that prior warning must be given before PMC members arrive at a detention centre for a spot check. According to this paragraph, a letter must be sent in advance stating the time of the visit, the intended goals and the full names of the inspectors. As a result different practices have developed in different regions, with some facilities demanding a whole day’s notice, thus giving authorities the chance to put things in order before the inspectors arrive.

Third, changes to the law made by the Duma and Federation Council removed the possibility for PMC members to talk to inmates without a member of prison staff present. This means it is now very difficult for inmates to lodge a complaint without fear of reprisal by prison guards afterwards. In the words of one St Petersburg PMC member, ‘Whichever inmate dares to tell of any crimes will pay for it later.’

Fourth, the fact that NGOs must cover the expenses of PMC members from their organisation means that those with few funds can take part. The most well-funded organisations tend to be Soviet-style organisations, such as veterans organisations and women’s groups from the Soviet era with close links to the government and will therefore be less likely to enact a critical public scrutiny of detention facilities.

Reactions by the Human Rights Community
When the law was passed, Borshchyov called it ‘very, very spoilt’. Then, in autumn 2010, after the second round of PMC members were selected, a group of activists from Memorial wrote a letter to the Public Chamber asking it to remember that ‘the spirit and sense of public scrutiny consist in defending the rights of people deprived of freedom, but not in guaranteeing membership in Public Commissions to the power structures that are supposed to be monitored.’
Last month, leader of NGO Gulagu.net and president of the ONK.RF council, Vladimir Osechkin, published an open later to the Public Chamber on his website signed by 143 colleagues, stating the following: ‘All of you, gentlemen, are adult and educated people. You have all read The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn. And are you not ashamed that thanks to your inaction “former” law enforcement officers have joined and taken over power inside many PMCs in the regions, and there are constantly coming pseudo-reports and news of yet another murder, suicide, death of prisoners?’

In short, human rights activists feel that the potential for PMCs to perform independent monitoring of prisons and to hold detention centre authorities to account, has been undermined by the desire instead to create institutions that will endorse the status quo. PMCs, as they stand, permit a hybrid, state-controlled form of scrutiny, which is dependent on the energy and integrity of individual PMC members, rather than the institution itself.

Conclusion: A Bleak Prognosis for the Third Convocation
The forecast is not good for the next set of Public Monitoring Commissions. In Moscow and St Petersburg, Russia’s most liberal cities, only half of the current members belong to organisations broadly recognised as human rights groups. In the regions, where activists are fewer, the average salary is much lower and the distance between detention facilities can take days to traverse, most commissions are devoid of critical members. And in many places there are simply not enough people to do the job.

Furthermore, in recent months a witch-hunt for ‘political’ NGOs with funding from abroad has been instigated by the Kremlin, demanding they brand themselves as ‘foreign agents’. These organisations are generally the most out-spoken on rights issues and regional authorities have little choice but to distance themselves from co-operating with them. Who would want a ‘foreign agent’ in a government-sanctioned prison watchdog?

While it is a victory for the human rights movement that the possibility for the independent monitoring of prisons exists at all in Russia, their slow and painful evisceration is just another example of the increasingly strained relationship between the state and human rights activists in the country.

April 2013

Although the state’s reports for these reviews portray the country as having made progress towards achieving its international obligations, increasing reports of human rights violations on the ground suggest otherwise. In reality, rather than taking steps to respect and protect human rights in preparation for these reviews, the Azerbaijani authorities have been engaged in an to silence all forms of criticism and dissent.

Since January, the human rights situation in Azerbaijan has become even more alarming. Authorities have responded harshly to a number of peaceful protests, using to disperse crowds and carrying out mass arrests of protesters. , with critical journalists facing harassment, intimidation, imprisonment, and physical attack in connection with their work, and opposition newspapers being saddled with from defamation lawsuits, many filed by public officials. The government has also taken worrisome steps towards limiting .

Cases of political arrest and imprisonment have continued, with the harsh sentencing of journalists and to eight and nine years in jail respectively, and the arrest of , Popular Front Party youth activist , the Republican Alternative movement’s presidential candidate , and Yeni Musavat newspaper journalist , all of whom face serious jail time on trumped-up charges. In April, authorities the office of Azad Fikir (Free Thought) University, a project that provided a forum for youth to learn about and discuss issues that would not be possible elsewhere. Recently adopted and made by top officials suggest that the government is poised for a broader crackdown on independent NGOs.

In recent months, the government has also demonstrated an increasing . Notably, in March, it was announced that the government had requested a for the Baku office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). However, Azerbaijan has generally engaged somewhat more constructively at the UN, where it currently holds a seat on the Security Council, so it remains to be seen how it will approach this week’s reviews.

Local and international human rights organisations have issued outlining Azerbaijan’s failure to implement the recommendations made during its first UPR in 2009. Human rights advocates hope that a significant number of delegations will take the floor during this UPR, noting their concern over the many cases of violations and making strong and specific recommendations for measures needed to improve the human rights situation in the country. These recommendations will be used as a benchmark to assess Azerbaijan’s progress during its next UPR, so making the recommendations as specific as possible will help the Human Rights Council to be able to hold the government accountable for their implementation.

