At a Global Governance Institute (GGI) public lecture in June with Mervyn King, former head of the Bank of England, Lord King reflected on the troubled state of global economic governance against a backdrop of “radical uncertainty”, meaning the kind of uncertainty that statistical analysis cannot model.
Radical uncertainty may be the motif of our times.
Continue reading UCL Global Governance Institute: A Year in Review
Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has recently declared climate to be “the biggest human rights issue in the world”. 13 million deaths could be prevented every year by improving environmental protections. Despite growing evidence of a direct link between the impacts of climate change and human rights, engagement across these two fields has only just begun. Recognition of rights has been largely absent within the international negotiations on climate change under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) initiated in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Continue reading Climate change – the greatest human rights challenge of our time
I have just returned from an express trip to Chile at the invitation of the Chilean Institute of Human Rights (INDH) and the Human Rights Programme at Diego Portales University (UDP) to join them on 12 May for an international conference on the Strengths and Limitations of Human Rights Institutionalization. We were joined by José Miguel Vivanco, Director of Human Rights Watch Americas, Amerigo Incalcaterra, regional OHCHR representative for the Americas, and many colleagues, observers and practitioners from the human rights community in Chile. Continue reading A new human rights architecture for Chile
I am just coming to the end of a fascinating and sobering three-week stay at Colegio de Mexico (COLMEX), courtesy of the British Academy’s Newton Mobility Grants scheme, to advance research on transnational narcotics governance in collaboration with my colleague Professor Monica Serrano, one of the leading authorities on drug policy in Latin America. As part of the grant, on 14 January we hosted a workshop on the relationship between the International Drug Control Regime and the International Human Rights Regime and its implications for drug policy in Mexico and the region. Continue reading Narcotics, criminal violence and human rights in Mexico
On 12-13 November 2015, we hosted an International Symposium on Global Governance at the UCL Institute of Global Governance. This two-day event sought to advance understanding of global governance scholarship by bringing together some of the world’s leading academics working in the field to share their insights on what is an evolving school of thought. Despite its relevance to key processes underlying the major global public policy questions of our age, the contours of ‘global governance’ remain contested, with few claiming it constitutes a theory or established field of study. Continue reading UCL-GGI Symposium: Towards a Third Generation of Global Governance Research and Practice
