This is a public event. To register, please send your name and email address to Rick van der Kleij, coordinator PIN.

The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and the Clingendael Institute are proud to invite you to a discussion roundtable on negotiating security in Eurasia.

Security in the region has increasingly suffered the past few years from a growing gap between Russia on the one hand and the EU member states and the US on the other. This gap is caused by differences of interest, differences in political systems, but it is also a gap of communication and understanding. The security narratives from both sides have become ever more divergent with the Ukraine crisis as the strongest example.

Add to this the geopolitical rivalry between Russia and the USA, the differences in negotiation styles and the increasing pressure on international regimes - such as the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the UN – and we have a framework of increasing non-cooperation between vital security actors in Eurasia.

However, the number of issues that need negotiations and cooperation has not decreased and might even have increased. Ukraine and Syria are the most problematic cases, but also Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabkh, conflicts in Central-Asia and the Caucasus, as well as fights against transnational crime and terrorism would all benefit from cooperation. Considering the above, what should the larger framework for negotiating security in Eurasia look like? What kind of actions are possible and necessary to strengthen regional cooperation? Which conflicts are the most ripe for a negotiated settlement?

Moderator Wilbur Perlot – deputy director Clingendael Academy - will lead the audience and experts through the questions mentioned above looking for answers.

Participating in the discussions will be:

Dr Danila Bochkarev, a Brussels-based fellow with EWI's Regional Security Initiative team. Danila studied international relations, history and political economy in Paris, London and Nizhniy Novgorod (Russia). He has published extensively on EU, Russian and Eurasian energy, security and foreign policy. He is a native Russian speaker and is fluent in English and French.

Igor Denisov is a lecturer at the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, as well as a senior research fellow at the Center for East Asian and Shanghai Cooperation Organization Studies, Institute for International Studies at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). He has also lectured in and on China. Currently he is researching the negotiations about China’s northern and western borders.

Dr Alisher Faizullaev is a former Ambassador of Uzbekistan to the United Kingdom, Benelux countries, the European Union and NATO. Currently he is a Professor in the Department of Practical Diplomacy and Director of the Negotiation Laboratory at the University of World Economy and Diplomacy (UWED), Tashkent, Uzbekistan. He teaches “International Negotiation”, “Public Diplomacy” and “Diplomacy and Communication” courses.

Prof. Guy Olivier Faure is Senior Visiting Fellow at the Clingendael Institute and a professor and researcher on “International Negotiation”, “Conflict Resolution”, and “Strategic Thinking and Action”, which are subjects he has introduced and taught at the Sorbonne University, Paris. He has published on the role of culture in negotiations, China, Negotiating with terrorists as well as Unfinished business; why international negotiations fail. Faure also plays a prominent role in the recent bestselling book A word a word (Een woord een woord) by Dutch journalist Frank Westerman.

Prof. Fen Osler Hampson is a CIGI Distinguished Fellow and Director of the Global Security & Politics Program. He is the recipient of various awards and honours and is a frequent contributor to the national and international media. He has covered a.o. the role of power in negotiations in The Global Power of Talk, focusing especially on US foreign policy and on international internet governance.

Dr Igor Istomin is a senior lecturer at the Department of Applied International Analysis at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), where he teaches intelligence analysis and researches the political and security dimensions in the Euro-Atlantic area. For instance, he is working on NATO and EU enlargement negotiations with Russia. He also serves as a Visiting Fellow at Jilin University (China) and as an Executive Editor at the Russian academic journal Mezhdunarodnye Protsessy (International Trends).

Dr Paul Meerts is senior research associate at the Clingendael Institute. He is active in the field of International Negotiations as a very experienced trainer having trained in 100 countries. His recent book The evolution of diplomatic negotiation deals a.o. with the importance of regimes for negotiations to be effective. Regimes which are increasingly under pressure. Meerts also plays a prominent role in the recent bestselling book A word a word by Dutch journalist Frank Westerman.

Prof. Rudolf Schuessler is senior visiting fellow at the Clingendael Institute and professor of philosophy at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. Rudolf is working on applied game and decision theory, the history of moral decision making, and several subjects of practical ethics. His present projects include research on fair moral compromises, a German federal ministry project on energy poverty and climate ethics, and historical studies on the emergence of opinion pluralism in European thought.

Don Smith is president of the Institute for Research in Stability and Conflict. Don is a former officer in the US Army having worked in Afghanistan, but also in the planning and strategy division of the Pentagon. In his current function he seeks ways to make academic research on negotiations applicable for policy makers. He has done work on making a handbook how to deal with social movements such as Arab Spring and is currently working on the diverging narratives between Russia and the West.

Tony van der Togt is a senior research fellow at Clingendael on secondment  from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). Before joining the Clingendael Institute he held different positions in the Netherlands MFA. Tony is an expert on Russian foreign policy, EU-Russia relations, OSCE and has recently conducted work on Moldova-Transnistria, one of the entrenched conflicts in Eurasia.

Dr Mikhail Troitskiy is associate director of MacArthur Foundation's Moscow office and adjunct professor at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). Troitskiy holds a doctoral degree in political science from the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, a think tank of the Russian Academy of Sciences. His research interests include U.S. foreign policy, arms control, non-proliferation, Eurasian security, Russia-U.S. and Russia-NATO relations.

Prof. Ole Wæver is a Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, founder of Centre for Advanced Security Theory (CAST), and Director of Centre for Resolution of International Conflicts (CRIC). Internationally he is mostly known for coining within security theory the concept of 'securitization' and as one of the main figures in developing what is often referred to as the 'Copenhagen School' in security studies. His most recent writings in relation to securitization theory have applied the theory to religion and to climate change. He will now also apply the theory to negotiations.

Prof. I. William Zartman is senior visiting fellow at the Clingendael Institute and the Jacob Blaustein Distinguished Professor Emeritus of International Organizations and Conflict Resolution at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of The Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC. He has developed the field of negotiation analysis. Furthermore, he has taught and written extensively on politics in Africa and the Middle East. He has received a lifetime achievement award from the International Association for Conflict Management.

This event is organized by the Clingendael Institute and the Canadian Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). The experts are in The Hague for Clingendael's international research group Processes of International Negotiation (PIN) which gathers for its new book project ‘Negotiating Security in Eurasia’, co-financed by Clingendael and CIGI.

You are welcome at Clingendael on Thursday 8 September 2016 from 09:30 to 12:00h. Coffee will be ready at 09.15h.