Ramesh Thakur, Former Director, Balsillie School

China and India: uncertain bedfellows

Mon, 10 May 2010 16:24:49 +0000

According to Pakistan's ruling elite, the arch-rival is India. But India's arch-rival is China. The simple distinction is critical for engagement with India. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited India in November and China in December, but not Pakistan. Analysts, too, need to switch their analytical frame from the India-Pakistan-U.S.…

- Author: News Manager

How India would thrive if it fixed its governance deficit

Tue, 04 May 2010 13:53:54 +0000

Contradicting irrational international exuberance, India suffers from some glaring governance deficits. It ranks 134th in the world under the United Nations' human development index, 133rd in the World Bank's ease of doing business, and is 84th in terms of freedom from corruption. Almost a quarter of Indian MPs face criminal charges. Yet, thanks…

- Author: News Manager

Rise of China, India and Russia in the Global Economy and the Implication for Canada

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 18:38:48 +0000

- Author: News Manager

Laurier receives $1.4 million for Canada Research Chair in International Human Rights

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:34:45 +0000

WATERLOO - As part of the federal government's recent Canada Research Chair appointments, Wilfrid Laurier University received $1.4 million in funding to support the Canada Research Chair in International Human Rights over the next seven years.

The funding represents a renewal of Dr. Rhoda Howard-Hassmann's seven-year, Tier 1 appointment as Canada…

- Author: News Manager

What are Cultural Rights: Protecting Groups With Individual Rights

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 15:09:24 +0000

"The Director of the Balsillie School, Ramesh Thakur, warmly congratulates Laura Reidel on the publication of her article on cultural rights in the Journal of Human Rights. It is a fabulous achievement to have a major article by a graduate student published in a leading scholarly international journal and a validation of the quality of our…

- Author: News Manager

The reluctant giant

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:15:55 +0000

The China-U.S. relationship will be the pivot of the post-unipolar world order. Western perceptions of China tend to oscillate between confrontation and fascination, either inflating or downsizing its importance. The benign view sees China taking its rightful place as a responsible stakeholder in the management of regional and world order; the…

- Author: News Manager

China's 'world order' implies responsibility

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:56:10 +0000

The China-U.S. relationship will be the pivot of the postunipolar world order. Western perceptions of China tend to oscillate between confrontation and fascination, either inflating or downsizing its importance. The benign view sees China taking its rightful place as a responsible stakeholder in the management of regional and world order; the…

- Author: News Manager

Governments have duty to aid citizens caught in a nightmare

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:54:05 +0000

Australian businessman Stern Hu has been convicted of taking bribes and stealing state secrets and sentenced to 10 years jail in China. International standards of a free and fair trial do not seem to have been met.

Did the Rudd government do all within its powers to help him? Did the Howard government do enough, and early enough, to help…

- Author: News Manager

Human rights and the state

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:51:43 +0000

114

Human rights regimes in the Americas, Serrano and Popovski (eds)

United Nations University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-92-808-1176-6

Human rights and the state in Latin America

Ramesh Thakur and Jorge Heine

In one of those extraordinary coincidences that suggest a rich vein of

irony runs through history, on 10 December 2006, International Human

Rights…

- Author: News Manager

Obama sets India adrift

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:43:12 +0000

My colleague, Paul Heinbecker, Canada's former ambassador to the United Nations, once commented wryly that the distance from hubris to delusion is short and the George W. Bush administration covered it in a sprint.

By the end of his second term, Bush was so deeply unpopular around the world that little was required of his successor to establish…

- Author: News Manager