Global Governance Futures: Imperfect Utopias or Bust

Professor Richard Falk taught at Princeton University Politics department for over 40 years and has published more than 50 books and many articles on global politics and international law. A self-described, “citizen pilgrim”, he decided early on that his career would combine academic work with an ethical obligation to speak out on questions of global and local justice. A prominent voice in the nuclear deproliferation movement, Professor Falk was chair of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Board of Directors until 2012. And in his most prominent role in recent years, in 2008 Professor Falk was appointed UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Human Rights by the UN Human Rights Council where he served until 2014. Perhaps less well known, Professor Falk was a key figure in scholarly political debates on world order and systems change through the 1960s and 70s, alongside scholars including Ken Waltz, Hedley Bull, Harold Lasswell and Immanuel Wallerstein. Professor Falk was also one of the first global political scholars to take seriously the ecological, demographic and biosocial aspects of the future of world order, as explored in his 1971 book ‘The Endangered Planet’. We discuss this rich intellectual heritage, what lessons we might excavate from these earlier debates for today, and how the shadow of history looms large over our current challenges, which, while formidable, also present opportunities for revitalising understandings of citizenship in our uniquely globalised civilisation. * We unfortunately experienced some technical problems with the sound in this episode. We hope that you will nevertheless enjoy this conversation. Richard can be found on his website Global Justice in the 21st Century. We discussed the following publications: Public Intellectual: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim (2021) Twilight of the Nation-State (at a Time of Resurgent Nationalism) (2020) This Endangered Planet: Prospects and Proposals for Human Survival (1971)

Jonathan Rowson is co-founder and Director of Perspectiva. He was previously Director of the Social Brain Centre at the RSA. Jonathan is an applied philosopher with degrees from Oxford, Harvard and Bristol Universities. In a former life he was a chess Grandmaster and British Champion (2004–6) and views the game as a continuing source of insight and inspiration. Towards the end of 2017, Jonathan was awarded an Open Society Foundation (OSF) Fellowship to inquire into the putative crisis in human rights. The essay which resulted – formulated as a letter to the Human Rights Movement – provides a deep and broad reflection into the crisis of human rights as symptomatic of a deeper and broader “meta-crisis:” a crisis in our perception and understanding of the world’s challenges. It was brilliant to welcome Jonathan to our first Podclass with students from our MA in Human Rights programme. The conversation gives a flavour of a provocative and insightful essay which provides valuable coordinates for exploring the status of human rights in these perilous times and their enduring relevance to a world defined by global systemic challenges. Jonathan can be found on twitter at: @Jonathan_Rowson The essay ‘Dear Human Rights Movement’ is available here. Other recent writings include: Tasting the Pickle: Ten flavours of meta-crisis and the appetite for a new civilisation, February 2021. The Moves That Matter: A Chess Grandmaster on the Game of Life (2019). Bloomsbury Publishing. Bildung in the 21st Century – Why sustainable prosperity depends upon reimagining education, June 2019.

Susan K. Sell is Professor at the School of Regulation and Global Governance (REGNET) at the Australian National University. Susan has been at the forefront of critical international political economy (IPE) scholarship for over two decades. An admirer of earlier critical IPE voices, like Susan Strange, Susan has forged a career shining a light on the dark side of global governance in a world of hyper-globalisation and acquisitive transnational private power. For Susan, it has always been about who wins and who loses within the often opaque workings of the global economy. Her research has applied this lens to powerful effect, particularly in the area of global health. Although critical IPE is experiencing a resurgence of interest, that was not always the case. In a wide-ranging conversation, Susan reflects on being an often lone critical voice during the triumphalist 1990s liberal moment, navigating a discipline which, until recently, was overwhelmingly male, as well as the potential for COVID-19 to serve as a “horrendous opportunity”, and what the future of global private power might look like. Susan can be found on the ANU website. Selection of publications: What COVID-19 Reveals About Twenty-first Century Capitalism: Adversity and Opportunity, 2020 Health under capitalism: a global political economy of structural pathogenesis, 2019 (with Owain D. Williams) Who Governs The Globe? 2010 (with Deborah Avant and Martha Finnemore) TRIPS was never enough: vertical forum shifting, FTAs, ACTA, and TPP, 2011 Private Power, Public Law: The Globalization of Intellectual Property Rights, 2003

The multi-talented Forrest Landry joins us for this podcast episode. A philosopher, writer, researcher, scientist, systems engineer, master woods craftsman and teacher, Forrest combines decades of inquiry into metaphysics and especially the relationship between causation and choice, with deep appreciation of how design and complete system solutions can be used in service to individuals, nature and to the future of humanity. This is definitely a full stack episode! We explore: why asking the right questions is so important, what is a good basis of choice, the critical difference between judgement and discernment, reflexive problem-solving across cultures, the risks posed by geoengineering, and much, much more. Many of Forrests’ writings are available on his business website Magic Flight.Com: https://mflb.com/ Forrest and collaborators have launched Ephemeral Group Processing, using technology to facilitate and scale face-to-face conversations: http://egp.community/ Forrest tweets @ForrestLandry19