There has been less focus on the CESCR review as many human rights organisations focus primarily on civil and political rights in Azerbaijan, but there are still serious issues at stake. Since Azerbaijan’s last CESCR review in 2004, there have been increasing reports of as authorities have carried out widespread forced evictions as part of an urban development project in Baku. are also an issue of concern for the CESCR, as highlighted by the Baku-based Human Rights Club, which has faced pressure in connection with its “Art for Democracy” campaign (with which the author is involved).

However the Azerbaijani government chooses to engage during these reviews, they provide key opportunities for UN delegations and the CESCR experts to come on record with their concerns over human rights practices in Azerbaijan and to press the country for much-needed reforms. Increased international pressure on Azerbaijan to fulfill its human rights obligations is vital to protect the few remaining critical voices in the country and to address this alarming state of affairs before it becomes even worse.

April 2013

Photo by Maina Kiai, published under Creative Commons with no changes made. 

As North Korea continues to flout international pressure, FPC Research Associate Dr Chris Ogden analyses the positions of the major regional powers – the US, Japan, China and Russia – on the current crisis.

The current year is particularly significant in shaping the continuity or change of these policies in the face of a fast-moving regional context. The United States appears to have largely disengaged from the South Caucasus since the election of Barack Obama in 2008 and the famous ‘reset’ of relations with Russia in the following year. The days when Sergei Lavrov could credibly, and somewhat denigratingly, refer to Georgia as Washington’s ‘pet project’ are long gone, and NATO membership is certainly discounted as a possibility in the short and medium-term by most observers. In Moscow, following the musical-chairs exercise between Putin and Medvedev, an externally assertive and internally repressive leadership is actively pushing the idea of a ‘Eurasian Union’ between the states of the former Soviet space. And in the region proper, all three (globally recognised) states are due to hold presidential elections – which, in Armenia, have already been won by the incumbent, despite of accusations of electoral fraud by the main challenger in the race. Will Yerevan, Baku and Tbilisi be able to continue on their chosen foreign policy paths following their ballots, in a fast-changing regional and global environment?

In Azerbaijan’s case, the answer seems clear: despite of some unrest in recent months, the opposition in Baku would seem unable to mount any kind of credible challenge to the Aliyev regime in the short to medium-term. On the contrary, confident in oil’s ability to ensure the acquiescence of Western capitals and of its own population, Baku has started actively challenging the role of pan-European and Western institutions in the monitoring of its commitments to Council of Europe and OSCE human rights and electoral standards, using a combination of assertive diplomacy and references to ‘national sovereignty’ reminiscent of discourses heard in Moscow. The , and pressures on other “fake”i.e. foreign-funded NGOs seem to fit into this overall pattern, echoing in Moscow.

The Aliyev regime’s coveted hydrocarbon reserves will probably allow it to continue testing the limits of its commitments to democratic reforms: Azerbaijan may or may not be in good stead with Western human rights institutions like the CoE or OSCE, oil and gas will continue flowing through the pipelines nonetheless. Its increasing challenges to these Western IGOs and NGOs are therefore not necessarily a move away from its previous, multi-vectoral approach, of balancing the West with Russia, in favour of Moscow. Neither should too much be read into the at Qabala last year: it will be easily replaced by a similar facility in southern Russia, and much of the resonance given to it in Azeri media was more an assertion of independence aimed at domestic audiences than a serious challenge to Russian regional predominance. Azerbaijan’s foreign policy will therefore be marked by continuity, of walking the tightrope between West and East, testing the limits of Western acquiescence to human rights abuses and regularly asserting independence in relation to Moscow, without, however, seriously challenging either side. In the immediate future, this attitude should also ensure Baku’s unwillingness to deliberately restart a war over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, even if Azeri threats to take the region by force in the absence of a final solution in its favour should not be taken lightly over the longer term.

While Armenia does have a slightly more assertive opposition than its arch-rival, its pro-Russian strategic orientation is, generally, not a matter for internal debate-the overwhelming majority of Armenia’s politicians don’t see an alternative to Yerevan’s links to Moscow. There are notable exceptions, most importantly, Sargsyan’s main challenger in the latest presidential vote – Raffi Hovannisian – who is on the record as suggesting that Armenia pull out of the Russia-centred CSTO alliance. It remains to be seen if he will be followed in this in other opposition groups, and, in any case, it does not appear his post-election challenge to Serj Sargsyan’s re-election will succeed any time soon. The main questions regarding Armenia’s strategic orientation will therefore continue to centre on rapprochement with Turkey, and on the extent to which Armenia will be able to maintain the elements of engagement with Western institutions (like the EU) in light of its pro-Russian strategy. Little is to be expected on the first issue, in the absence of any tangible progress on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict – Ankara has made it abundantly clear in recent years that any progress in its relations with Yerevan would depend on an amelioration of relations with Baku. The is just another example of this stance, which is unlikely to change fundamentally in the immediate future.

