Post Archives

This case examines the creation of the Basketball Africa League and its impact on sports diplomacy. Based on the author’s experience as a historian, writer, and consultant working at the intersection of global sports, communications, and diplomacy, this case provides a framework through which students can learn about the NBA’S different basketball diplomacy efforts in […]

This case examines Ecuador and El Salvador’s decision to “dollarize,” that is, to make the U.S. dollar their official currency. Britta Crandall, a visiting professor of Latin American Studies at Davidson College, explores the very different conditions and motivators that led to the decision to dollarize in each country, and how those decisions played out. […]

Elections to UN bodies provide an important window into the work of the world’s largest and most important international organization. This case examines the role of a comparatively small state, Ireland, and its successful election to the UN Human Rights Council in November 2012.The case begins with background on the role of elections at the […]

This case study explores the back-channel relationship between Henry Kissinger, who served as Nixon’s national security advisor (and later secretary of state), and Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet Union’s ambassador to the United States from 1962 to 1986. During the Nixon administration (1969-1974), the Kissinger-Dobrynin channel became the primary forum for candid discussion of the major […]

On the night of April 26, 2007, riots erupted in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Groups consisting largely of ethnic Russians, who make up approximately one third of Tallinn’s population, protested in the streets, clashed with police forces, and looted and destroyed stores. Two days later, once the violence subsided, one person had died, more than 150 […]

On the night of April 26, 2007, riots erupted in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Groups consisting largely of ethnic Russians, who make up approximately one third of Tallinn’s population, protested in the streets, clashed with police forces, and looted and destroyed stores. Two days later, once the violence subsided, one person had died, more than 150 […]

In early 2007, Indian and Pakistani back-channel interlocutors, appointed by the respective heads of government, were preparing to finalize a secret deal to resolve their dispute over Kashmir. Had the negotiators managed to finalize a deal, the two counties would have signed it in a public ceremony. Such a deal could have brought the decades-long […]

This case study examines the twenty-six months of UN-facilitated, Cypriot-led negotiations to reunify the island of Cyprus from May 2015 to July 2017. Drawing upon the author’s experience as U.S. ambassador to Cyprus during this period, the case assesses the roles and negotiating positions of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders, the United Nations, […]

The case focuses on the events leading up to the January, 2018 ruling by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) overturning anti-dumping and countervailing duties imposed by the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) on imports of the CSeries commercial jet, produced by Bombardier, Inc., a Canadian company.   The decision—and the imposition of the initial […]

This case examines NATO’s decision to intervene in Libya in 2011. Drawing on the author’s experience as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Mission to NATO, the case assesses the decision-making processes in Washington, New York (the UN), and Brussels (NATO) that led the international community to launch a military operation in Libya under […]