How the CT Community Failed to Anticipate the Islamic State

This article is a critique of the dominant approach within the counter-terrorism (CT) community that failed to analyze IS’s trajectory as a distinct group since at least 2006. We argue that two factors account for this failure. The first concerns the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), the law that was enacted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, providing options to the U.S. President to authorize the use of Armed Forces “against those responsible” for the 9/11 attacks. We contend that this law served as an incentive to lump regional jihadi groups under the AQ umbrella instead of discerning their differences. The second factor concerns what we term as the “al-Qa‘ida fixation,” it has to do with a post-9/11 bias towards understanding the threat emanating from jihadi groups around the world through the lens of AQ. This translated into falsely constructing a so-called “al-Qaeda Central” in the business of ‘franchising’ its brand and cloning its violent operations by establishing regional jihadi groups that served as its “affiliates” and carried out its orders. In the post-9/11 era, these two factors fed off each other. Our critique is not meant to suggest that the CT community is expected to predict the unpredictable, and we also recognize that one gains greater clarity with the benefit of hindsight. However, we argue that had the CT community given due attention to the differences between jihadi groups, there was ample evidence in the open source realm that was pointing to IS being AQ’s bête noire, and was seeking to outbid it.     

From commitment to compliance: ASEAN's human rights regression?

Whether it is the persecution of the Rohingya, the disappearance of human rights activists, the general limiting of freedom of speech across the region, or the resumption of the arbitrary use of the death penalty, Southeast Asia can be said to be facing a human rights crisis. This human rights crisis is though occurring at a time when the region’s institution, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), has never been so interested in human rights. After a lengthy period of time in which ASEAN either ignored, or paid lip service to human rights, the Association has created a human rights body – the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) – and adopted an ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD). In this article, I utilize the Spiral Model to explain how, when ASEAN member states are regressing in their commitment to human rights, an intergovernmental body continues to promote their commitment and lay the groundwork for their compliance.     

Assessing the role of regulatory quality,favouritism, administrative requirement and licencing restriction in curtailing carbon emissions

The urgent need to achieve the Paris Agreement has compelled countries to set mitigation targets to curtail carbon emissions. Notwithstanding, stakeholders' effort to implement emission-reduction policies is often constrained by institutional challenges. This study provides new evidence about the dynamic relationship between institutional quality and carbon emissions in 63 industrialised economies. Using a reduced-form energy emission model and the system GMM technique, we exploit four institutional quality measures—favouritism, administrative requirement, licencing restriction and regulatory quality—and analyse their impact on carbon emissions. The results show that institutions play a fundamental role in mitigating carbon emissions. However, the abatement effect depends on the regulatory quality, the extent of favouritism, licencing restrictions and administrative requirements. Our findings reveal that stringent regulations such as licencing restrictions reduce carbon emissions in the short and long run. Administrative requirement such as emission reporting inhibits carbon emission in the short and long run, whereas favouritism worsens it. The results are robust to alternative model specifications. The findings from this study highlight the need for policymakers to pay close attention to favouritism, as it tends to reduce the effectiveness of emission policy regulations. Additionally, we argue for the need for stringent administrative requirements given its critical role in internalising carbon emission intensity in industrialised economies.