Stockholm +50 climate conference. On 2 and 3 June, representatives from 110 countries will attend the UN meeting, including environment ministers, heads of state, representatives of business and civil society (Sipa via AP Images).

Last week, the United Nations held the Stockholm+50 conference, a two-day international meeting celebrating 50 years of global action on climate change. The first iteration of this event in 1972—the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which also took place in Stockholm, Sweden—saw countries come together to acknowledge their responsibility to “defend and improve the human environment for present and future generations,” and led to the creation of the U.N. Environment Program, which is still active today. Five decades after that first meeting, Stockholm+50 was intended as an opportunity to reflect on the progress that has been made, and to “springboard” further action toward accomplishing […]

A protester peaks out from behind a shield on which a sign in Spanish reads, “We have said, ‘Enough,’” during an anti-government protest in Bogota, Colombia, May 10, 2021 (AP photo by Fernando Vergara).

The biggest controversy at the Summit of the Americas being held this week in Los Angeles is the guest list. No, this isn’t another column about whether Cuba should be invited. It’s about the entire guest list of presidents and prime ministers from Latin America and the Caribbean claiming to represent their countries. With few exceptions, if you ask the publics that voted those leaders into office, a majority of them think the person representing their country at the Summit of the Americas is doing a poor job. The host, U.S. President Joe Biden, has an approval rating of around […]

Ukrainian refugees wait near the U.S. border, April 4, 2022, in Tijuana, Mexico (AP photo by Gregory Bull).

The images from Poland earlier this year were inspiring: As refugees began to cross Ukraine’s western border, Polish citizens poured out of their homes to receive them. They set up soup kitchens at the border and established caravans to shuttle refugees to train stations. They opened their homes and beds to families passing through, and as the days went on, a stream of international grassroots volunteers showed up to support the relief effort. As the weeks passed, however, many Poles began asking, Where is the national government in all this? Some were angry that the Polish government took credit for their grassroots […]

Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, speaks during a news conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, on Dec. 9, 2020 (Keystone photo by Martial Trezzini via AP).

For the past week, China’s state-controlled media has been gushing about the benefits of the recent visit to the country by Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights. Its reaction summarizes the results of the disastrous trip to a country that stands accused of committing genocide against ethnic Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the northwest Xinjiang region; crushing democratic freedoms in Hong Kong; smothering human rights in Tibet; and engaging in increasingly authoritarian behavior across the rest of the country. Activists had hoped Bachelet’s visit—the first by a U.N. human rights commissioner in 17 years—would give […]

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson waves at the media as he leaves 10 Downing Street to attend the weekly Prime Minister's Questions at the Houses of Parliament, in London, Feb. 9, 2022 (AP photo by Matt Dunham).

The revelations of outrageous behavior by the civil servants and advisers closest to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson have become so predictable in their mixture of bureaucratic procedure with B-movie farce, that it now seems surprising when a day goes by without another incident splashed across the morning headlines. The leaks about raucous parties in offices used by Johnson’s team at 10 Downing Street during pandemic lockdowns began to filter through to journalists late last year. Ever since, the Conservative Party and the British government Boris Johnson has led since August 2019 have struggled to break free from an image […]

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