Around 50 people attended the Symposium ‘Collective Security, a Rules-Based International Order and the Åland Islands’  held in Mariehamn on 4 and 5 October.

Click 'Read More' to see a photo slideshow and a brief summary written by Hasan Akintug, the current research intern at ÅIPI.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2018 is to be awarded Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad "for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict". Denis Mukwege is a physician devoted to helping the victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Nadia Murad, a member of the Yazidi minority in northern Iraq, is one of an estimated 3 000 Yazidi girls and women who have been victims of rape and other abuses by the IS army. She managed to flee and has since spoken openly about what she had suffered.

Comment from the Director of the Åland Islands Peace Institute, Associate Professor Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark:

"This award is a manifestation concerning crimes against human rights and humanitarian law, as well as regarding sexual violence as a weapon in armed conflict. It also highlights that minorities are often particularly vulnerable in conflict situations".

The symposium ‘Collective Security, a Rules-Based International Order and the Åland Islands’ will be held in Mariehamn on 4 and 5 October. Discussions will concern collective security and a contractual world order in relation to Åland's demilitarisation and neutralisation. The symposium is based on research results from a three-year research project on demilitarisation and neutralisation, (2015-2017). The results of the project have been collected in the book ‘Demilitarisation and International Law in Context: The Åland Islands’. The symposium will be held in English for invited researchers and practitioners. After the symposium, a summary of selected highlights and reflections will be presented in Swedish for everyone interested. This will be at a seminar open to the public on 5 October from 13:30 to 15:00 at Alandica's Auditorium.

The speakers at the symposium will be:
Matti Anttonen, Permanent Secretary at the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs
Professor Emeritus Lauri Hannikainen, University of Helsinki
Professor Geir Ulfstein, University of Oslo
Professor Timo Koivurova, Director of the Arctic Centre
Associate Professor Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark, Director of the Åland Islands Peace Institute
Professor Tuomas Forsberg, Director of the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies
Doctor Pirjo Kleemola-Juntunen, Lapland University, Rovaniemi
Doctor Saila Heinikoski, University of Turku
Doctor Gunilla Herolf, Chair of the Research Board of the Åland Islands Peace Institute
Professor Kjell-Åke Nordquist, University College Stockholm

Link to / Länk till Nyhetsbrev / Newsletter 4/2018

 Ladda ner Nyhetsbrev / Download Newsletter as pdf

CONTENTS:

• Symposium: ‘Collective Security, a Rules-Based International Order and the Åland Islands’
• Op-ed advocates long-term focus on research on Åland
• E-course on territorial autonomy starting
• New staff and interns
• Besök från Tjeckien, Slovakien och Indien
• Med mera

INNEHÅLL:

• Seminarium om demilitarisering, tillit, Åland och Svalbard
• Långsiktig satsning på forskning förespråkas i debattartikel
• E-kurs om territoriellt självstyre startar i oktober
• Nytt forskningsprogram
• Ny medarbetare och nya praktikanter
• Visits frpm Czech republic, Slovakia and India
• And more

Lauren Stevens will be a communications intern at the Åland Islands Peace Institute from the end of September to the end of November 2018. She is originally from Britain, and currently studies the Master’s programme in Peace, Mediation and Conflict Research at the University of Tampere. For her Master’s thesis, she is researching the impact of Britain leaving the EU (Brexit) on the peace process in Northern Ireland. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Development Studies and Spanish language from the University of Chester in Britain. The third year of her Bachelor’s degree (2013-14) consisted of a Year Abroad Placement through the Erasmus Programme, a European Union (EU) student exchange programme. During this time, she lived in Melilla, a Spanish autonomous city located on the north coast of the African continent that shares a border with Morocco. There, she worked for the British Council as an English Language Assistant in a secondary school. She speaks English at a native level and has prior studies in Spanish and Finnish at intermediate levels. She is participating in a beginners’ Swedish course at evening classes alongside her internship at the institute.

Mirjam Lukola is substituting as organisational secretary from August 2018 to August 2019, while Justina Donielaite is on leave. Mirjam acts as the secretary of the board and is responsible for internal planning and monitoring of ÅIPI’s operations, as well as the coordination of project applications and accounts. Mirjam studied natural sciences at Åbo Akademi in Turku and organisational development at Umeå University in Sweden. She speaks Swedish, Finnish, and English.

