The UN General Assembly chose January 27 as the official day for the commemoration, as it was on this day in 1945 that Soviet troops liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp. Throughout Europe, tributes will be paid to the 53 million people who died during World War II, of whom 31 million were civilians. Commemoration has [...]

Different aspects of freedom, wider human rights and civil liberties, democracy, economical, social and other kind of development are hard to implement if the state is failing or already failed. If an outstanding problem occurs, such as food crisis or a devastating hurricane, the world’s weakest states are the most exposed when crisis strikes. In [...]

After three weeks dispute Russian gas is heating European homes. Talks ended agreement, it was even signed, bills are paid, prices fixed, EU monitors are checking implementation and everything seems to be ok next ten years. I would not like to be bird of ill omen but I must state to have serious doubts and [...]

Freedom of movement including traveling abroad or in one’s own country and selecting locations to live has also its own limitations in Balkans. If we exclude such restrictive factors as money, handicaps or imprisonment I could find three main categories for limited freedom of movement in Balkans. They are Restricted moving back to original dwelling [...]

One can dispute which level of economic freedom can increase or decrease common welfare for all population but the fact is that poverty sure limits individuals political and human rights as well use of civil liberties.”Poverty” defined as an economic condition of lacking both money and basic necessities needed to successfully live, such as food, [...]

Economic freedom is highly valued element especially in U.S. society and its imitators. Conservative politics claims that greater economic freedom generates opportunities for people, creates wealth and respect for human rights. In Nordic countries the approach is different and the economic freedom of one individual – human or company – can be limited if it [...]

World Audit Org has been conducting sc. Democracy Audit since 1997. Their survey is concerned only with the criteria of democracy – which they hold to be Human Rights; Political Rights; Free Speech and Absence of Corruption. 150 nations, all those with populations in excess of one million are included.  Related to 1st part of [...]

Different aspects of freedom are fundamental value of human rights in Balkans as well globally. While starting of a year it’s good time to check the near past and make some benchmarking. Rankings or ratings are one kind of (process) benchmarking in which organizations or in this case states evaluate various aspects of their processes [...]

American history professor Charles Ingrao said that he expects the new U.S. administration’s Balkans policy to differ from that of George Bush. U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has already gathered a group of advisers who have great experience with the Balkans, Ingrao told Belgrade daily Ve?ernje Novosti. (Source: Vecernje novosti, Tanjug and B92 5th January 2009) [...]

I am a bit worried about a trend at the beginning of year 2009 – a trend I hope will not dominate the rest of the year.  The phenomena in my mind is the new tradition of non-negotiation.  Crisis management and solving conflicts will be much more harder if local stakeholders are unable even to talk each other. Few examples [...]