1 + 1 = 3? EU-US voting cohesion in the United Nations General Assembly. EU Diplomacy Paper 07/2012, September 2012

This paper investigates the factors that explain the voting cohesion of the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) on foreign policy issues in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). It is often argued that the EU and the US are simply too different to cooperate within international organizations and thus to vote the same way, for example, in the UNGA. However, there is still a lack of research on this point and, more importantly, previous studies have not analyzed which factors explain EU-US voting cohesion. In this paper, I try to fill this gap by studying voting cohesion from 1980 until 2011 on issues of both ‘high’ politics (security) and ‘low’ politics (human rights) not only as regards EU-US voting cohesion, but also concerning voting cohesion among EU member states. I test six hypotheses derived from International Relations theories, and I argue that EU-US voting cohesion is best explained by the topic of the issue voted upon, whether an issue is marked as ‘important’ by the US government, and by the type of resolution. On the EU level, the length of Union membership and transaction costs matter most.

The UN General Assembly Vote: Upgrading the Status of Palestine and Its Implications for a Possible Role of the ICC. IES Policy Brief Issue 2013/06 • June 2013

On 29 November 2012, the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) voted overwhelmingly to accord Palestine ‘Non-Member Observer State’ Status in the UN. In the first part of this Policy Brief, the implications of upgrading the status of Palestine with regard to the possible role of the International Criminal Court (ICC) will be assessed. In April 2012, the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC declined to accept jurisdiction for acts committed on the territory of Palestine since 1 July 2002, justifying its decision based on the fact that Palestine had, at the time, only the status of an ‘Observer Entity’ at the UN. Subsequently, it will be analysed if the Palestinian pursuit of its cause before the ICC can be considered as an effective lawfare strategy or rather as a poisoned chalice.