As we approach the end of 2019, it seems that many assumptions about the robustness of multilateralism, which has underpinned New Zealand’s foreign and trade policy over the past 75 years, are under threat. It is therefore timely, and very
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In 2018 Cambridge Analytica harvested millions of Facebook profiles, including 64,000 New Zealanders for political campaign purposes, using the information without consent. The scandal illustrated how big data can put the right to privacy at risk. This may have focused
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Jonathan Boston The most recent UN climate change conference (COP-25) has just completed in its usual state of indecision and rancour. Meanwhile, the forests of Brazil and Australia, among others, are burning. The planet is in crisis mode. Effective
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I was recently invited to talk to a consultancy firm about my take on the climate challenge facing both our world and our country, now that New Zealand’s Zero Carbon Act is in force, and as the UN’s latest COP
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At the opening speech for last year’s Climate Week at the United Nations in New York, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern presented the Maori concept of kaitiakitanga as the key for combating climate change. She explained it in this way: “It
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If you were to read the speeches and articles of Chinese leaders you might conclude there was no country on Earth more committed to multilateralism. Certainly, China has benefited enormously from the rules-based, international system established after 1945. How genuine
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Last year I had the privilege of travelling around the US as an Eisenhower International Fellow. The experience was the most amazing of my professional career. In this column, I outline my Fellowship project – Global University 2.0 Let me
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The best conflict is one that doesn’t happen. This blog argues that the best global approach (short of a full-fledged military intervention) to prevent a potential conflict from developing into all-out conflict is early intervention. The blog analyses a counterfactual approach to the Rwandan genocide, and how early intervention, had it been utilized, could have
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