Op-Ed: Can CITES cope with the illegal wildlife trade?
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is increasingly expected to control the estimated $19-billion illegal trade in endangered plants and animals. However, a recent paper for the South African Institute for International Affairs think tank notes…
The Role of the UN General Assembly
Since its inception seventy-one years ago, the United Nations General Assembly has been a forum for lofty declarations, sometimes audacious rhetoric, and rigorous debate over the world’s most vexing issues, from poverty and development to peace and security. As the deliberative and representative or…
How agriculture can be intensified in Africa without causing harm
Sustainable agriculture is a popular concept. It’s warmly embraced as a guiding light for the future of food production. But there is still a great deal of disagreement about what the concept actually means and entails. There is broad agreement about what sustainable agriculture’s main aim shou…
Revisiting the Journey to the Sustainable Development Goals
It’s been almost one year since heads of state and government adopted ‘Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ – the ambitious agenda which contains 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) and 169 targets during a special session of the UN General Assembly on 25 Septembe…
How Climate Change Could Jam The World’s Ocean Circulation
Susan Lozier is having a busy year. From May to September, her oceanographic team is making five research cruises across the North Atlantic, hauling up dozens of moored instruments that track currents far beneath the surface. The data they retrieve will be the first complete set documenting how Nort…
Students Speak: peace can guarantee sustainable development
War and violence cost the global economy $13.6tn (£10.2tn) in 2015, according to the annual global peace index. Terrorism is at a record high and the effects of conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa have been felt far beyond the region. Worldwide, a record 65 million people were fo…
10 Years of Fighting Pirates in Asia
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) Information Sharing Center (ISC) in Singapore. In those ten years, ReCAAP ISC has grown into a true multilateral organization comp…
‘Time for a policy reset’: Taking a closer look at recent African economic trends
Commentary around recent developments in the economies of sub-Saharan Africa has centered on a trifecta of threats: low commodity prices, China’s slowdown, and the rising cost of external borrowing. The region’s robust growth over 2000-2014, analysts say, is slowing down. Commodity exporters in part…
KPA Navy Upgrades in the East Sea
Although international attention has focused on continued developments in North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, commercial satellite imagery indicates that Pyongyang is also improving its conventional military forces. Notably, serious resources have been channeled into upgrading the …
Belt and Road can help promote sustainability
During a recent series of talks with academics and analysts on the prospects for the G20 Leaders Summit in Hangzhou on Sept 4 and 5, Fredrik Erixon, director of the European Center for International Political Economy (ECIPE), made two points that impressed me. One was his view on the status quo of t…