Viewpoint by Moritz Kütt, Jan Hoekema and Tom Sauer * The English version of this article was first published in The Toda Peace Institute‘s Global Outlook on February 28, 2021.** TOKYO (IDN) — On January 22, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons entered into force. The new agreement also called the Nuclear Ban […]
Reinvigorate Multilateralism by Replacing its Operating Principle
Viewpoint by Inge Kaul* The following article first appeared on the website of Center for Global Development and was adapted from a paper published originally by Global Perspectives and cross-published by CGD. BERLIN (IDN | CGD) — The global policy debate on multilateralism has taken an intriguing turn during recent months and its focus has […]
India’s Farmers’ Protests Threaten to Overturn the Political Landscape
Viewpoint by Vijay Prashad* NORTHAMPTON, Massachusetts (IDN) — For the past three months, Indian farmers and agricultural workers have been in the middle of a difficult struggle against the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Tens of thousands of them have gathered around the capital city of New Delhi; they say that they will not […]
Biden Should Stop Military Activism and Start Thinking
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden (IDN) — “Diplomacy is back”, President Joe Biden said recently. But then in the middle of a delicate diplomatic dance with Iran he goes and bombs a small, politically inconsequential, Iranian surrogate in Syria, in retaliation for the killing of one American soldier. This seems to go against everything […]
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Leads A New Era for the WTO
Viewpoint by Yvonne Bartmann* This article first appeared on International Politics and Society, an e-Journal published by Germany’s Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s office in Brussels. GENEVA (IDN) — When problems proliferate, expectations tend to be high. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is facing many problems, indeed a whole raft of them. Accordingly, there’s a lot of pressure on […]
Doubts Whether Return to Exceptionalism Will Serve Perceived U.S. Interests
Viewpoint by M.K. Bhadrakumar The writer is a former Indian diplomat. This article was produced in partnership by Indian Punchline and Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute where it first appeared. NEW DELHI (IDN) — In a statement marking the “return” of the United States to the United Nations Human Rights Council on […]
The Creative and Destructive Aspects of Homo Sapiens
Viewpoint by Sergio Duarte The writer is Ambassador, former High Representative of the United Nations for Disarmament Affairs and current President of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs NEW YORK (IDN) — We do not know exactly how many millennia ago human beings started their ascent among other species to become dominant over the […]
Two Major Conferences Resolute in Combating COVID-19
Viewpoint by Somar Wijayadasa* NEW YORK (IDN) — The leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) and the Munich Security Conference (MSC) held two meetings virtually on February 19, 2021, as these had to be postponed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The G7 countries — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and […]
Still Much to Be Done to Make Immigration More Palatable
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden (IDN) — The Mexicans had a joke about ex-President Donald Trump’s planned wall along its border with the US. “It’s not being built to keep Mexicans out of the US; it’s built to keep Trump out of Mexico!” If this be so, then President Joe Biden can relax. No […]
The Ascendency and Mainstay of Participatory Development
Viewpoint by Dr Yossef Ben-Meir The writer is President of the High Atlas Foundation, which is an implementer of the USAID Farmer-to-Farmer Program in Morocco. MARRAKECH (IDN) — Participatory community movements found a contemporary impetus in post-World War II reconstruction of Europe and decolonization, primarily in Africa. The approach of locally managed change, however, was […]