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This new CSS report analyzes the economic, demographic and cultural factors influencing social vulnerability towards  major disasters in Zurich. The results suggest that social vulnerability can most effectively be addressed by a network of various governmental and non-governmental actors. Above all, actors in the social welfare domain and disaster management must be better integrated.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) should be given more attention as China and Russia increasingly turn their attention to Central Asia. This new comprehensive CSS study explores the SCO’s distinctive features in terms of its set-up and agenda, how China’s priorities and Sino-Russian relations have played a key role in shaping cooperation in the organization, SCO enlargement and why it has been so divisive and how Europe and Switzerland could engage with the organization.

Promoting peaceful ways of addressing violent political conflict with religious dimensions is an integral part of Swiss peace policy. It is rooted in the country’s rich history of conflicts related to the coexistence of religious communities. These experiences led to norms of solving problems on a practical and local level in a consensual and collaborative manner that have shaped Switzerland’s political culture.

70 years ago, the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the foundation of human rights treaties and the basis for the work of various institutions. However, current global events put pressure on these achievements. It is of great significance that human rights are taken into account systematically in the security policy debate.