On the issue of its relations with the EU and (or?) Russia, Armenia seems to be nearing a decisive crossroads: Brussels is holding out the prospect of the country signing an Association Agreement in the near future, which would in effect be incompatible with membership in Russia’s Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC), or an even deeper ‘Eurasian Union’. While avoiding membership of EurAsEC has been a longstanding Armenian policy (first justified through the requirements of WTO membership, which Armenia joined in 2003, well before the Russian Federation), the question is in how far this stance can be maintained in the face of Moscow’s renewed push for integration in the FSU. Two possibilities emerge: either Moscow is so confident of its dominant position in Armenia that Yerevan could get way with not joining EurAsEC, in light of the negligible marginal advantage this would afford Moscow; or Russia will insist on Yerevan following its lead, destroying one of the last elements of complementarity in Armenia’s foreign policy. Only time will reveal Putin’s openness to his only remaining South Caucasian ally’s surviving European aspirations; in any case, in view of its extreme strategic dependence on the Russian Federation, Yerevan would seem to have very little leeway if Moscow chose to press its case.

Tbilisi is where domestic and international conditions combine to create the greatest uncertainty regarding future policies vis-à-vis the West, and Russia. On the domestic level, much of this uncertainty relates to the country’s competing factions’ attitudes towards Moscow, complicated by an internal constitutional arrangement that is bound to shift in the coming year. On the international level, questions remain as to Moscow’s openness to co-operation with Tbilisi in spite of the latter’s stated intention to continue its Euro-Atlantic integration strategy. Finally, there is the contradiction between Georgia’s continuing insistence on Abkhazia’s and South Ossetia’s re-integration into its body politic, and Russia’s seemingly irreversible recognition of these entities as independent states.

The winner of last year’s parliamentary elections, the billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, has stated his intention of improving relations with Moscow while maintaining Georgia’s pro-Western strategy and striving for reunification with both separatist entities. With Georgia , his control of the legislature will become even more significant in determining the country’s foreign and security policies. His party’s victory in upcoming presidential elections, in October this year, would further strengthen his hand. But external policies have already been subjected to significant changes, even before these significant domestic transformations. The appointment of Zurab Abashidze – generally respected as an interlocutor in Moscow, Sukhumi and Tskhinvali – as the new prime minister’s envoy to talks with the Russians was one such move, so was the announcement of a , instead of the policy of isolation applied by the Saakashvili administration since the 2008 war. It must be stressed, however, that Ivanishvili and his Georgian Dream party have vehemently denied accusations from the president’s camp that they intend to abandon Georgia’s post-2003 policies of Euro-Atlantic integration, signing up to a joint parliamentary resolution strongly affirming the country’s Westward strategic gaze.

The key question remains whether such a strategic outlook would at all be compatible with improved relations with Moscow? In any case, it would go against Russian policies that have been well established in the post-Soviet era, and that vehemently oppose any Western encroachment on Moscow’s “sphere of special interest”. The initial optimism accompanying Georgian-Russian talks in Geneva has somewhat receded in recent months; the main indication of a potential warming of relations has been . Russia has moreover made it clear, in response to expressions of concern from Sukhumi and Tskhinvali, of what have, in essence, become its protectorates.

In short, improving relations with Moscow while striving for NATO membership would require squaring several circles. Even if the current Saakashvili-Ivanishvili standoff is resolved in the upcoming October presidential elections and constitutional alterations, difficult choices would have to be made. On the one hand, acquiescing to Moscow’s demands by dropping Georgia’s NATO aspirations (or pushing them into the indefinite long-term) would make Ivanishvili vulnerable to accusations of a sell-out on the domestic level. On the other hand, maintaining a pro-NATO course would most probably cause continuing consternation in Moscow, while offering little in terms of direct (security) benefits for the Georgian state. Considering the far lower ideological commitment of the ‘pragmatic’ Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream to the latter (and his hitherto furious denials notwithstanding), a strategic readjustment in favour of the local hegemon, Russia, would seem to be a distinct possibility in coming months and years, especially in the absence of stronger American regional engagement. It remains to be seen whether such a scenario could make it through the inevitable domestic backlash it would provoke.

In sum, except in Georgia, the foreign policy landscape in the South Caucasus seems to be marked by continuity, at least given current conditions. But, as events in 2008 showed, the region remains plagued by insecurities and conflicts that remain fundamentally unpredictable. An unexpected event, a renewed conflagration in Nagorno-Karabakh, for instance, or sudden internal political unrest in any of the three recognised states might invalidate anything that is being said today about the future. But known unknowns and unknown unknowns being a feature of international politics, this is one uncertainty no one will be able to address any time soon.

Dr Kevork Oskanian, Visiting Lecturer, Department of Politics and International Relations,University of Westminster. April 2013.

Photo by Annette Teng, published under Creative Commons with no changes made.