Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, imprisoned since February, is the focus of a pledge signed by 40 scholars and public figures lamenting his mistreatment and urging his immediate release.

The “Global Call for the Release of Anwar Ibrahim” condemns Anwar’s persecution by the Malaysian authorities and their ongoing repression of freedom of speech and assembly.

Anwar is serving a five-year prison sentence on a sodomy charge that virtually all observers believe was politically motivated. The pledge, released by Anwar’s family on Monday, marks his 68^th birthday and almost a half-year spent in jail.

Stanford professor Donald Emmerson, who has known Anwar since the 1980s, welcomed the circulation of the pledge. “Even if the Malaysian government ignores the petition,” Emmerson said, “it is important for the international community to show that Anwar is not alone.”

Anwar’s ordeal dates back to 1998 when, as deputy prime minister, he had a falling out with then-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who drove him from office for apparently political reasons.

Malaysia’s current prime minister, Najib Razak, has continued this record of political persecution despite protests from around the world. Amnesty International has designated Anwar “a prisoner of conscience.”

Emmerson, who leads the Southeast Asia Program, joined Anwar on a panel in Nov. 2014 entitled “Islam and Democracy: Malaysia in Comparative Perspective,” hosted at Stanford by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL).

Following that event, Anwar traveled back to Malaysia despite signs pointing toward his possible arrest.

“Anwar’s courage in the face of adversity is inspiring,” Emmerson said. “He could have chosen not to return from Stanford to Malaysia, thereby avoiding the risk of imprisonment. He could have gone into exile. Or asked for asylum outside Malaysia. Instead, he went home. How many of us, in his shoes, would have done the same?”

The pledge is attached below. Remarks and video from the CDDRL event with Anwar, Emmerson and Stanford’s Larry Diamond and Francis Fukuyama can be accessed here.

Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is launching a U.S.-Asia Security Initiative spearheaded by a former top American diplomat to deepen dialogue on contemporary Asia-Pacific security issues and to further bridge American and Asian academics, government officials and industry leaders.

A new and uncertain multipolar system is emerging in Asia. The United States is and will remain a global power, but it is evident the post-Cold War international order is increasingly under strain. There is a pressing need for research about how developments in the Asia-Pacific region impact U.S. interests, and what the optimal strategies are to respond. Led by Karl Eikenberry, who served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2011, the initiative will look beyond simplistic notions of nations engaging harmoniously or competing against each other and explore a range of policy options.

Combining expertise from across Stanford University, the initiative will gather faculty and researchers from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and take place under the auspices of Shorenstein APARC, a center focused on interdisciplinary research on contemporary issues of international cooperation, governance and security in the Asia-Pacific region.

Eikenberry, an Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow at Shorenstein APARC, retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant general after 35 years of service before taking the role as ambassador. At Stanford, he has returned to an early and longstanding interest in Asia, contributing to an urgent discussion about how the United States should respond regionally and globally to an increasingly strong China. The initiative is founded on the premise that there is a role for an institution that not only fosters groundbreaking research, but also serves to convene academic and governmental expertise from across the Asia-Pacific region in a dialogue aiming to inform policy and strategy.

“As China rises and Japan seeks a greater defense role in Asia, a number of questions are raised over the United States’ role in the region. This creates a great impetus for stakeholders to gather and develop an understanding of today’s perplexing security issues,” Eikenberry said.

“It’s an honor to lead this Stanford initiative and make possible opportunities for students, scholars, peers and leaders across the world.”

Before arriving at Stanford, Eikenberry’s Asia-related postings included assistant army, and later, defense attaché at the U.S. Embassy Beijing, operational assignments in the Republic of Korea and Hawaii, Director for Strategic Plans and Policy at U.S. Pacific Command, Senior Country Director for China at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and two senior command tours in Afghanistan. He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, holds master’s degrees from Harvard University and Stanford University, and has an advanced degree in Chinese history from Nanjing University.

The three-year initiative will build synergies with existing activities at Stanford, drawing scholars, government officials and industry leaders to engage at conferences and public seminars on important U.S.-Asia security themes. Understanding that inquiry is enlivened through interdisciplinary dialogue, participants will share best practices across multiple fields including diplomacy, military strategy and environmental risk.

