Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff: A Lame Duck with Four Years to Go
Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff: A Lame Duck with Four Years to Go

By Luis Ferreira Alvarez

On April 21, 2015, an estimated half a million Brazilians took to the streets to call for President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment over the billions embezzled from Petrobras (Brazil’s semi-public energy company). Yet President Rousseff did not even have to leave office to lose her power. Four days earlier, Rousseff gave her vice president, Michel Temer, who is from a different political party, control over her political agenda with Congress, effectively leaving her a lame-duck president with four years remaining in her second term. To regain control, Rousseff will need to focus her efforts on two priorities: lifting a stagnant economy and mitigating the fallout from Petrobras’ massive corruption scandal.

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ArticleYale Journal of International AffairsSouth America
The Future of ASEAN Centrality in the Asia-Pacific Regional Architecture
The Future of ASEAN Centrality in the Asia-Pacific Regional Architecture

Underlying many of ASEAN’s initiatives is an emphasis on “ASEAN centrality”—the notion of ASEAN’s leading role in the regional architecture—a principle that has framed the way ASEAN has approached its external relations, in particular with the major powers, to ensure that its interests are protected and the regional stability preserved. Notwithstanding ASEAN’s best efforts, such an approach has not always resulted in success.

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ArticleYale Journal of International AffairsAsia
Winter Highways: The Wait Of Baltistan

By Narayan Kaudinya

Baltistan is a mountainous region straddling the Northern India–Pakistan border, adjacent to the disputed territory of Kashmir. During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, the Ladakhi Scouts, an infantry regiment of the Indian army specialized in mountain warfare, took control of several villages of the Baltistan region in Pakistan. Since then, a part of Baltistan remains under Indian control.

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Photo EssayYale Journal of International AffairsAsiaComment
A Wolf By the Ears: U.S. Policy Failures, Reform, and the Necessity of Private Military Security Contractors, 2003–2013
A Wolf By the Ears: U.S. Policy Failures, Reform, and the Necessity of Private Military Security Contractors, 2003–2013

By Dr. Michael D. Gambone and John J. McGarry

Despite their well-documented and unsavory reputation, private military security companies (PMSCs) remain critical to U.S. foreign policy. Hard-won reform has emerged concurrently with greater U.S. dependence on private military security contractors.

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ArticleYale Journal of International AffairsNorth AmericaComment
The United Nations Security Council and the Emerging Crisis of Legitimacy
The United Nations Security Council and the Emerging Crisis of Legitimacy

By Joy Gordon

For many years, the Security Council of the United Nations was seen as paralyzed and ineffectual. But in the aftermath of the Cold War, the Council became much more active, and in some cases, was accused of overreaching. Some have argued that this puts the Council’s legitimacy into question. A series of recent European court rulings have provided support for this view, in that they find that some of the Security Council’s enforcement actions are inconsistent with international law.

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ArticleYale Journal of International AffairsEuropeComment