Publications
Et samordnet forsvar: Standardisering som nøkkelen til interoperabilitet i NATO, EU og Norge
This policy brief builds on findings from research on NATO–EU coordination in defense standardization and gives an overview of key actors and their roles. The original study shows how interoperability and standardization are increasingly used as strategic instruments in Brussels, reflecting their growing political relevance beyond purely technical domains. At the same time, Norway face challenges in keeping pace with developments, partly due to limited resources and participation. Norway must therefore strengthen both its national capacity and international presence, not only to safeguard operational and technological interests, but also to ensure influence in shaping the standards and frameworks that will define future defense cooperation. • Anchor standardization efforts: Build competence and establish a national framework that clarifies responsibilities and priorities to ensure implementation in line with capability targets. • Strengthen Norway’s contribution in NATO: Invest in sufficient personnel, increase participation in working groups, and support the revitalization of the standardization committee through appropriate representation. • Position Norway as a learning arena: Use NATO exercises to develop interoperability, provide venues for technology development, and prioritize Smart Standards to enable rapid technological adaptation. • Connect Norwegian industry and research more closely to NATO- and EU-based opportunities and partnerships.
From laggard to leader? Australia’s path to climate credibility
Climate policy has a somewhat chequered history in Australia. Progress has been inconsistent and ambition has historically fallen far short of the country’s fair share. Ambition has grown substantially in recent years, although recent targets remain insufficient to align with a 1.5 °C pathway. To build on its current trajectory and ensure the extent of its obligations are met, Australia should: - Reduce reliance on LULUCF sequestration in developing climate targets - Rapidly reduce reliance on and subsidisation of fossil fuels - Tighten and review the Safeguard Mechanism for industrial emissions reductions - Substantially scale up international climate finance
Keeping the UK’s climate promise: restoring leadership through delivery
The UK holds a strong position on climate policy globally. However, it currently faces a significant implementation gap between its ambition and the domestic policies in place to achieve it. This gap puts its credibility as an international climate leader at risk. To resolve this, the UK should: - Take further action to bring down the cost of electricity. - Ensure the effective roll-out of existing schemes outlined to meet the 2030, 2035, and 2050 targets. - Strengthen the commitment to ending all new fossil fuel development. - Expand its international climate fi nance commitments. - Consider going beyond minimum targets for 1.5 degrees
Sustaining Effective UN Peace Operations in the Future: Insights from the Studies Undertaken by the Effectiveness of Peace Operations Network (EPON)
The EPON Meta-study on Sustaining Effective UN Peace Operations (2018–2025) draws on 20 mission studies to identify factors shaping effectiveness. It finds that peace operations face rising geopolitical divisions, financial strain, and complex crises, requiring adaptive, people-centred, and regionally grounded approaches. Success depends on political support, clear mandates, host-state cooperation, adequate resources, and community engagement. Key barriers include Security Council disunity, rigid institutions, and politicised funding. The study calls for modular, flexible missions, stronger regional partnerships, integrated human rights and WPS implementation, and climate-responsive planning to ensure UN operations remain relevant, legitimate, and effective in rapidly changing contexts.
UN reform, budget cuts and gender backlash: What is at stake for Women, Peace and Security in peace operations?
This research paper explores possible risks and consequences of UN80 reform efforts and current financial contingency planning for the WPS agenda in peace operations. Based on interviews with member state representatives and UN staff working in headquarters and field missions, it finds that contingency planning to mitigate the liquidity crisis, and gender backlash within the UN system are having a detrimental impact on WPS programming in peace operations. Further, WPS programming is moving from being underfunded to defunded and deprioritised, leading to a loss of gender expertise in peacekeeping, and contributing to the shrinking of women’s civic spaces in post-conflict states. Finally, WPS expertise and resources must be protected during UN80 reforms and budget cuts.