“I can’t think of a better person to drive this initiative – Karl has a profound understanding of the economic, diplomatic and military complexities in the region. I have every confidence that it will develop into a robust, established project under his leadership,” said Gi-Wook Shin, director of Shorenstein APARC.

Launching July 1, 2015, the initiative aims to bolster local, national and global networks through several foundational components, including a core working group of experts from Stanford and peer institutions to provide new perspectives on U.S. policies in Asia; educational opportunities for Stanford students; and public programs that will bring intellectual and strategic leaders to Stanford to enrich the conversation on Asia-Pacific security.

The initiative seeks to operate as a focal point for academic scholarship on the west coast of the United States and offer practical steps that stakeholders can take to strengthen the security architecture and U.S. alliance commitments in the region. Outcomes from the initiative’s activities will include publications and policy reports, many of which will be offered open access online.

“As the Asia-Pacific region continues to rise, we see new threats but also greater opportunity to work together,” said Michael McFaul, director of FSI. “Stanford and FSI excel in offering practical solutions to policy challenges and can play a role in identifying strategies aimed at maintaining peace and stability in the region.”

Initiative inquires: Charlotte Lee, Shorenstein APARC, cplee@stanford.edu, (650) 725-6445

Media inquires: Lisa Griswold, Communications and Outreach Coordinator, Shorenstein APARC, lisagris@stanford.edu, (650) 736-0656

Karl Eikenberry recently returned from a visit to Rwanda where he lectured military and policy officials from across East Africa at the Rwanda Defence Force Command and Staff College (RDFCSC). Eikenberry, who is a retired lieutenant general from the U.S. Army and the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was able to apply his experience to help build the capacity of the military and armed forces in post-conflict countries in Africa.

Reflecting on the trip, Eikenberry discussed the role that the military plays in supporting the development of the rule of law in post-conflict societies and how academic institutions can support state-building efforts abroad through knowledge exchange and training programs.

Eikenberry is the William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is also an affiliate of FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law as well as the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

What attracted you to this opportunity? 

Last summer, I had the opportunity to present on civil-military relations at the tenth annual Draper Hills Summer Program, organized by the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Subsequently, I was asked by one of the participating fellows from Rwanda if I might visit the country to present to leaders of its armed forces on this same topic. I enthusiastically accepted the invitation extended by the Rwanda Defence Force Command and Staff College (RDFCSC), which opened just three-years ago, to lead a two-day seminar of 47 senior military and police officers from Rwanda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Burundi, Uganda, and Kenya.

We discussed strategy, security policy formulation and implementation, civil-military relations, and counterinsurgency warfare. These were topics relevant to my own professional experiences as a soldier and diplomat having served in post-conflict countries like Afghanistan. Given the challenges that several countries in the East African Community are facing in strengthening their political institutions, providing security for their populations, and improving their economies and peoples livelihoods, I thought I might be able to make a small contribution to the curriculum at the RDFCSC. I also hoped to learn from the faculty and students who have seen and accomplished a great deal over the course of their own 20-30 year careers.

What surprised you the most about the experience?

I was struck by the fact that many of the military officers participating in this 46-week masters degree course had served on multiple tours of duty in difficult multinational peace enforcement and peacekeeping missions in their own countries and the surrounding region. They had an extraordinary grasp of the political, security, and development problems that their civilian leaders were attempting to solve. Most realized that without regional cooperation that the prospects of their own country prospering were quite limited. So I was impressed with how they viewed security as having both national and collective dimensions. The students were keen to learn about the theory and practice of civil-military relations in democratic countries and some of the best learning resulted from exchanges among the students themselves.

What role can the military play in helping to advance democratic development in post-conflict societies like Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan?

Militaries can play several important roles in post-conflict societies, especially those that have been traumatized by civil war fought along ethnic or sectarian lines. First, if the armed forces are inclusive, they can serve as a very visible reassurance to the people that reconciliation is not only possible, but is being practiced. Second, if the armed forces demonstrate a commitment to the rule of law, they can provide an example worthy of emulation to political authorities attempting to establish effective government institutions. Third - and last - capable popular national military forces can eventually suppress and replace the violent unaccountable militias whose existence obstructs social and economic development.  

