Following the drafting of the Civil Society Youth Pledge at the Hui in September, and while contemplating what is to follow, Jayden van Leeuwen (YGSG) and I locked in on two key elements of the pledge. The first was the Treaty's Article 12 obligation to take the...
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The University in the Global Age: Pt II
In Pt I of my blog-column (6 Dec. ’19), I identified what I see as the main challenges facing tertiary education, globally. These challenges, I suggest, have led many universities to an existential crisis as it dawns upon them that, for most, the traditional model of...
Earth Trusteeship:
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 means guardianship. But not...
The University in the Global Age:
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 convey what I see as the...
Individual Rights and State Responsibilities:
The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle recalibrated the relationship among and between peoples, states and the international community. State sovereignty comes with responsibilities, domestic and international, along with privileges. Citizenship confers rights...
The Multilateral Crisis in Trade:
The 2018 G20 Buenos Aires summit saw the Director-General of the WTO lament the multilateral crisis, stating that it is the worst crisis “not only for the WTO but for the whole multilateral trading system since the GATT in 1947”. No doubt, the foundations of trade in...
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Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it may be necessary to move the Doomsday Clock forward to just one minute to midnight. The world needs a new global security architecture to constrain nuclear weapons, hypersonic missiles, killer pathogens, and the mounting...
Blair Knighthood Shows How History Does Mockery
Proving that history does irony, banks that once feared masked robbers now fear mask-free customers. But does history also do mockery? The 1984 Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu passed away on Boxing Day in Cape Town. Almost a decade ago, Tutu refused to...
Global Governance in the Existential Age – Part 2
Part I of this blog identified the conceptual insights which members and affiliates of the Centre, and invited guests, have offered on the modern plight of the human condition, and of potential ways forward. As Director of the Centre for eight years (and stepping down...