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GLOBAL GOVERNANCE NOW!

There is very little time to make major improvements in world politics and to mobilize the resources and personnel needed for the unprecedented, life-threatening climate challenges that are already happening and will soon become much worse. Here is a plan for major changes/improvements to existing U.N. institutions and for the creation of two new U.N. agencies, a Global Infrastructure Fund (GIF) and a Global Emergency Management Agency (GEM), along with expanded roles for the World Bank and for INTERPOL. It could be called a large carrot, small stick strategy.  In the words of The New York Times’ columnist, Thomas Friedman, “later will be too late.”

 


Witnesses to History

Unfolding horrific events in Ukraine coupled with brutal repression of dissent in Russia have caused me to insert another declaration that is equally relevant to any study of ethics, policy, and law, given the death and destruction we are witnessing because of the ambitions and grievances of Vladimir Putin.  


“Sustainable Development”: How’s It Going?

The U.N.’s original definition of the term has been corrupted, and the current U.N. iteration (in a set of 17 Development Goals) is an overreach.  Either way it’s failing.   What is to be done? This currently fashionable concept first arose in the 1980s.  A U.N. report stressed that it should be about basic needs.  Our current emphasis on “growth” and increased “wealth” is unsustainable. I believe we must return to the original 1987 U.N. definition, which focused on our basic needs, and make it a global priority going forward.

 


From Oregon: Building Democracy Around the World

Pat Noonan and Ron Schiffman are lawyers who have been working in international law reform in countries in transition. Pat’s first assignment was working on a project in Cambodia shortly after the UN sponsored cease fire, in cooperation with the University of San Francisco School of Law. Since then, Pat and her husband Ron have worked as consultants for United States Agency for International Development (U.S.A.I.D) projects. After the break-up of the former Soviet Union, Pat worked with legal professionals and judges from the Supreme and Constitutional Courts, lawyers, law schools, and non-profit organizations in Central and Eastern Europe. In the past few years, she has been working with Kosovo, Ukraine and the Republic of Georgia on strategic planning, curriculum development, interactive teaching methods, gender equality, transparency, ethics and anti-corruption.