Eliza Manningham-Buller is confirmed as a president of Chatham House replacing Paddy Ashdown who steps down after 10 years.

The appointment of Baroness Manningham-Buller as a president of Chatham House was confirmed at the institute’s annual general meeting on Tuesday 21 July. Baroness Manningham-Buller joins Sir John Major and Baroness Scotland of Asthal as a co-president and succeeds Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon who has stepped down from the role after two terms.

Eliza Manningham-Buller was director-general of the UK Security Service (MI5) between 2002 and 2007 and became an independent life peer in 2008. She served as Chairman of Imperial College London from 2011 to 2015. She brings to Chatham House an extensive knowledge of and experience in international security as well as a deep interest in medical research and global health, having served as a member of the Board of Governors of the Wellcome Trust since 2008. In October 2015, Baroness Mannigham-Buller will become Chairman of the Trust’s Board of Governors.

Paddy Ashdown steps down after serving as a president for 10 years alongside Sir John Major, Patricia Scotland and their predecessors Lord Hurd of Westwell and Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, respectively. Over that period, the institute benefitted enormously from his extensive experience in international politics and conflict resolution, including as High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2002 to 2006.

Dr Robin Niblett, director of Chatham House, said:

'I am delighted to welcome Elizabeth Manningham-Buller as a president of Chatham House. Throughout her career, she has brought deep knowledge, careful analysis and sound judgement to bear upon some of the most difficult dimensions of public policy. The institute will benefit greatly from these qualities as it draws on her engagement with Chatham House over the coming years.

I would like to pay tribute to Paddy Ashdown for his long-standing support of Chatham House. His contributions to our substantive debates, both internally and externally, have been invaluable on numerous occasions, and we look forward to his continued involvement with the institute as a member of our Panel of Senior Advisers.'

Baroness Manningham-Buller said:

“I am delighted to be elected as a Chatham House president at this important time in the institute’s history, as it grapples with a complex and inter-connected agenda of policy challenges. I look forward to working with John Major and Patricia Scotland in supporting Chatham House and its valuable and necessary work.

The Chatham House Prize is presented annually to the person, persons or organization deemed by members of the Royal Institute of International Affairs to have made the most significant contribution to the improvement of international relations in the previous year.

This year, members of the institute voted for President Juan Manuel Santos in recognition of his role in formally ratifying a peace agreement with the FARC rebel group and bringing an end to the armed conflict in Colombia.

In 2016, after four years of negotiation, Juan Manuel Santos led the Colombian government in ratifying a peace agreement with the FARC. Success was by no means certain: after coming to a ceasefire and disarmament agreement in June, followed by a peace accord in September, Santos was forced to return to the drawing board with FARC negotiators after a referendum in October rejected the initial deal. But Santos persevered, drafting and signing a new deal that incorporated changes suggested by the No camp and was ratified by the Colombian congress on 24 November 2016.

The deal ended one of the world’s longest running armed conflicts, during which 220,000 people were killed and 6 million displaced. This was a complex, sensitive and intense process which required exceptional political diplomacy and perseverance. Ultimately, his determination and commitment to peace guided the main parties and international partners to one of the biggest successes in brokering peace in modern history.

Nominees

The nominees for the Chatham House Prize 2017 were:

• Charlotte Osei, Chairperson of the Electoral Commission of Ghana
• Juan Manuel Santos, President of Colombia
• Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary-General of NATO

Event

President Santos will be presented the award at an event in London on Thursday 9 November.

About the Chatham House Prize

The Chatham House Prize is presented to the person, persons or organization deemed by members of Chatham House to have made the most significant contribution to the improvement of international relations in the previous year.

The selection process is independent, democratic and draws on the deep knowledge of Chatham House's research teams, making the Prize a distinctive and unique award in the field of international affairs.

A short-list of nominees is selected by the institute's three presidents from a longer list submitted by the research programmes and departments in their areas of expertise. The recipient is then determined by Chatham House's broad membership base on a one-member, one-vote basis. The award is presented on behalf of the institute's patron, Her Majesty the Queen, representing the non-partisan and authoritative character of the Prize.

