Iraq: the story of my evidence
With the publication of the Iraq Inquiry “Chilcot” Report imminent, I am re-posting a blog I wrote at the ten-year anniversary of the war:
With the ten year anniversary of the war, I wanted to tell the story of the evidence I gave to the first official inquiry into the war, an event that led to my resignation from the British foreign servce.
Is the UN heading the way of the League of Nations? My oped in The Guardian
Oped in today’s Guardian about the UN and what to do about it.
Full text:
“Ich habe da mitgemacht” – Profile of CR in Die Zeit (Germany) – English translation
Die Zeit: I Was Part of It
“I Was Part of It”
This article was originally published in German for Die Zeit on 23 December 2015.
(translation below)
We need to talk about nukes
Mankind has the ability to destroy itself in two ways: climate change and nuclear weapons. This latter method provokes very little discussion these days, presumably because fashionable preoccupations like terrorism or the presidential elections take precedence.
The reactionary, anti-political cult of “tidiness”
The cult around the Japanese guru of tidiness Marie Kondo is bizarre but explicable. It is bizarre because it is absurd that people need to buy a book in order to be told why and how to tidy their houses.
“Ich habe da mitgemacht” – Profile of CR in Die Zeit (Germany)
The Paris Talks and Independent Diplomat
Reuters, in Paris, on the work of Independent Diplomat. This is the fruit of six years of relentlessly hard work by an extraordinary group of young diplomats, led by the brilliant Dean Bialek:
“The Marshall Islands and the bloc of 44 island states rely on pro-bono advice from New York-based Independent Diplomat, a non-profit consultancy started in 2004 by former British diplomat Carne Ross.
The Report: Peter Oborne’s Iraq Inquiry
Today’s news that the UK Iraq Inquiry’s report will be further delayed stimulated the journalist Peter Oborne to conduct his own inquiry. I was interviewed for this, as I testified to the so-called Chilcot Inquiry and the release of my evidence to the earlier Butler Inquiry is one of the reasons the full inquiry into the war (Chilcot) was established. The programme is good, and offers clear details and testimony about how the Blair people lied about the war and how it was illegal.
Power to the People: Rojava, anarchism and Murray Bookchin: Financial Times, 24 Oct 2015
Power to the people: an essay on Bookchin, anarchism and Rojava, Syria, by me in this weekend’s Financial Times.
The Kurds in Rojava are testing a democratic model shaped by the political philosophy of an American eco-anarchist
My take on Power and International Law – UCLA
Here’s a provocative talk I gave last week at UCLA Law School about the role of international law in diplomacy. Short version: it is power that makes the world, not law. And international law is often, although not invariably, a function of power.