John Laughland is a British
euroscepticEuroscepticism is a general term used to describe criticism of the European Union , and opposition to the process of European integration, existing throughout the political spectrum. Traditionally, the main source of euroscepticism has been the notion that integration weakens the nation state...
conservativeConservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
journalistA journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, academic and author who writes on international affairs and political philosophy.
Career
Laughland has a doctorate in philosophy from the
University of OxfordThe University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
, studied at Munich University, and has been a lecturer at the
SorbonneThe University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
and at the
Institut d'Études Politiques de ParisThe Institut d'études politiques de Paris , simply referred to as Sciences Po , is a public research and higher education institution in Paris, France, specialised in the social sciences. It has the status of grand établissement, which allows its admissions process to be highly selective...
. He also holds the French post-doctoral degree, the 'habilitation,' for his work on sovereignty in international relations.
Laughland has contributed articles to
The GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
,
The Mail on SundayThe Mail on Sunday is a British conservative newspaper, currently published in a tabloid format. First published in 1982 by Lord Rothermere, it became Britain's biggest-selling Sunday newspaper following the closing of The News of the World in July 2011...
,
The Sunday Telegraph,
The SpectatorThe Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
,
Brussels Journal,
The Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
,
National ReviewNational Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
,
The American ConservativeThe American Conservative is a monthly U.S. opinion magazine published by Ron Unz. Its first editor was Scott McConnell, his successors being Kara Hopkins and the present incumbent, Daniel McCarthy....
and
Antiwar.comAntiwar.com is a website devoted to opposing aggressive war, imperialism, and assaults on freedom associated with both. The editors describe their politics as libertarian. Their stated motiviation is, "to show how the imperialistic tendencies of the American government lead to a loss of civil...
.
He is also the European director of the
European FoundationEuropean Foundation may refer to:* European Foundation * European Foundation Project* European Foundation...
, a
euroscepticEuroSceptic is the second album of British singer Jack Lucien. It was released in October 2009.Due to being an album influenced by Europop, it features songs with parts in different languages...
think-tank chaired by
Bill Cash MPA Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
. Laughland was guest editor of
The MonistThe Monist: An International Quarterly Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry is an American academic journal in the field of philosophy. It was founded in October 1890 by Edward C. Hegeler, making it one of the longest-established journals in philosophy...
in January 2007.
Since 2008, he has been Director of Studies at the
Institute of Democracy and CooperationInstitute of Democracy and Cooperation is a think tank with offices in Moscow, Paris and New York. It was founded in 2008 by a Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, and is funded by Russian NGOs and private businesses. It was set up to gain a hearing for Russian positions on global human rights and...
in Paris. He is also a research member of the Centre for the History of Central Europe at the Sorbonne (Paris - IV).
Publications and positions
In 1997, he published
The Tainted Source: The Undemocratic Origins of the European Idea, a critique in which he contends that the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
shares some ideological affinity with
FascismFascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
,
NazismNazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
and
communismCommunism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
, notably its rejection of the nation-state. Sir
Edward HeathSir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and as Leader of the Conservative Party ....
, the former
Prime MinisterThe Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
who signed the UK's Treaty of Accession to the
Treaty of RomeThe Treaty of Rome, officially the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, was an international agreement that led to the founding of the European Economic Community on 1 January 1958. It was signed on 25 March 1957 by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany...
in 1972, dismissed the book as "Preposterous...a hideous distortion of both past and present."
He has written extensively on international criminal justice, condemning the
International War Crimes TribunalThe International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, more commonly referred to as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or ICTY, is a...
in
The HagueThe Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
on the grounds that the UN Security Council resolution that created it was illegitimate (the Security Council acted
ultra viresUltra vires is a Latin phrase meaning literally "beyond the powers", although its standard legal translation and substitute is "beyond power". If an act requires legal authority and it is done with such authority, it is...
by creating it) and because he disagrees with its judicial
procedures, e.g. admissibility of hearsay evidence. He criticises it as a political tribunal and claimed double-standards for refusing to open an investigation into whether NATO committed war crimes in Yugoslavia in 1999. Laughland was as strong a critic of the
Kosovo WarThe term Kosovo War or Kosovo conflict was two sequential, and at times parallel, armed conflicts in Kosovo province, then part of FR Yugoslav Republic of Serbia; from early 1998 to 1999, there was an armed conflict initiated by the ethnic Albanian "Kosovo Liberation Army" , who sought independence...
in 1999 as he has been of the
Iraq War.
Laughland has taken a number of controversial positions, in criticising Western support for the
SerbiaSerbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
n opposition to
Slobodan MiloševićSlobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...
and his condemnation of the November 2003 revolution in
GeorgiaGeorgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
as a "
coup d'étatA coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
".
Laughland has claimed that Ukraine's Presidential candidate
Viktor YushchenkoViktor Andriyovych Yushchenko is a former President of Ukraine. He took office on January 23, 2005, following a period of popular unrest known as the Orange Revolution...
's coalition, were linked with "neo-Nazis" in an article for
The GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
in 2004, that his ultimately successful attempts to seize power were backed on the streets by "druggy skinheads from Lvov" in
The SpectatorThe Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
; that reports of mass graves in Iraq were being exaggerated for political purposes;and that concern for the
massacres in the Sudan was driven by oil. British journalist
David AaronovitchDavid Aaronovitch is a British author, broadcaster, and journalist. He is a regular columnist for The Times, and author of Paddling to Jerusalem: An Aquatic Tour of Our Small Country and Voodoo Histories: the role of Conspiracy Theory in Modern History...
, in November 2004, condemned Laughland and others, asserting they were "apologists for the worst regimes and most appalling dictators on the planet."
External links