The Chatham House Prize was launched in 2005. Previous recipients of the Prize include Burmese democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi, Médecins Sans Frontières, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Melinda Gates, co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

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Email: jwilliams@chathamhouse.org
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The British vote to leave the EU is (and should be) seen as a wakeup call for political elites on both sides of the Atlantic. Under normal circumstances, the institutional support that crossed party lines for the Remain campaign should have ensured it a comfortable victory; instead, it lost by a not-insignificant 52−48 per cent margin. Similarly, Donald Trump has alienated the establishment of both American parties – while Democratic dislike is predictable, the extent of the Republican elite’s discomfort with Trump, clearly on display at the party’s convention in Cleveland this week, is extremely unusual at this point in an election campaign which is more typically a display of ‘rally around the candidate’. But as Brexit demonstrated, the conventional logic may not apply in 2016.

There are significant differences between the UK referendum and the US elections. Some of this is structural – a national referendum operates along very different lines than a US presidential election, after all, and the US electorate is much larger and more diverse than its British equivalent. Furthermore, American voters will be making a choice between individuals as well as ideas. This does not necessarily work to the advantage of either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton (both of whom have the highest unfavourability ratings for presidential candidates seen in decades), but highly individualized questions of personality and temperament will impact voter behaviour in a way that they did not for British referendum voters. Finally, who wins the US election will depend in very large part on state politics and electoral college math – as the 2000 election showed, the candidate who wins the popular vote does not necessarily end up as president.

But there is a far more important message that politicians in the US, UK and, more broadly, Europe, should take away from the Brexit result. Regardless of what happens in the US elections, elites no longer necessarily hold the preponderance of power. The disenfranchised who have historically either not had the mass or the coherence to communicate it now do - at least on occasion.

This is not an ideological split – Brexit voters came together from all parts of the political spectrum. Equally, in the US, Sanders and Trump voters are bucking the system in both the Democratic and Republican parties.

There is a significant backlash under way in both countries towards aspects of globalization, going beyond the traditional right/left divide. Allowing for some differences in specifics, the American and British political establishments have, over the past few decades, broadly eased restrictions on the free movement of capital, goods and people across national borders. There have been notable benefits associated with this approach that have mostly been distributed inclusively, but the costs have typically hit those already less advantaged and without opportunities or skills to mitigate them. Those who have been left out or left behind from these changes are discovering their own political power.

Politicians are going to have to find ways not just to appeal to these voters who feel disenfranchised by existing structures, but also address their legitimate concerns. There will of course be partisan policy solutions put forward on both sides. But inevitably the political leadership is going to have to find ways to bridge party lines to realize solutions to those social and economic inequalities. Ignoring them, as many have in the past, is increasingly a quick path to losing power.

Unless the world wants to turn back to more isolationist and protectionist times, with the slower growth and inequalities that this includes, politicians are also going to have to do a better job of explaining the benefits of globalization. And, more importantly, they will have to ensure that these benefits reach their broader population more equitably and that the costs are better mitigated. 

So the Brexit vote does not necessarily presage a Trump victory on 8 November, but it shows in stark terms that the world has fundamentally changed – the time when elites alone could call the shots is gone. Politicians, including Hillary Clinton, will need to respond proactively to the causes of the dissatisfaction rather than waiting until the next time they need the public vote.

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This event is part of the Inaugural Virtual Roundtable Series on the US, Americas and the State of the World and will take place virtually only. Participants should not come to Chatham House for these events.

In the three years since Shavkat Mirziyoyev was elected president of Uzbekistan, he has embarked on a wide-ranging reform process including currency liberalization, eliminating forced labour and abolishing exit visas. This has encouraged foreign investors and the population, but a rare protest last week over natural gas and electricity shortages shows that the Uzbek population’s faith in change under the new leadership could be wearing thin, while foreign direct investment that adds real value to the economy is in short supply.

When Mirziyoyev came to power, Uzbekistan was on the verge of bankruptcy. A former prime minister of 13 years, and a pragmatic economist, the new president set on a rapid course to open Uzbekistan up to its neighbours and remove barriers to trade and foreign investment. The alacrity and ambition of the reform process and the monetary and economic liberalization has at times been overwhelming for lawyers and businesses. 

