China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of world trade passes every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims. In addition to substantial natural resources, the South China Sea is of paramount strategic significance to the Asian security paradigm and to global stability. We have created a Library Special on this topic in order to provide you easy access to our collection: a selective bibliography, newsletters, books, articles and online resources.

The Syrian civil war is an ongoing multi-sided armed conflict in Syria in which international interventions have taken place. The war grew out of the unrest of the 2011 Arab Spring and escalated to armed conflict after President Bashar al-Assad’s government violently repressed protests calling for his removal. Violence in Syria has escalated amid an absence of meaningful efforts to end the war. A confidential list of individuals and units are believed to be responsible for crimes against humanity, breaches of international humanitarian law and gross human rights violations. We have created a Library Special on the Syrian civil war in order to provide you easy access to our collection. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask the librarian: r.steenhard@ppl.nl