Global Governance Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Anthony Annett is an economist who spent two decades at the International Monetary Fund, including as speechwriter to the Managing Director. In an insightful podcast based on his book Cathonomics: How Catholic Tradition Can Create a More Just Economy he argues that we need to take a fresh look at the policies, priorities, and institutions that underpin our current economic system. These are no longer working for the common good. Inequality is corroding the foundations of our societies and beginning to have harmful consequences for our social and political order. On many fronts, our economic systems are on an unsustainable path, and this is in part due to the absence of moral principles and an ethic of solidarity that might be guiding lights when designing policies and approaches to economics aiming for the common good.

Learn more on GlobalGovernanceForum.org

As the most recent Chief Scientist at the World Health Organization Soumya Swaminathan was on the forefront of the international response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of her distinguished background in policymaking spanning more than 30 years of experience bringing science and evidence into the formulation of effective actions to address fundamental issues of public health, Dr Swaminathan brings a wealth of insights into a conversation about the lessons learned from the pandemic and how to prepare for the next one. Viruses against which we have no natural immunity will continue to be a major risk factor in coming years and, against the huge human and economic costs of COVID-19, we need to internalize those lessons and come together as one whole human family, preparing responses that will be science-based but that will also leave no one behind because we live in an interconnected world in which our health and the health of others are fully interdependent.

Learn more on GlobalGovernanceForum.org

Fernando Iglesias is a member of Parliament in Argentina and the Director of the Campaign for a Latin American and Caribbean Criminal Court Against Transnational Organized Crime (COPLA). Pervasive organized crime in the region is a huge drag on social and economic development, has led to sky-high levels of violent crime, as the mafias that fuel drug trafficking, money laundering and bribery operate in many countries with impunity in a context of weak states and scant respect for the rule of law. COPLA could be an instrument to enforce the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, also called the Palermo Convention. Iglesias discusses why COPLA is needed, the challenges of establishing a court in a region where free and powerful mafias have often captured the politicians and other public institutions. What is at stake in a region that, over the past 2 decades, has had one of the weakest economic growth performances in the world and what role has organized crime played in this outcome?

Learn more on GlobalGovernanceForum.org

Cedric Ryngaert is the Chairman of the Department of International and European Law at Utrecht University and the Editor-in-Chief of the Netherlands International Law Review. In this podcast he explores the role of an International Anti-Corruption Court (IACC) as a potentially powerful innovation to our global governance architecture.  The IACC would be an enforcement mechanism for laws which are already in existence, but which often are ignored by kleptocrats who control the judges, the prosecutors, and the police. How would the IACC operate and under what principles? Would the court have asset recovery powers, to seize stolen assets and return them to the people who are the victims of grand corruption?  Could the IACC act even in cases of countries no subject to its jurisdiction? Is sustainable development, as envisaged in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, possible without the eradication of kleptocratic abuse?

Learn more on GlobalGovernanceForum.org

Michael Penn, a professor of psychology and a trained clinical psychologist, explores the evolution of the concept of human rights over the past century and discusses why the unfoldment of a culture of respect for the dignity of the individual is essential to catalyse the creation of conditions in societies that will contribute to human development. Why should the primary role of government be linked to the creation of those conditions that will facilitate the development of people’s latent capacities? Why should we include in our educational systems the concept of altruism and why is authenticity in human relationships at the basis of human progress? How can people avoid becoming stuck in hopelessness and instead feel that they are contributing to building up a sustainable future that will not sap people´s zest for life?

Learn more on GlobalGovernanceForum.org

Kerstin Carlson is a professor of international law in Denmark at Roskilde University, as well as The American University of Paris. In this podcast she addresses a number of vital questions for the future of international criminal law. Can international criminal justice institutions remain broadly apolitical bodies? How does one reconcile a paradox at the center of the practice of international criminal law between the concepts of “progress” and “justice,” with the latter concept rooted on the idea that international law promises the end of impunity and a more just world? What is the importance of national discourse and cultural norms regarding the effectiveness of international criminal tribunals?  And what role can specialized courts, such as a possible International Anti-Corruption Court, play in advancing international justice?

Learn more on GlobalGovernanceForum.org

Professor Jeffrey Knopf, with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California and with the Center on International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University explains why we can no longer rely only on deterrence, the nuclear taboo, arms control agreements and good luck. He argues that we must examine the psychological and societal aspects of maintaining nuclear peace. This is essential in a world of deeply entrenched nationalisms and autocratic leaders in many countries who can no longer be relied upon to be motivated by long-standing social norms that have contributed to keep nuclear peace for nearly 80 years.

Learn more on GlobalGovernanceForum.org

Maria Fernanda Espinosa, Susana Malcorra and Jody Williams have decades of combined experience in enriching the global debates on how to enhance the effectiveness of our mechanisms of international cooperation and innovate in ways that contribute to buttress our tottering global order. In this wide-ranging interview, before an audience of some 600 students and faculty at one of Spain´s leading universities, they discuss the aftermath of COVID, the meaning of human security, the climate emergency, our unraveling nuclear order, leadership in the 21st century, the future of the United Nations and more. 

Learn more on GlobalGovernanceForum.org

In an insightful interview Daniel Deudney, a distinguished author and teacher, likens the possession of nuclear weapons to owning a house in which we have placed boxes of dynamite with short fuses and given someone the authority, under some circumstances, to blow up the house. Except that, in the nuclear age, with much better knowledge about the lethal environmental consequences of the use of nuclear weapons, not only do we destroy our home, but we make the grounds on which it is built unlivable for us and for future generations. How do we get out of this madness, how do we walk away from this dangerous gamble?

Learn more on GlobalGovernanceForum.org

Learn more on GlobalGovernanceForum.org

In her book Hot, Hungry Planet: The Fight to Stop a Global Food Crisis in the Face of Climate Change, Lisa Palmer analyzed the challenges we face in global food security as they relate to climate change. Over the next decade we are likely to see continued population growth, an acceleration in global warming, the intensification of a water crisis, and an increase in the incidence of civil unrest associated with these trends. What are some of tools at our disposal to increase the resilience of our interconnected food systems? This podcast is an insightful look at the role of technology, a greater focus on women and girls’ education that is relevant to their local needs, and the need for greater international cooperation for a problem that will be disruptive everywhere, with particularly dire implications for the developing world. 

Learn more on GlobalGovernanceForum.org

Learn more on GlobalGovernanceForum.org