Dr. Artis Pabriks
Dr. Pabriks has been the Minister of Defense since January 23, 2019. He has been serving as a professor at the Riga International School of Economics and Business and Business Administration (RISEBA) since 2011. Dr. Pabriks is also a member of the International Advisory Board of the Centrum Balticum Foundation. He was a member of the European Parliament from 2014 to 2018. Dr. Pabriks was elected as a Member of the Latvian Parliament in 2004 and then the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2004 to 2007 as well. From 2001-2003, he was a Human Rights and Ethnic Studies Center of Latvia political analyst. Dr. Pabriks' main research interests are in multiculturalism, nationalism, security policy, ethnic policy, ideologies, gender issues, and human rights. He speaks Latvian, Russian, and English as well as some German and Danish.
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Friday March, 4
Panel IV: Ghosts from the Past, Phantoms of the Future? Protracted Conflicts in Former Soviet Territories and the Invasion of Ukraine
It started piecemeal. Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Transnistria. Crimea. Luhansk and Donetsk. The preceding are only a few of the disputed territories that splintered away from various polities in the decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now, Russia has declared a war on Ukraine that would relegate the entirety of the country to the same vassalized status. To what extent does the current state of affairs of these regions represent frozen conflicts with no prospect of settlement? Might the war in Ukraine provide an opportunity to settle these conflicts? This panel will go over these topics and more.