The United Nations is using an exhibition roller derby match in Beijing as a way of promoting China’s groundbreaking domestic violence laws. This fast-paced, full-contact sport is challenging traditional ideas about female athletes.
A medical centre for cholera victims in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
EPA/Orlando Barria
James Whitmore, The Conversation; Michael Hopkin, The Conversation, and Emil Jeyaratnam, The Conversation
More than 160 countries are expected to sign the Paris Agreement in New York on April 22. But enough countries will also need to ratify the treaty domestically before it can become international law.
There’s still a way to go before the vision from Paris is achieved.
Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters
Australia will be one of more than 160 nations formally signing the Paris climate agreement in New York this week. But delivering on those promises is what really counts.
There are shortcomings in celebrity led campaigns against “conflict minerals” such as the one in which US actress Robin Wright is involved.
Robin Wright's instagram
The relationship between advocacy organisations based in Western capitals and their marketed constituency of marginalised and disadvantaged African groups is tenuous. What then, is the goal?
Would you pay an extra couple of dollars for the climate?
Sorbis/shutterstock.com
A carbon tax on airline tickets might sound like a tricky sell, but many airlines already collect a similar levy to raise funds for developing world health initiatives.
Remembering ISIS victims at the U.N., November 2015.
Lucas Jackson/Reuters
The urgent need to respond to ISIS has redefined the use of “self-defense” to include attacking a nonstate threat in another country. But what are the implications of this? change?
The oceans are teeming with life and potential – but the high seas are still largely ungoverned.
Les Watling/NOAA
The open oceans are the world’s “wild west”, falling outside any nation’s jurisdiction. UN negotiations are aiming to draft new laws for the high seas.
Côte d’Ivoire’s response to the Bassam attacks shows that it is not lacking in political and security resources, and that its citizens remain vigilant in the face of terrorist acts.
The ongoing spread of English is unparalleled in world history. English dominates – in scholarship, business and international relations – but not all Englishes are created equal.
The world is dragging its feet – and it’s costing lives.
Map of the Sykes–Picot Agreement showing Eastern Turkey in Asia, Syria and Western Persia, and areas of control and influence agreed between the British and the French in May 1916.
Royal Geographical Society via Wikimedia Commons
A UN panel has called on the UK and Swedish governments to ensure Julian Assange’s human rights are respected and to compensate him for his time in ‘arbitrary’ detention.
Assange holds forth at the Ecuadorean embassy.
Reuters/Toby Melville
The international conference for the economic recovery of Mali resulted in promises of substantial aid, but the areas targeted fail to address the country’s real needs.
Israel’s land seizure of 154 hectares in the Jordan Valley will displace Palestinian communities.
Reuters/Mohamad Torokman
Settlements are illegal on occupied territory. They undermine the widely acknowledged right of Palestine to statehood. Yet Israel violates international law with near impunity.