Confronting escalating threats: adapting stabilisation for Africa’s 21st century security challenges
This article explores the understanding and implementation of stabilisation and Climate, Peace and Security (CPS) across Africa.
Safeguarding the WPS Agenda across Africa amid a Changing Global Order
Over the past 25 years, the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda has gained increasing prominence at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). UNSC engagement has focused primarily on the protection of women and girls – rather than on prevention or effective participation. Further, implementation of the agenda has been inconsistent and uneven across mandates. More recently, geopolitical tensions, a rise in authoritarian politics and escalating anti-feminist sentiment have further undermined the WPS agenda – often subordinating it to domestic political dynamics. This policy brief examines the state of the WPS agenda against a backdrop of dwindling donor funding and shifting global priorities. It reflects on key achievements by local women’s networks across Africa and considers how gains may be sustained and the agenda advanced amid new political and financial constraints. It argues that promoting the WPS agenda in an increasingly volatile political order requires a multifaceted approach that addresses the challenges posed by global conflict, inequality and authoritarian resurgence. This includes strengthening existing frameworks, expanding the scope of the agenda to address a broader range of issues and ensuring that women’s voices are meaningfully included in decision-making related to peace and security.
Time and Compromise in UNCITRAL’s Working Group III
In multilateral negotiations, time has a tangible effect on the flow and conduct of deliberations. As negotiating deadlines approach, time becomes a tool of pressure, one used to induce compromise or force closure. In this blogpost, published with the European Journal of International Law, we explore how this time-compromise dynamic plays out in the ongoing negotiations to reform investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in the UN’s trade law body.
Fellesskap i fare
Norge og Europa i en ny verdensorden. Hvordan skal det gå med Europa når måten verden virker på endrer seg totalt? De siste årene har europeiske politikere hatt hendene fulle med å samle støtte til Ukrainas krig mot Russland. I mellomtiden går stormaktene rundt oss bort fra samarbeid, og mot rivalisering og konkurranse. For EU er det heller ikke mye hjelp å hente fra Donald Trumps USA. Den liberale orden som har bidratt til dyp fred i Europa forvitrer for hver dag som går, også støttet av reaksjonære krefter innad. Alt dette fører til at Europa og EU nå konsentrerer seg mest om ett politisk spørsmål: sikkerhet. Men kan EU bli en fullstendig sikkerhetsorientert union og samtidig forsvare sine grunnleggende verdier – demokrati, menneskeverd og frihet? Hvordan kan disse verdiene stå seg i møte med all verdens sikkerhetsutfordringer? Og hvordan kan Norge som et europeisk land utenfor EU manøvrere i den nye verden som vokser frem? Øyvind Svendsen, seniorforsker ved Norsk Utenrikspolitisk Institutt (NUPI), skildrer noen av vår tids største utfordringer på en lett og konsis måte.
The Institutional Dynamics of Global Governance in Hard Times: Innovation or Decline?
In the introduction to this roundtable, we argue that global governance currently faces hard times because it is affected by a set of significant developments revolving around the changing distribution of state power, the rise of nationalist populism, and the frequent occurrence of transnational crises, while seeking to facilitate collective action on complex cooperation problems. Against this backdrop, the essay identifies two major institutional dynamics of global governance in hard times: first, the drift of formal intergovernmental organizations (FIGOs) that is caused by them being gridlocked in a period of significant changes in their social, (geo)political, economic, and technological environment. Second, the proliferation of various types of low-cost institutions. To help us think systematically about how these two interrelated institutional dynamics affect global governance, the essay develops the innovation thesis and the decline thesis. The “innovation thesis” suggests that by transitioning from a rather exclusive and hierarchical system revolving around FIGOs into a more inclusive and heterarchical system revolving around institutional diversity, global governance is currently being adapted to its new environment. The “decline thesis,” by contrast, argues that the two institutional dynamics undermine rules-based multilateralism and may lead to a shift back toward traditional (great) power politics that does not respect institutional constraints.