Despite demands for an urgent ‘reservation’ and ‘national interest test’ over new WHO regulations, New Zealand’s sovereignty is not at risk from international agreements or treaties.
Plastic litters a beach in Manila, Philippines.
Ezra Acayan/Getty Images
A central question remains unresolved in the draft treaty: Is plastic pollution basically a waste management problem, or can it be solved only with a cap on production?
The Williams Treaties cover over 20,000 square kilometres of lands between Georgian Bay and the Ottawa River, and along the shore of Lake Ontario up to Lake Simcoe. Fred Marsden, member of Alderville First Nation, seen fishing in the Kawartha Lakes area, date unknown.
(Jackson Pind)
Seven Williams Treaties First Nations continue to call on the provincial government to adequately consult them when making important decisions on their lands in the Greenbelt and beyond.
King Charles, left, then Prince of Wales, talks with artist Wade Baker, of the Squamish Nation in Vancouver, B.C., in November 2009.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Ironically perhaps, it may be the move toward reconciliation between Indigenous Peoples and settler Canadians that revives the focus of the Crown in Canadian schooling.
Blueberry River First Nation Chief Judy Desjarlais (middle) called her nation’s agreement with the province a “historic moment.”
(Flickr/Province of British Columbia)
New agreements in B.C. provide economic compensation for land restoration activities to several First Nations and limit new oil and gas development projects.
Waste on Lekki beach, Lagos.
Alucardion/Shutterstock
A new study adds up the potential legal and financial risk countries could face from hundreds of agreements, like those under the Energy Charter Treaty.
A Russian warship, the Patrol Ship Dmitry Rogachev, travels through the Dardanelles on Feb. 15, 2022.
Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
The Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits gives Turkey control over the water route between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.
The International Space Station is run collectively by the U.S., Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and Canada.
NASA Marshall Spaceflight Center/Flickr
What happens to the International Space Station when tensions on Earth rise? A space policy expert explains how the ISS is run and how Russian aggression has threatened its operation in the past – and now.
Plastic trash floating on the Buriganga river in Dhaka, Bangladesh,
Jan. 21, 2020.
Munir Uz Zaman/AFP via Getty Images
Representatives of 175 countries voted to start developing a global treaty to reduce plastic waste. Treaties addressing mercury, long-range air pollution and ozone depletion offer some lessons.
A man from Skuppah Indian Band rides off on his motorcycle after stopping to watch a wildfire burn on the side of a mountain in Lytton, B.C., in July 2021.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
The sketchy history of international efforts to control bioweapons suggests that nations will resist cooperative monitoring of gene hacking for medical research.
Youth with Music for the Spirit & Indigenous Visual Arts work on projects about relationships with water at Six Nations of the Grand River.
(Elaine Ho)
Collaborative research sought to document Six Nations youth perspectives shared through art and story to inform principles for water management in the lower Grand River.
Through the Paris Agreement, the world’s countries agreed to work to keep global warming well under 2 degrees Celsius.
Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images
The US is formally back in the Paris climate agreement as of today. As one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters, it has a lot of work to do, with food security, health and safety at stake.
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II greets Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at Buckingham Palace in central London on March 7, 2018.
Dominic Lipinski/AFP
To ensure its energy security and influence in the Gulf region, the United Kingdom will likely deepen its relations with GCC nations in a post-Brexit world.
Activists protest outside of COP25 climate talks in Madrid, Dec. 14, 2019.
AP Photo/Manu Fernandez
Activists wanted nations to make bigger climate commitments at the Madrid COP-25 meeting, but the meeting’s real goal was agreeing on rules for pricing carbon pollution.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addresses the Climate Summit in the U.N. General Assembly, Sept. 23, 2019.
AP Photo/Jason DeCrow
President Trump has confirmed that the US will leave the Paris Agreement on climate change on the earliest allowable date: Nov. 4, 2020. Will this hobble efforts to slow global warming?
It was defoliants, seen here during Operation Ranch Hand in the Vietnam War, that prompted action to protect the environment during conflicts.
National Museum of the US Air Force
A group of scientists want a new Geneva Convention to safeguard the environment during wars and conflicts. We already have such rules, but they’re inadequate, inconsistent and unclear.
Chen Yabian, 74, of Hainan Province, southern China, testifies during the International Symposium on Chinese ‘Comfort Women’ in 2000 in Shanghai that she was 14 when Japanese Imperial Army soldiers forced her to work as a sex slave during the war.
AP/Eugene Hoshiko
US agreements with Germany, France, Switzerland and Austria provide reparations to WWII victims. But an international law scholar writes that the US has failed to address war crimes in Asia.
Lecturer on Law and Associate Director of Armed Conflict and Civilian Protection, International Human Rights Clinic, Harvard Law School, Harvard University