Somalia elected non-permanent member of the UN Security Council
7/6/2024: Somalia was elected unopposed by the UN General Assembly after the African Union agreed in principle earlier this year. Being a member of the Council is a turnaround for Somalia’s stature on the international stage, having been under UN sanctions until last December. Somalia had last served on the Council in 1971-72 term, during the reign of the Siad Barre regime.
Source: The East African
Civil society must raise ambition of Summit for the Future
29/5/2024: Civil society leaders have called for a more ambitious Pact for the Future to be presented to the UN Summit in September. They share an overwhelming sense that the global response to the gravity and scale of current world crises is fundamentally ineffective.
Source: Amnesty International
Summit of the Future: A historical pivot or mere footnote?
7/5/2024: Four major initiatives are emerging through negotiations on drafts of the Pact for the Future, to be presented to the UN Summit of the Future in September. Much work remains to be done to overcome great-power tensions, especially over Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, that risk paralyzing the intergovernmental negotiations.
Source: PassBlue
The UN Pact for the Future needs something old, new, borrowed and blue
17/4/2024: UN member states will gather in New York in September to negotiate a Pact for the Future, a possible blueprint for multilateral cooperation in the 21st century. The initial “zero draft” of the Pact is a timid text that lacks many of the sensible ideas proposed by the UN Secretary-General.
Source: PassBlue
How the Myanmar regime is surviving
3/4/2024: Despite some major wins by insurgent groups, the junta remains strong due to its control of arms and air power. International sanctions on aviation fuel supplies to Myanmar appear to be ineffective to date.
Source: The Interpreter
Time is running out amid escalating crises in Haiti
6/3/2024: The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has called for the urgent deployment of the Council-mandated multinational security support mission in Haiti. This follows a mass prison breakout of more than 4,500 inmates, including prominent gang members.
Source: UN News
As conference ends in stalemate, does the WTO have a future?
4/3/2024: The 13th World Trade Organization ministerial conference has failed to resolve any issues of significance, raising the inescapable question of whether the global trade body has a future. The US appeared largely disinterested in the proceedings, with its representative leaving early.
Source: The Conversation
The World Social Forum: counterweight to the World Economic Forum
23/2/2024: The 2024 annual meeting of the World Social Forum has been held in Nepal, attended by fifty thousand participants from over 90 countries, exchanging strategies to address the multiple global crises, from climate catastrophes to unfettered capitalism, inequality, social injustice, wars and conflict.
Source: Inter Press Service
The Zero Draft to create a Pact for the Future has landed
7/2/2024: A draft agreement to seal September’s much-anticipated Summit of the Future has been released by the co-facilitators, Namibia and Germany. Built on the proposals made in Secretary-General António Guterres’s Our Common Agenda, the draft commits member states to the principles of human rights and to "fill critical gaps in global governance, and accelerate efforts to keep our past promises and agreements.”
Source: PassBlue
A new order for global trade is taking shape
15/1/2024: The World Trade Organization was established to pursue the idea of unfettered global trade without distortions of subsidy by national governments. This model of globalisation is crumbling as major economies deploy subsidies to gain control over resources and technologies for the future green economy.
Source: DownToEarth