A student throws a tear gas canister back at police during clashes at the National University in Bogota, Colombia, Nov. 26, 2019 (AP photo by Ivan Valencia).

Making sense of the world these days can be daunting. Across a swath of wildly disparate countries in the Middle East and South America, popular protests have shaken the foundations of both democratic governments and dictatorships alike. Western democracies haven’t been immune to these systemic shocks, ranging from resurgent—and in some cases triumphant—populist movements to repeatedly inconclusive elections and precarious governing coalitions. All this upheaval has called into question the tenets of the liberal international order that have guided global elites and policymakers over the past three decades. At first glance, it would seem we have entered a new historical […]

A protest against overfishing organized by the World Wildlife Fund, Brussels, Belgium, May 13, 2013 (AP photo by Geert Vanden Wijngaert).

Since 2001, member states of the World Trade Organization have held on-and-off negotiations on an agreement to end harmful subsidies to fisheries that are contributing to the depletion of fish stocks around the world. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that in 2015, only two-thirds of the world’s fish stocks were being harvested at sustainable levels, down from 90 percent in 1974. Although the WTO is close to an agreement, it won’t meet a year-end deadline proposed by the U.N. In an email interview with WPR, Daniel Skerritt, a postdoctoral research fellow with the Fisheries Economics Research Unit […]

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen delivers her speech at the start of the Paris Peace Forum, in Paris, Nov. 12, 2019 (pool photo by Ludovic Marin of AFP via AP Images).

Last week, I attended the second Paris Peace Forum, of which I am a member of the Steering Committee and the Selection Committee. The brainchild of French President Emmanuel Macron, the forum was less glitzy this year than the inaugural version in 2018, which coincided with the centennial of Armistice Day and attracted more than 60 heads of state and government. But what this edition lacked in flash, it compensated for in substance. Beyond showcasing dozens of proposals for improving global governance, its opening sessions featured thoughtful speeches on the parlous state of world order from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio […]

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivers a speech at the start of the Paris Peace Forum, Paris, Nov. 12, 2019 (Pool photo by Ludovic Marin via AP images).

This time last year, on the centenary of the armistice that ended World War I, French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed 65 heads of state and government, 10 leaders of international organizations, and some 6,000 other participants to the inaugural Paris Peace Forum. The summit had a lofty goal, according to its mission: to generate support for international cooperation and collective action at a time when “countries are turning inward.” The global political context was inauspicious, and it turned out that the timing was too, as the divide between President Donald Trump and America’s European allies was on full display during […]

A protest outside the White House against President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement, Washington, June 1, 2017 (AP photo by Susan Walsh).

Almost a century after the U.S. Senate rejected the Covenant of the League of Nations, President Donald Trump last week formally announced that the United States would begin quitting the Paris climate agreement, the most important multilateral convention of the 21st century. Future historians may well look back on these twin abdications as bookends to the “American century,” underscoring enduring U.S. ambivalence toward globalism and defensiveness regarding national sovereignty. The tale of these two Paris treaties reveals both how much the global agenda has changed and how little the U.S. has learned since 1919. From its founding until World War […]