However, allowing the free movement of capital, people and goods are natural moves to boost an economy after 20 years of stasis. The country is now immersed in the more challenging and substantive phase of development, including privatization, the breakup of monopolies and capital markets reform. 

Despite a marked increase in foreign direct investment, the country is not receiving the investment it needs. Much of it comes from Russia or China through bilateral arrangements, with debt from China washing through state-owned banks and state-owned enterprises. Uzbekistan’s debt to China has increased three times since the end of 2016.

Meanwhile, European and US companies still appear unsure about the business environment and the staying power of reforms. A lack of consistent policy, alongside hastily drafted decrees and legislation that often require presidential decrees to clarify their meaning as well, as opaque carve outs, are further deterring Western investors. A workforce that is still in transition from a Soviet to a free market approach exacerbates the situation.

Opposition within the government to implementation of some of the reforms, as well as competing government interests, have led to backtracking on some reforms (such as free and unrestricted currency convertibility) and creeping protectionism in some sectors. Some reforms simply get lost in the long chain from presidential decree to implementation. After 2018, import tariffs were abolished but recently, a list of protected domestically produced products has been drawn up raising concerns that vested interests are replacing state monopolies with private ones.

Despite progress on the economic front, political and social reform has lagged. Uzbekistan is still largely run by senior cadres from the previous administration of Islam Karimov. While the government has attracted younger reformers, often returning from abroad, it has also been rehabilitating key figures from the Karimov years that were implicated in corruption scandals. Progressive senior officials, such as the former general prosecutor Otabek Murodov, have been removed with little explanation as to why; trials take place behind closed doors.

The new leadership has transformed the media environment, but the country still lacks objective analytical reporting. Direct criticism of the president or the ruling family remains taboo. Economic and monetary liberalization has come at a cost to the population in the form of double-digit inflation, while utility prices are moving to the level of the free market. Popular discontent is growing at the grass roots level and some hark back to the stability of the former government, in spite of its reputation for appalling human rights treatment.

Small and innovative steps have been taken to improve the rule of law, but more can be done, including introducing transparency over judicial processes and ensuring regional authorities have less impunity before the law. An initiative to address the issue of conflict of interest – whereby mayors, senators and other senior civil servants have been able to benefit commercially from their positions during an era of government economic stimulus – would signal a commitment to fundamental reform.

With great promises of political and economic reform, the government has set a high bar for itself. A continuing paternalistic form of governance, with its restricted civil society freedoms, human rights, stifling bureaucracy and corruption, against continuing lack of opportunities, will clash with the expectations of a growing young population.

Mirziyoyev is trying to make the parliamentary elections on 22 December, the first during his presidency, more dynamic. Yet no opposition parties have been able to emerge to serve as a check on the executive branch. A product of the system he ostensibly wishes to reform, Mirziyoyev will need to prioritize the strengthening of independent institutions to deliver results to his expectant people.

Since assuming office, President Donald Trump’s many encounters with litigation have exposed significant irregularities of the American legal system as it applies to the president.

These encounters – including but not limited to accusations of defamation, obstruction, perjury and non-disclosure agreements – have shown President Trump to hold a particular interpretation of how the rule of law should apply to someone holding the highest elected office in the United States of America.

However, an analysis of Trump’s legal history prior to his assumption of office reveals a tried and tested method of using litigation – or the threat of it – to quieten criticism and opponents. As Trump faces possible impeachment in the House of Representatives, what – if any – influence might his combative approach towards legal battles have on the political proceedings?

Drawing on New York attorney James Zirin’s new book, Plaintiff in Chief, this event examines the relationship between President Trump’s litigation history and his approach to the presidency.

How has the American legal system facilitated Trump’s attitude towards litigation? How can his litigation toolkit be countered?

And what impact has the president’s approach to litigation had on the domestic and global reputation of the American legal system and the office of the president as accountable and credible institutions?

This event is part of the Inaugural Virtual Roundtable Series on the US, Americas and the State of the World and will take place virtually only. Participants should not come to Chatham House for these events.