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The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs is published six times a year.
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From the Archive
Iran has again challenged democratic norms, with its brutal suppression of protests against the regime, and its supply of arms to Russia for use in the Ukraine conflict. In this article from October 1979, journalist John Renner (formerly based in Tehran) analysed the reasons why the pro-democracy intellectuals who had formed the core of the anti-Shah movement lost control to the Shi’ite clergy, such that the country ‘has drifted into an Islamic Republic nobody really knows anything about’. ['From the Archives' curated by Alex May and Paul Flather]
The Treaty of Versailles forced Germany to acknowledge its ‘guilt’ in starting the First World War, and to promise vast reparations to the invaded and Allied countries. In this article from a hundred years ago (in the wake of France’s invasion of the Ruhr to secure German payments), the leading financier Robert Brand (later Lord Brand) reiterated the journal’s view that the reparations clauses were misguided, and contributed to the economic malaise the world found itself in.
The melting of the Arctic ice-cap has brought to the fore numerous potential new opportunities for energy, shipping, fishing and tourism, and with it questions not only of sustainable development and environmental protection, but the law of the sea and international frameworks for peaceful regional co-operation. This article from 2012 advocates putting environmental security at the heart of the debate over the Arctic’s future.