The 14^th Annual Conference of the European Society of International Law (ESIL) was held on 13^th-15^th September at the University of Manchester under the auspices of the Manchester International Law Centre. The theme of this year’s annual conference was “International Law and Universality”. Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark, Director of ÅIPI, participated in the discussions. Among the books displayed by Routledge publisher during the conference was the publication “Demilitarisation and International Law in Context. The Åland Islands” authored by Spiliopoulou Åkermark, Pirjo Kleemola-Juntunen, and Saila Heinikoski. More than 450 scholars and practitioners of international law, legal theory, and philosophy of law from across Europe and the world discussed issues such as universality and international organisations and regimes, Europe and universality, universality and the non-human, universality and the teaching of international law, universalism and particularism, as well as universalism and regionalism. In a discussion with professors Christine Chinkin and Hilary Charlesworth regarding gender-boundaries and international law, it was concluded that feminist organisations have often prioritised peace efforts and the quest for ending war(s) before other feminist claims. The peace-promoting strategies of feminists have, however, not been adequately articulated in today’s circumstances and needs. Next year’s annual ESIL conference shall be held in Athens and shall deal with the concept of sovereignty in international law.

The programme and other information from the ESIL 2018 Annual Conference can be found here.

International lawyers in Manchester. Source: Alexandra Xanthaki, Professor of Law at Brunel University London

Hasan Akintug will serve as an intern between late-August and early-November 2018 at the Åland Islands Peace Institute. He is originally from Northern Cyprus and grew up in Canada. He currently studies at the University of Helsinki in the European and Nordic Studies masters program. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political Science and Public Administration from Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey. He spent a year (2015-16) on exchange at Åbo Akademi and developed interest in the topic of Swedish language in Finland and multiculturalism in general. He has prior internship experience in research institutes in Cyprus such as The Association of Historical Dialogue and Research and IKME Sociopolitical Studies institute. He speaks Turkish and English at a native level and has prior studies in Swedish and Finnish at a basic level. He hopes to improve his Swedish skills during his internship at the institute.

The Journal of Autonomy and Security Studies (JASS) is a peer-reviewed, open access e-journal published by the Åland Islands Peace Institute (AIPI), Mariehamn, Åland, Finland. The journal addresses its overarching theme of peace and security from the perspectives of autonomy, demilitarisation, and minority protection.

The Vol. 2 Issue 1 of JASS includes the following articles:

The aims of Åland and Finland regarding a new Act on the Autonomy of Åland 
Susann Simolin
The main question of this article is what intentions Åland and Finland hold regarding the self-government of Åland, and how this is mirrored in the ongoing process for a revision of the Åland Autonomy Act. This matter is studied through a comparison of three central documents in the revision process, issued by three parliamentary committees, one Ålandic, one Finnish, and one joint. The article analyses how the parties describe the background and development of Åland’s autonomy, the original purpose of the autonomy and the aims for the fourth generation of autonomy legislation. Also, some of the concrete proposals for changes in the Autonomy Act are discussed in order to see if the intentions of the two parties coincide or differ.

One Hundred Years of Solitude: The Significance of Land, Rights for Cultural Protection in the Åland Islands
Rhodri Williams
The aim of this research is to contribute to current debates surrounding Åland’s autonomy regime by seeking a fuller understanding of the origins and the evolving role of rules restricting outsiders from acquiring landed property in the autonomous Åland Islands region of Finland. The autonomy and minority protection regime that prevails in Åland is of particularly long standing, and the conditions that have shaped the evolution of Åland’s land rules have changed considerably during the nearly 100 years of their application. The article also briefly considers the relationship between the evolving Åland land rules and more recent efforts to articulate and justify exclusive rights to traditional homelands in other settings, and particularly those involving minorities and indigenous peoples.

The issue can be found at www.jass.ax.

The Peace Institute's director, Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark, has written together with two other researchers, Saila Heinikoski and Pirjo Kleemola-Juntunen, the book "Demilitarization and International Law in Context - The Åland Islands", which has just been published by Routledge.

The demilitarisation and neutralisation of the Åland Islands is a confirmation of, and an exception to, the collective security system in present-day international affairs. Its core idea is that there is no need for military presence in the territory of the islands and that they are to be kept out of military activities. A restricted use of military force has a confidence building effect in cases where competing interests may be so intense that banning the very presence of military force remains the only viable option. The regime of the Åland Islands is the result of pragmatic and contingent political compromises. As such, the case of the Åland Islands offers an alternative trajectory to the increased militarisation we witness around the world today.