What role can experts from Stanford and other leading academic institutions play in helping to support the development and capacity building of the military in post-conflict societies?

I was impressed with how eager the Rwandan and East Africa Community military officers were to learn about the influence of history, constitutional law, political culture, society, missions, and resources on the character of a nation’s civil-military relations. I think the Stanford CDDRL faculty and fellows can contribute much to the development and capacity building of militaries in post-conflict societies due to their breadth and depth of experience. CDDRL collectively has global expertise in political, security, and development issues and brings to the table skills that can prove helpful to those grappling with difficult but important state-building challenges, such as ordering civil-military relations in democratic countries. At the same time, CDDRL can learn much by exchanging views with those responsible for managing change, like the military and police officers whom I spent time with in Rwanda. 

For 14 years, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar has been a tireless Stanford professor who has strengthened the fabric of university’s interdisciplinary nature. Joining the faculty at Stanford Law School in 2001, Cuéllar soon found a second home for himself at the Freeman Spogli for International Studies. He held various leadership roles throughout the institute for several years – including serving as co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation. He took the helm of FSI as the institute’s director in 2013, and oversaw a tremendous expansion of faculty, research activity and student engagement. 

An expert in administrative law, criminal law, international law, and executive power and legislation, Cuéllar is now taking on a new role. He leaves Stanford this month to serve as justice of the California Supreme Court and will be succeeded at FSI by Michael McFaul on Jan. 5.

 As the academic quarter comes to a close, Cuéllar took some time to discuss his achievements at FSI and the institute’s role on campus. And his 2014 Annual Letter and Report can be read here.

You’ve had an active 20 months as FSI’s director. But what do you feel are your major accomplishments? 

We started with a superb faculty and made it even stronger. We hired six new faculty members in areas ranging from health and drug policy to nuclear security to governance. We also strengthened our capacity to generate rigorous research on key global issues, including nuclear security, global poverty, cybersecurity, and health policy. Second, we developed our focus on teaching and education. Our new International Policy Implementation Lab brings faculty and students together to work on applied projects, like reducing air pollution in Bangladesh, and improving opportunities for rural schoolchildren in China.  We renewed FSI's focus on the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies, adding faculty and fellowships, and launched a new Stanford Global Student Fellows program to give Stanford students global experiences through research opportunities.   Third, we bolstered FSI's core infrastructure to support research and education, by improving the Institute's financial position and moving forward with plans to enhance the Encina complex that houses FSI.

Finally, we forged strong partnerships with critical allies across campus. The Graduate School of Business is our partner on a campus-wide Global Development and Poverty Initiative supporting new research to mitigate global poverty.  We've also worked with the Law School and the School of Engineering to help launch the new Stanford Cyber Initiative with $15 million in funding from the Hewlett Foundation. We are engaging more faculty with new health policy working groups launched with the School of Medicine and an international and comparative education venture with the Graduate School of Education. 

Those partnerships speak very strongly to the interdisciplinary nature of Stanford and FSI. How do these relationships reflect FSI's goals?

The genius of Stanford has been its investment in interdisciplinary institutions. FSI is one of the largest. We should be judged not only by what we do within our four walls, but by what activity we catalyze and support across campus. With the business school, we've launched the initiative to support research on global poverty across the university. This is a part of the SEED initiative of the business school and it is very complementary to our priorities on researching and understanding global poverty and how to alleviate. It's brought together researchers from the business school, from FSI, from the medical school, and from the economics department.  

Another example would be our health policy working groups with the School of Medicine. Here, we're leveraging FSI’s Center for Health Policy, which is a great joint venture and allows us to convene people who are interested in the implementation of healthcare reforms and compare the perspective and on why lifesaving interventions are not implemented in developing countries and how we can better manage biosecurity risks. These working groups are a forum for people to understand each other's research agendas, to collaborate on seeking funding and to engage students. 

