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...
International Advisory Panel
The Challenge of US Electoral Instability
When Joseph Biden won the 2020 US election many hoped that there would be a quick return to an old globalist agenda and support for international institutions. However, the US has changed politically, socially, and culturally, which will seriously...
Trump’s Exit
What might future historians note as the epoch-making aspects of Donald Trump’s exit? Perhaps it will include something that is attracting less academic attention at present - social media companies closing down Trump’s accounts. Twitter and later Snapchat permanently...
Unhinged Leaders and Nuclear Weapons
I’ve spent my life studying the risks posed by nuclear weapons. I’ve always worried that one day an unhinged leader would emerge in a nuclear-armed country, with the authority to launch a nuclear attack. To me, the assumption that nuclear-armed leaders will act...
Building Back Better – Globally
At first glance the decision to delay the largest climate conference in history – COP 26 (1) – appears to have been made on practical grounds. COVID-19 had made convening 30,000 delegates from 197 countries impossible. For the conference, it is also true that its...
The Global Community and the US Election:
Back in May, Georgios Kostakos and I published two columns on the global and national responses to Covid-19, and its implications for global governance. The biggest impact, we said, will be determined by the responses of China and the US. In this column, I...
Global Responses to the Pandemic, Pt II
In Part I, we focused primarily on the effort of the UN and WHO, and its relationship with some of the major member states. In this part, we explore in more depth the internal dynamics of those powerful countries. National responses – ideological and political...
Global Responses to the Pandemic, Pt I
How have the UN and other international organizations – and indeed the whole global governance system – responded to the COVID-19 outbreak? What are we learning from this response? Back in 2010 we examined (Journal of International Organizations Studies)...
Environmental Victims in the Global Community
My 1998 book, ‘Environmental Victims’, sought to relate the intensifying spread of environmental problems around the world to issues of natural justice, international law, public health, social policy and international security. The project looked at environmental...
A New Global Order? Not necessarily
Establishing a new global order when the two major powers, the United States and China, have intensified their rivalry and have very different views of how the world should be organised is problematic.
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Symposium on Nuclear Deterrence and Disarmament
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...