The international community of states, today, is so heavily engaged in deadly rivalry and competition that we have forgotten the idea of global unity and cooperation. The latter is, however, a precondition of human survival. The year 2020 began with Avangard finding...
Guests
The New ‘Global War’
The coronavirus has overrun the world in no time. This ‘blitzkrieg’ so far only needed four months to destroy many lives, dealing the world economy a serious blow – threatening to topple the Great Depression from its pole position of modern economic catastrophes, and...
COVID-19: Calls for Change
On 26 March, as COVID-19 was pushing countries into defensive lockdown, former Swedish Prime Minister, Carl Bildt, called for a ‘much stronger global mechanism’ than the World Health Organisation to deal with future pandemics. Writing for the Australian Strategic...
Global Climate Change
The pattern ahead of the annual UN climate conference in November 2019 (COP-25, Madrid) was spectacularly familiar: over 25,000 participants; worrying reports from climate scientists; more public anxiety about climate change; mobilisation of civil society, with youth...
Internationally hot, domestically not’
Legal personality is an established part of the law in New Zealand and similar countries. It is widely accepted, for example, that a company or incorporated society can be considered a legal person. Over the last half-century, however, the argument has been advanced...
Protecting the Multilateral Order:
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 encouraging, to see MFAT...
A Parliamentary Eye on the Future
How do we keep a parliamentary eye on the future when the planet is in crisis mode and policy responses are so urgently needed?
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On 8-9 August, the Centre, in collaboration with the Toda Peace Institute (Tokyo), convened a Symposium at the University of Auckland. The primary subject was: Nuclear Deterrence and Disarmament: Conflicting perspectives in an age of tension The symposium was marked...
Humanity Is One Minute From Midnight
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...