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Press, Clips, Interviews

Our cross-university, cross-discipline team are regularly quoted and interviewed, and below you’ll see various links to recent pieces (go here to learn more about the SCGA team).

‘One might think that an intelligence failure can be benign: The good guys do far better than expected, the bad guys far worse. In fact, erring on the side of pessimism can be as big a problem as being too bullish. The period just before and after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in February 2022, is a good example of this.’

Juliet Kaarbo, a foreign policy professor at the University of Edinburgh, expressed similar skepticism. “Trump’s claim does not rest on solid assumptions,” she said. “He (or others) have not provided a reasonable causal chain that links him being in the presidency to an alternative outcome.”

In a recent journal article, Ms. Kaarbo and colleagues in part dismiss the theory, concluding that “it is reasonable to assert that Trump’s re-election would not have prevented Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

Professor Tams took part in two episodes of our own podcast series, once as interviewee and once as interviewer:

Podcast: Never again? The Genocide Convention at 75

In this episode, the SCGA’s John Edward speaks with Professor Christian Tams, University of Glasgow International Law Chair and Director of the Glasgow Centre for International Law and Security (GCILS).

Podcast: 75 years of the Human Rights Convention – in conflict and in practice.

Professors Helen Duffy & Christian Tams discuss the Declaration’s origins and progress, its universality and efficacy, and its application as the bedrock for binding human rights – not solely in situations of armed conflict.

‘Collective instruments, such as UN peacekeeping or mediation, are a lens through which we can examine broader normative fault lines in the international order. They hold both practical and symbolic value. In the post-Cold War moment, these instruments started reflecting liberal values.’

‘On 6 August Ukrainian infantry and armoured units crossed the frontier into the Kursk Oblast and began the first substantial offensive into Russia by a foreign power since the Second World War.’

The Times masthead

Scotland can punch “way above its weight” in the world if it acts as a base of expertise for issues such as women working in conflict, Mateja Peter, the executive director for SCGA told The Times in a recent interview. (Item is paywalled.)