I could tell a similar story about our Mexico Initiative.  We organize these groups so that they cut across generations of scholars so that they engage people who are experienced researchers but also new fellows, who are developing their own agenda for their careers. Sometimes it takes resources, sometimes it takes the engagement of people, but often what we've found at FSI is that by working together with some of our partners across the university, we have a more lasting impact.

Looking at a growing spectrum of global challenges, where would you like to see FSI increase its attention? 

FSI's faculty, students, staff, and space represent a unique resource to engage Stanford in taking on challenges like global hunger, infectious disease, forced migration, and weak institutions.  The  key breakthrough for FSI has been growing from its roots in international relations, geopolitics, and security to focusing on shared global challenges, of which four are at the core of our work: security, governance, international development, and  health. 

These issues cross borders. They are not the concern of any one country. 

Geopolitics remain important to the institute, and some critical and important work is going on at the Center for International Security and Cooperation to help us manage the threat of nuclear proliferation, for example. But even nuclear proliferation is an example of how the transnational issues cut across the international divide. Norms about law, the capacity of transnational criminal networks, smuggling rings, the use of information technology, cybersecurity threats – all of these factors can affect even a traditional geopolitical issue like nuclear proliferation. 

So I can see a research and education agenda focused on evolving transnational pressures that will affect humanity in years to come. How a child fares when she is growing up in Africa will depend at least as much on these shared global challenges involving hunger and poverty, health, security, the role of information technology and humanity as they will on traditional relations between governments, for instance. 

What are some concrete achievements that demonstrate how FSI has helped create an environment for policy decisions to be better understood and implemented?

We forged a productive collaboration with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees through a project on refugee settlements that convened architects, Stanford researchers, students and experienced humanitarian responders to improve the design of settlements that house refugees and are supposed to meet their human needs. That is now an ongoing effort at the UN Refugee Agency, which has also benefited from collaboration with us on data visualization and internship for Stanford students. 

Our faculty and fellows continue the Institute's longstanding research to improve security and educate policymakers. We sometimes play a role in Track II diplomacy on sensitive issues involving global security – including in South Asia and Northeast Asia.  Together with Hoover, We convened a first-ever cyber bootcamp to help legislative staff understand the Internet and its vulnerabilities. We have researchers who are in regular contact with policymakers working on understanding how governance failures can affect the world's ability to meet pressing health challenges, including infectious diseases, such as Ebola.

On issues of economic policy and development, our faculty convened a summit of Japanese prefectural officials work with the private sector to understand strategies to develop the Japanese economy.  

And we continued educating the next generation of leaders on global issues through the Draper Hills summer fellows program and our honors programs in security and in democracy and the rule of law. 

How do you see FSI’s role as one of Stanford’s independent laboratories?

It's important to recognize that FSI's growth comes at particularly interesting time in the history of higher education – where universities are under pressure, where the question of how best to advance human knowledge is a very hotly debated question, where universities are diverging from each other in some ways and where we all have to ask ourselves how best to be faithful to our mission but to innovate. And in that respect, FSI is a laboratory. It is an experimental venture that can help us to understand how a university like Stanford can organize itself to advance the mission of many units, that's the partnership point, but to do so in a somewhat different way with a deep engagement to practicality and to the current challenges facing the world without abandoning a similarly deep commitment to theory, empirical investigation, and rigorous scholarship.

What have you learned from your time at Stanford and as director of FSI that will inform and influence how you approach your role on the state’s highest court?

Universities play an essential role in human wellbeing because they help us advance knowledge and prepare leaders for a difficult world. To do this, universities need to be islands of integrity, they need to be engaged enough with the outside world to understand it but removed enough from it to keep to the special rules that are necessary to advance the university's mission. 

Some of these challenges are also reflected in the role of courts. They also need to be islands of integrity in a tumultuous world, and they require fidelity to high standards to protect the rights of the public and to implement laws fairly and equally.  

This takes constant vigilance, commitment to principle, and a practical understanding of how the world works. It takes a combination of humility and determination. It requires listening carefully, it requires being decisive and it requires understanding that when it's part of a journey that allows for discovery but also requires deep understanding of the past.