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Executive Summary The EU and NATO are two of the most critical organisations countering cyber threats since they combine national, regional, and international levels while governing cyber security and defence policies. To combat cyber threats, the EU and NATO established measures. In times of global challenges, EU-NATO cooperation is getting more crucial. In previous years, there have been significant cyber security and defence advancements. These concerns have long been on the EU and NATO’s radar, but they have only recently become one of the top priorities. Both organisations will continue to face new cyber challenges; as a result, the EU and NATO must build their credibility as powerful cyberspace forces. Although they work collectively to combat these threats, they remain different. Therefore, this study aims to find the current differences between the cyber security policies of the EU and NATO while suggesting that overcoming those differences will help them to cooperate more effectively and to argue the reasons why their cooperation is necessary. The literature review highlights the historical background of the development and perspectives on the EU and NATO cyber security policies and their cooperation to create a better understanding. By employing multileveled cyber security cooperation model as the theoretical framework, this study uses a comparative research design with the qualitative method for the analysis. Regarding the data collection, agreements, decisions, conclusions, communications, and reports established by the EU and NATO are used as primary sources, and articles and books relative to the research question and hypothesis are used as secondary sources. When examined, the EU and NATO's cyber security strategies have received very little attention. But those studies either lack up-to-date information, a theoretical perspective, or they focus on other related subjects rather than differences. Finally, in the conclusion part it is argued that the results have shown high responsiveness to the hypothesis. Moreover, there are at least seven differences between the cyber security policies of the EU and NATO, and at least four reasons why their cooperation is necessary. The fundamental problem of the analysis was the lack of sufficient literature, particularly in terms of theoretical analysis. The study is concluded with the suggested topics to be studied for scholars. Keywords: EU, NATO, Cyber Security Policy, Cyber Defence, Cyber Threat, Cooperation

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There has been an increase in the number of female diplomats but the number of women decreases proportionately in higher positions in the hierarchy. Since ambassadors are in one of the top positions in the diplomatic field, hearing their perspective on the main themes relating to gender in negotiation can help to get a better understanding of the current issues relating to gender in the diplomatic field. The literature has not yet studied extensively the perception of gender by ambassadors and seems to focus on researching the impact of gender in the private sector. There is no consensus on the impact of gender in negotiation in the literature currently. This research aims at identifying the extent to which gender matters in negotiations to European Ambassadors posted in Brussels, as well as the variation in their perception of gender. 11 qualitative semi-structured open-ended interviews of European ambassadors posted to Brussels were conducted for this research and were analysed through a semantic thematic analysis of the interviews. The themes were divided between the perceived importance of gender in negotiation, the perception of gender differences in negotiation processes, the perception of legitimacy and the perceived effects of gender on the outcomes of negotiation. The results expected were that gender is not considered as the most important factor in negotiations by either men and women respondents and that women perceive gender in negotiations to be more important than men. The research concluded that gender is not considered the most important factor of negotiation by the ambassadors, and tends to be considered as less important by the male respondents. Though the respondents did not consider gender to be the most important factor, many aspects, concerns and implications of gender in negotiation were brought up by the ambassadors during the interviews. The results build on existing evidence presented in the theoretical framework with the role congruity theory, whereby male gender roles are typically more associated with agentic behaviour. However, this study only investigates the perceptions of gender in negotiation and themes that the ambassadors discussed during the interview and should not be generalized. Further research should study the themes discussed on a larger scale, as well as encompassing the elements of the culture of the ambassadors that were not discussed in this research.

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While the issue of the “comfort women” has been discussed for over decades, reconciliation attempts on this matter has become a major obstacle for Japan-South Korea relations. It wasn’t until December 28, 2015, that both governments signed a bilateral agreement to “finally and irreversibly” resolve the historical issue. Yet the 2015 Agreement demonstrates how policy makers in the Park administration excluded victims and their related organizations in the negotiation process, which received strong backslash from the South Korean public. Nearly one year after the agreement and following the impeachment of President Park in December 2016, the newly inaugurated President Moon promised the South Korean public that he would resolve the controversial 2015 Agreement with the Japanese government by taking a victim-centered approach. Therefore, this paper attempts to explain to what extent the Moon administration has committed to a victim-centered approach on the “comfort women” issue. Based on a series of government publications and interviews with NGO representatives and policymakers, this research finds that the Moon administration has taken victim-centered measures in accordance with the principles of transitional justice. However, these measures have only been taken to the extent that it prevents a complete collapse of bilateral ties between Japan and South Korea.

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For years, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan have been conducting a series of negotiations over the filing and annual operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) but have continuously failed to strike a successful deal agreed upon by these actors. By utilizing a conceptual framework of 'hydro-hegemony' solidified by realist and post-positivist international relations theory, this work attempts to better understand the existent hindrances to appropriate negotiations conducted by state actors on the Nile Basin. This research examines what elements can be altered and improved to adequately achieve negotiations and focuses on factors of history, power, diplomacy, trust, cooperation and external actors. This research is significant as we approach a more uncertain future with climate change with an increased possibility of water conflicts that will heavily rely on successful negotiations. While there has been no compromise towards successful negotiation procedures yet regarding the GERD crisis, this work offers with some concluding recommendations for moving forward in the final section.

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Recent publications report an unprecedented acceleration of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) repressive policy against the Uyghurs living in the Xinjiang province. A number of actors, including parliaments and activists, have labelled the situation ‘genocide’. In parallel, since the adoption of the Genocide Convention in 1948, the concept of genocide and the phenomenon it refers to have been studied thoroughly in the literature, shaping the multidisciplinary field of genocide studies and leading to the establishment of various theories on the issue. In this context, it seems that genocide scholarship could be applied to analyze the Xinjiang case. To consider such a possibility, however, it is first necessary to determine whether the situation could be considered genocide by scholars. This paper hence answers the following research question: “To what extent can the Chinese government’s repressive policy towards the Uyghurs in Xinjiang be considered to constitute genocide from a theoretical perspective?”. The theoretical framework is derived from genocide scholarship. While acknowledging the variety of existing academic definitions of the concept, it points to four characteristics of genocide that consistently appear in the literature: physical destruction of the group, cultural destruction, genocidal intent and the targeting of a specific group. Document analysis is used to collect the necessary data and evaluate evidence of each of these genocidal characteristics in Xinjiang. Governmental documents, analyses of satellite imagery and publicly available government sources by think tanks and academic researchers, first-hand accounts collected by Non-Governmental Organizations, documents published by parliamentary commissions, Chinese and international newspaper articles, books, and academic publications are thus gathered and analyzed with this aim in view. Broadly, the results show that the Uyghurs as a cultural group are clearly under attack from the Chinese government, to an extent that constitutes genocide in some scholarly definitions. There is less evidence of a governmental willingness to physically annihilate all Uyghur bodies, which would constitute a necessary characteristic of genocide in other definitions. Therefore, the evidence presented on the CCP’s policy towards the Uyghurs in Xinjiang fits at least some social scientific definitions of genocide. It seems that the proposed lens of genocide could indeed provide an interesting and viable avenue for future research. It is hoped that the information presented in this paper can also act as a resource for social scientists to decide whether this case fits their definition of genocide and to potentially engage in further research efforts on Xinjiang.