{"id":28759,"date":"2018-06-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-21T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aspeninstitutece.softmedia.cz\/news-article\/1918-2018what-happened-to-wilsonian-idealism\/"},"modified":"2018-06-22T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-06-21T22:00:00","slug":"1918-2018what-happened-to-wilsonian-idealism","status":"publish","type":"news-article","link":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/news-article\/1918-2018what-happened-to-wilsonian-idealism\/","title":{"rendered":"1918-2018<\/br>What happened to Wilsonian Idealism?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Aspen Institute Central Europe, in cooperation with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cerge-ei.cz\/\" rel=\"noopener\">CERGE-EI<\/a>\u00a0and with the support of the U.S. Embassy, organized an international conference entitled\u00a0<strong>1918 \u2013 2018 What Happened to Wilsonian Idealism?\u00a0<\/strong>in Prague on June 19.<\/p>\n<p>It was held on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of\u00a0<strong>Woodrow Wilson\u2019s Fourteen Points\u00a0<\/strong>speech, which was the starting point for a debate about the future relevance of this political concept, focusing in particular on\u00a0<strong>self-determination<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>free trade<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The conference began with a welcome speech by\u00a0<strong>Susan E. Walton<\/strong>, a member of the CERGE-EI Foundation board of directors.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Karel Schwarzenberg<\/strong>, former Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs, made opening remarks questioning the possibility to succeed when bringing values to different regions or societies, referring to the examples of Central Europe in 1918 and the Middle East in 2003.<\/p>\n<p>The first panel, moderated by <strong>Ji\u0159\u00ed Schneider<\/strong>, Director of the Aspen Institute Central Europe, focused on\u00a0<u>self-determination and its role in today\u2019s Europe<\/u>.\u00a0<strong>Uriel Abulof<\/strong> of Princeton University and Tel Aviv University opened the panel with an inspiring political and philosophical expos\u00e9, defining self-determination as a political, but also human hope. According to Abulof, all three main ideologies of the 20th century have spoken in the name of self-determination, because it is a principle of political hope. He also stressed the\u00a0destabilizing power it can have, and the risk of a domino effect or matryoshka doll effect.\u00a0<strong>Micha\u0142 Kobosko<\/strong>, Atlantic Council Poland, stated that there would not be a modern Poland without Wilson\u2019s speech and discussed the milestones of Polish history. He\u00a0also warned\u00a0that modern-day populists are using the concept of self-determination to justify evil.\u00a0<strong>Valentin Inzko<\/strong>, High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, explained the Balkan perspective on self-determination as a principle of sovereignty and territorial integrity, which can lead to dangerous conflicts.\u00a0<strong>Ji\u0159\u00ed Schneider<\/strong>\u00a0noted that while self-determination used to be directed against empires,\u00a0soon we will have to self-determine ourselves vis-\u00e0-vis technology, the digital revolution and its impacts on society.<\/p>\n<p>The second panel, chaired by Ivan Hod\u00e1\u010d, focused on\u00a0<u>free trade and its future<\/u>.\u00a0<strong>Anthony Gardner<\/strong>, former US ambassador to the EU and TTIP negotiator, stressed that free trade is one of the values which contributed to US prosperity and success. Describing the TTIP negotiations, he summed up the reasons for the failure of the TTIP and prospects and barriers for future US trade agreements worldwide.\u00a0<strong>Viktoria Li<\/strong>, Ambassador of Sweden to the Czech Republic, noted that the emphasis should be on sustainable trade, good national policies and free trade as a win-win solution. What we really need is a global system comprising the environment, new technologies and trade.\u00a0<strong>Jakub D\u00fcrr<\/strong>, Czech Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, mentioned the importance of free trade for the Czech Republic and the former Czechoslovakia. He pointed out that the Czechs have always stood for free trade (Czechoslovakia was one of the Founding Members of GATT in 1948) and the Czech Republic was at the beginning of the WTO, signing the treaty in 1993.\u00a0<strong>Fabian Wendenburg<\/strong> of the Federation of German Industries discussed the influence on international trade of China building its own trade system, adding the German perspective on the prospects and barriers for future trade negotiations.\u00a0<strong>Ivan\u00a0Hod\u00e1\u010d<\/strong>\u00a0concluded by declaring that we need global rules-based trade and stressed the importance of the transatlantic relationship and the common values we share. In the end, he believes free trade is an expression of self-determination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The international conference prepared in cooperation with CERGE-EI and the U.S. Embassy in Prague.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":17473,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-tag":[593],"class_list":["post-28759","news-article","type-news-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-tag-transatlanticke-eu-aktivity"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-article\/28759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news-article"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-tag?post=28759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}