If Trump commits war crimes in Iran, he can be prosecuted
7/4/2026: The terrible precedent of the world’s most powerful president openly flouting international humanitarian law should compel action. The former Executive Director of Human Rights Watch believes that the international justice system is positioned to act.
Source: The Guardian
UN80 Is the Wrong Answer to the Right Question
5/4/2026: The US initiated war with Iran while diplomatic negotiations were in progress and without UN Security Council authorization. What is required for the UN is not incremental reform, such as the UN80 plans, but reinvention.
Source: PassBlue
Why Are the Afghan Taliban and Pakistan in an ‘Open War’?
18/3/2026: Tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban regime have sharply escalated since late February. At the core of the conflict is Pakistan’s continued assertion that the Afghan Taliban is offering a safe haven for the jihadist militant group Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, also known as the Pakistani Taliban.
Source: Council on Foreign Relations
Global food insecurity at risk from Middle East escalation
17/3/2026: The World Food Programme has warned that the total number of people around the world facing acute levels of hunger could reach record numbers in 2026 if the escalation in the Middle East continues to destabilize the world’s economy. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are the most vulnerable due to a reliance on food and fuel imports.
Source: World Food Programme
Rising anger over one-sided US health funding pacts with African countries
27/2/2026: At least 17 African countries have signed bilateral agreements with the current US administration, collectively securing $11.3bn in health aid. But there is growing outrage at US demands to share biological resources and patient data, and other conditions.
Source: The Guardian
Guterres slams international failure to manage safe migration
27/2/2026: The UN's update on the 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration finds that in 2024 an estimated 304 million people were migrants, or 3.7 per cent of the world’s population. The UN Secretary-General emphasised that no country can manage migration alone, especially as the international community confronts challenges such as climate change and demographic transition.
Source: UN News
Drifting through dispute in the South China Sea
27/2/2026: The geopolitics of the South China Sea in 2025 were shaped by confrontation, militarisation and US–China rivalry. While some progress was made towards reaching an ASEAN–China Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, negotiations will remain fraught in 2026.
Source: East Asia Forum
US trade deal undermines Indonesia’s climate obligations
26/3/2026: A new bilateral trade agreement commits Indonesia to import $15 billion of US fossil fuel products. Environmental experts warn that the agreement jeopardises Indonesia's international climate commitments. This deal is part of a broader series of global agreements fulfilling the US “Energy Dominance Agenda.”
Source: Human Rights Watch
Big Tech is reshaping food production in Global South
26/2/2026: A report by IPES-Food warns that a powerful alliance between the world's largest technology and agriculture corporations is rapidly gaining control of farming under the guise of innovation. This pathway risks widening inequality between farms and between richer and poorer countries, and shrinking democratic oversight over food systems.
Source: IPES-Food
New global report highlights slow progress in expanding secure land tenure
25/2/2026: The ownership, tenure or use rights of only 35 percent of the world’s land is formally documented, according to a new UN report. More than one billion people fear that they could lose the rights to some or all of their land and housing within the next five years. And more than a third of the world’s stored carbon and 40 percent of its intact forests are at risk of legal limbo.
Source: UN Food and Agriculture Organization