Since July 2008, this blog has been viewed over 98,276 times. I think this is a good opportunity to celebrate. In order to do so, I have listed the most popular blog articles, in terms of the number of views since July 2008. This is the Top 10 (number of views in brackets):

1. Manipulating and measuring the political spectrum part 1: Obama and the flip flops (4619): In this post, Nick Li provided his own analysis of whether Obama had really moved to the centre on various issues, as was often suggested.
2. Calvin & Hobbes on International Law (2513): In this post, Otto Spijkers provides an example of the lessons international lawyers can learn from comic books, especially Calvin & Hobbes.
3. Understanding Bokito, the gorilla that escaped and attacked a woman (2290): In this post, Otto Spijkers tried to explain why a gorilla escaped from his cage in Blijdorp Zoo (Netherlands), and immediately attacked a woman that visited him on an almost daily basis in the Zoo.
4. In Manipulating and measuring the political spectrum part 2: Political Rankings and Compasses (2266), Nick looked in greater detail at how one can actually measure the political spectrum. He looked at what constituted the ‘centre’ in US politics, and how these things were measured by the likes of the National Journal, which ranked Obama as the most liberal Senator in 2007.
5. Political Economy of Myanmar/Burma Part 2 – what can the international community do? (1765): In this post, Nick Li assessed the steps the international community could take to alleviate the suffering of the Burmese people. He looked at the possibility of military intervention, economic sanctions, and engagement.
6. New Online Journal: The Göttingen Journal of International Law (1553): In this post, Tobias Thienel wrote about the publication of the first issue in history of a brand new, exciting online journal: the Göttingen Journal of International Law (GoJIL). The GoJIL is the first student-run German international law review. Tobias himself was actively involved in setting up this journal: one of the articles in the first journal was written by him, and he is a member of the journal’s Scientific Advisory Board.
7. Why the internship at UN Headquarters should be (un)paid (1549): In this post, Otto Spijkers listed all the reasons brought forward to defend the position that the UN interns should get paid for the duration of their internship. The comments to this article have slowly evolved into what can only be called an Unofficial United Nations Internship Programme Discussion Group, where various issues relating to the application process are discussed by a number of future interns.
8. Acts of Dutchbat must be attributed to the United Nations and not to the Netherlands (1108): This post is about a number of cases before the Dutch District Court relating to the responsibility of the Netherlands for the failure of Dutch peacekeepers in Srebrenica in the early nineties.
9. The problem with MONUC (1102): In this post, Richard Norman looks critically at the achievements and failures of UN’s largest peacekeeping mission, MONUC, which is based in the Congo.
10. Update on Australia’s refugee policy (1034): In this post, Mel O’Brien looked critically at recent changes in Australia’s refugee policy. After looking in great detail at a speech by Chris Evans, Australia’s federal Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Mel concluded that ‘it seems the government is really planning a complete overhaul of the immigration system to render it fair and treat asylum seekers with the dignity they deserve.’

I calculated the number of hits in the morning of 25 March 2009. The blog articles that were written before July 2008 have been published once again on this new blog, but they actually first appeared on our previous blog (www.1948blog.com) which is no longer available. Unfortunately I thus cannot take into account the number of views of those posts as originally published. The posts that appeared on United Nations, Global Values, and the Individual and The Core, our previous blog efforts, are also not taken into account. They are still available on the original blogs.