Scott Williams joins us for a deep dive into what it means to live in right relationship in times of systemic and accelerating risk. With a “rigorous sense of humility and confusion,” Scott helps us understand some of the underlying drivers which have led the human and social to become separated from the underlying reality of the stochastic vitality of living systems, and the consequences of this separation for human relationship, both human-to-human and to nature. Along the way, we explore the systemic function of money, the power of collective narrative, “ways to reallow humans to meet humans,” including in the corridors of political and institutional power, and the role of knowledge in nourishing ourselves and ensuring the widest possible circle of compassion. Scott is the coordinating lead author for Chapter 2 ‘Systemic Risks, the Sendai Framework and the 2030 Agenda’ of the 2019 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction issued by the UN. Scott has a long track record working in the area of disaster risk for the UN and other agencies, in both the public and private sector. This experience has led him to explore what it really means to be a Systems Innovator, with current projects looking at how to accelerate climate innovation to a zero-carbon economy within the EU, as well as applying the insights from the 2019 UNDRR report to COVID-19 – available in a series of articles on preventionweb. Scott tweets @Scott42195

Nafeez Ahmed guides us through the intricacies of systems thinking from within and outside the IR Academy, throwing light on the scale of the governance challenge which complex global problems such as the climate crisis pose, the inevitable demise of current systems, and what a new emerging paradigm might look like, one in which we find ways to live together in our diversity and thrive within planetary boundaries. Nafeez is an investigative journalist, founding editor and chief writer for INSURGE intelligence, and ‘System Shift’ columnist at VICE’s science magazine Motherboard. He is developing a unique form of what he calls “systems journalism” and in the conversation also explore what it means to be a journalists in an age of media hyper-partisanship. He holds a DPhil in International Relations from the University of Sussex and is the author of a number of books, including Failing States, Collapsing Systems: BioPhysical Triggers of Political Violence and A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization, which has also been turned into a documentary.

As crucial climate negotiations are postponed to 2021, many wonder whether the world can wait. Echoing calls by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, our guest today, Farhana Yamin is clear that “we need to stop talking about climate change as a future problem, we really only have a short space of time to start making fundamental changes. The time for action really is now.” Farhana is an internationally recognized environmental lawyer, climate change policy expert and justice activist. She joined us at UCL between 2013 and 2018 as a Visiting Professor at UCL. During this time, she also set up Track 0, an organisation which promotes strategic coalition-building to pressure governments to act. Closer to home, in fact in our very own post code, she is also coordinator of the Camden Council’s Think and Do Community Climate and Eco Action pop up. She brings with her a wealth of experience, from serving as an author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to advising the European Commission on how to design the European emissions trading directive, and, in more recent years, negotiating at the UN on behalf of the Marshall Islands, where she has also been a lead proponent of the net zero emissions by 2050 goal in the Paris Agreement. Farhana joined Extinction Rebellion in November 2018 and has taken an active role in non-violent direct action, including gluing herself to Shell’s London offices last year. In this wide-ranging conversation, Farhana reflects on her journey to green radicalism and why she believes that more radical action is now required to deliver on the Paris Agreement.

Today we are in conversation with Jordan Hall. Jordan lays bare the multiplicity of issues that emerge from relying on complicated systems to manage complex situations. The conversation elucidates the fatal flaws with the complicated systems currently in place and touches on what solutions could look like, whilst contending with the difficulty in achieving these. Jordan is the executive chair and co-founder of Neurohacker Collective, a company that makes ground-breaking products for health and well-being through complex systems science. He is in his seventeenth year building disruptive technologies. His previous positions include crafting strategy and product for MP3.com, then at InterVU (acquired by Akamai) and then finally in2000 launching and leading the online digital video revolution as founder and CEO of DivX.

Crucial climate negotiations loom in 2021. Despite the incredible disruption caused by COVID-19, the work of the climate policymakers, researchers and activists is not, in any way, on hold. It is important to flag that this interview with one of UCLs leading climatologists was recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020. Nevertheless, this lively conversation ranging from climate change to green capitalism remains as pertinent today as ever. Mark Maslin FRGS, FRSA is a Professor of Climatology at University College London. His areas of scientific expertise include causes of past and future global climate change and its effects on the global carbon cycle, biodiversity, rainforests and human evolution. He also works on monitoring land carbon sinks using remote sensing and ecological models and international and national climate change policies. In addition to advisory positions with the Global Cool Foundation, the Sopria-Steria Group and the Cheltenham Science Festival Advisory Committee, Mark has written 8 books, and over 30 articles. His popular book “Climate Change: A Very Short Introduction” by Oxford University Press is now in its third edition and has sold over 40,000 copies. Mark was also a co-author of the seminal Lancet report ‘Managing the health effects of climate change’ and the Lancet review paper on the health links between Population, Development and Climate Change. You can find more information on Mark’s ongoing research and activities here: https://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/people/academic-staff/mark-maslin

More than 300 human rights defenders were killed in 2019 and many more face regular threats, physical assaults, arrests, harassment, and defamation campaigns. In this episode of Global Governance Futures, we speak with leading human rights expert and advocate Mary Lawlor about the growing list of challenges facing human rights defenders around the world. Mary was recently appointed UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights Defenders. As an independent expert, her mandate includes identifying the risks to human rights defenders on the ground and recommending strategies to better protect them. Mary is also currently an Adjunct Professor in the Centre for Social Innovation, School of Business, Trinity College Dublin, and she is the founder and former Executive Director of Front Line Defenders, an organisation that focuses on human rights defenders at risk.