Bombing Syria seems to have become obligatory for any aspiring great power. After all, what’s the point in spending all that money on sophisticated warplanes if you can’t actually use them on someone…
Attorney-General George Brandis said Australia co-operates with the UN on its human rights obligations. Is that right?
AAP/Mick Tsikas
Attorney-General George Brandis told the ABC that Australia co-operates with the United Nations in relation to its human rights obligations. Is that right?
Despondent: Mahmoud Abbas addresses the UN.
EPA/Andrew Gombert
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has announced that Australia is running for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council for the period of 2018 to 2020. The bid was originally made by the previous government, and…
Kevin Rudd is reportedly campaigning to take over as UN secretary-general when Ban Ki-moon’s term expires in 2016.
EPA/Peter Foley
If history is a guide, the next UN secretary-general will be from Eastern Europe, working in their national government, and with strong foreign service experience.
Rouhani addresses the UN General Assembly, September 28 2015.
Carlo Allegri/REUTERS
After two years of negotiations, the UN Sustainable Development goals will be adopted today. How can society and government actually end poverty and achieve other lofty goals?
Forget the millenium goals, there’s a new plan on the table.
United Nations
Global leaders are signing up to an ambitious agenda in New York.
Improving maternal mortality and ending preventable deaths in children are some of the health targets in the Sustainable Development Goals.
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade/Flickr
Health has secured its place as one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. But without clear mechanisms to report, finance or engage other sectors, could more end up as less?
Australia’s prodigious coal output is one of the factors that count against it in a new appraisal of sustainability among OECD nations.
John Englart/Wikimedia Commons
A survey of OECD nations puts Australia 18th out of 34 on progress towards the world’s new sustainability goals. It scores well on quality of life, but lets itself down on - you guessed it - climate.
Can negotiators in Paris get a hit?
Peter Miller/flickr
The UN climate talks in Bonn last week left many key issues unresolved, creating big challenges for forging a global deal in Paris later this year that would avert the worst effects of climate change.
Scott Walker campaigns in New Hampshire. REUTERS/Brian Snyder.
Brian Snyder/REUTERS
As the UN gears up to unveil the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, here are two new rules for development funding to help it go as far as possible.
Bonn in June: just a few steps away from the big show in Paris later this year.
unfccc/flickr
It’s pledge season: countries are beginning to submit carbon reduction commitments for the Paris climate talks later this year. What’s the US doing and can it meet its targets?
The UN’s lofty Sustainable Development Goals will fall flat without more attention to how the many interested parties work together.
Yahya Jammeh, president of Gambia, addresses the United Nations in September 2014. The dictator is notorious for human rights violations.
Reuters/Lucas Jackson
President Jammeh has ruled Gambia with an iron fist since he seized power more than two decades years ago. He is responsible for gross human rights abuses, yet he hosts Africa’s human rights watchdog.
The penny drops? A fight over UN tax oversight was overblown.
Peter-Ashley Jackson
Another UN human rights report has been released about Israel and the human rights abuses it perpetrates in the Occupied Territories – yet another report that highlights ongoing violations of international…
Leaders from the Group of Seven (G7) industrial nations in the Bavarian Alps for a summit in June. Time is ripe for a courageous shift in global leadership.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
The world needs an alliance of leading well-being economies, a WE7, to lead it in the 21st century. It would be the first step towards a global network committed to a sustainable future for the planet.