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Global Challenges
Issue no. 7 | April 2020
Global Governance in Peril?
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Articles for this issue
Global Challenges
Issue no. 7 | April 2020
Global Governance in Peril?

The present Dossier takes stock of the current state of the multilateral system and its future prospects. It aims to explore to what extent global governance is in crisis as the global geopolitical order is undergoing fundamental shifts and liberal universalism is losing traction. It assesses potential of reform in extant institutions as well as emerging trends, tools and forums that are reshaping multilateral practice on a daily basis.
Note – The dossier was drafted before the Covid-19 world crisis.

Articles for this issue

Global Governance in Peril?
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    Multilateralism Is in Crisis – Or Is It?

    Reading time: 5 min
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    The Role of Transnational Policy Networks in Contemporary Global Governance

    Reading time: 4 min
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    United Nations stamp showing Palais des Nations, Geneva.

    The United Nations at 75: Still “Resolved to Combine Our Efforts”?

    Reading time: 4 min
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    Anti-G8 activists hold globes reading, “Hello G20? This is the rest of the world” as they take part in a demonstration in Le Havre, France, on 21 May 2011.

    What Future Role for the Gs in the Multilateral System?

    Reading time: 3 min
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    Mural by Dean Cornwell (1892–1960) in the Centre William Rappard, former home of the International Labour Office and current home of the World Trade Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.

    US Pressure on the WTO: A Chance to Rebound?

    Reading time: 4 min
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    Beyond Multilateralism: The Pauli Principle

    Reading time: 4 min
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    Global Internet Governance: Is Fragmentation Avoidable?

    Reading time: 4 min
  • 7
     

    Governing the World outside the United Nations

    Reading time: 5 min
Other Issues
Issue no. 6 | November 2019
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Endangered Earth
Global Challenges
Issue no. 6 | November 2019
Endangered Earth

Soil is an essential component of the Earth's ecosystem. It contributes to and fulfills a wide range of environmental and societal functions such as food production, water filtering, carbon storage and the preservation of biodiversity essential to the survival of the human species. While soils have witnessed significant environmental degradation in recent decades, lands have been the object of increased economic competition and financial speculation. The commercial and financial scramble for land has never been more intense as transnational actors and governments such as the Chinese seek large scale bids for land in the Global South that have been likened to new forms of neocolonialism. The consequences of this double tension include the loss of biodiversity, floods, climate change, famines, forced migration and conflict. 

It is the assumption of the present Dossier that issues such as large scale exploitation of land and natural resources, soil degradation, biodiversity, food security and climate change are closely interdependent and cannot be treated in isolation. Seeking to explore and better understand the interlinkages between the material degradation of soils and the increased extractive, commercial and speculative pressure on lands, the Dossier aims to address some of the broader stakes the Anthropocene is currently facing: How irreversible is the damage that has been caused to earth's soils? Have we reached a point of no return? How many people is the earth able to feed and for how long? Are we trapped in a Malthusian logic? How will climate change depend and interact with changing patterns of soil distribution and depletion? What is the impact of large scale deforestation and natural resource extraction on the environment, particularly the soils? What are the governance patterns and technological solutions emerging to address land depletion and scarcity? What are some of the cybernetic loops and mechanisms of autoregulation through which the earth reacts to human interference?