Adoption of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Doctrine at the United Nations’ 2005 World Summit constituted a watershed moment for international diplomacy and multilateralism. With multiple pillars, R2P was established to ensure that the international community was better placed to act in the face of mass atrocity. Unfortunately, R2P’s poor implementation, and weaponization that has undermined its precepts, have seen it displaced from the holistic framework of state-building and conflict prevention in which it belongs. While it is clear that R2P has benefits as a doctrine, it can be reconsidered to a limited extent to ensure its functioning is optimized, including through United Nations Security Council reform. The UN General Assembly recently adopting a resolution by consensus that calls for a post-veto General Assembly meeting is a positive step on which progress can be built.

The United Nations (UN) General Assembly meets this week (Sept. 22-29) to celebrate its 75th anniversary and address significant global challenges. There is no shortage of them: a global pandemic, a devastating economic crisis, an unprecedented explosion in the number of refugees, and the beginning of a new normal of growing conflicts between the United States and China in the dispute for global hegemony.

During the past few years, the different global ongoing events have left us baffled and astonished. Given the decreasing ability to understand and assimilate the amount of changes, mutations, and crises, one would wonder: what happened to the global order? How has -in this short period of time- the power of its values and institutions that much decreased? What are the causes for these protectionist and massive populist waves? Why are we witnessing an increasing settlement of conflicts out of the international institutions?

With the intensification of globalization dynamics, risks to the stability of the international system have grown to the extent that formerly localized threats are no longer locally containable. Ethnic conflicts, infectious diseases, climate change, food insecurity, and other pressing threats, are increasingly threatening global security and stability, prompting doubts about the ability of the current global governance order to respond to the challenges plaguing the 21st century. In this podcast, Marcus de Freitas, Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, discusses all these pressing issues.

To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, the Policy Center for the New South is pleased to organize a series of webinars to discuss key themes related to the role of the UN on the international scene. Moderator: Mohammed Loulichki, Senior Fellow, Policy Center for the New South Speakers: - Yonas Adeto, Director, Institute for Peace and Security Studies - Rida Lyammouri, Senior Fellow, Policy Center for the New South - Salma Daoudi, Research Assistant in International Relations, Policy Center for the New South - Leonardo Parraga, Executive Director, The Bogotart Foundation (ADEL Alumnus).

The interconnectedness and interdependence between countries around the world resulting from the rise of globalization has become a double-edged sword. On the positive side it has influenced socio-economic development, but it has also led to uncertainties that disrupt societies in terms of their social, political, and economic structures. How COVID-19 has disrupted the geopolitical landscape? Are existing institutions well equipped to steer the international response? How can global flows and value chains be protected from collapsing? Moderator : Ian Lesser, Vice President & Executive Director, Brussels, German Marshal Fund of the United States Speakers : - Bronwyn Bruton, Director of Programs & Studies, Atlantic Council - Paolo Magri, Executive Vice President and Director, Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) - Zhou Yuyuan, Senior Fellow, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.

This article discusses the Wider Atlantic as a re-emerging region of power. Considering the central geostrategic role of the North Euro-Atlantic and the rise of maritime priorities in the political agenda of all coastal states, we demonstrate that the Wider Atlantic is relevant to an informal partnership of trust.

This study argues that Morocco should encourage policymakers in the United States and Europe to think more imaginatively about its role in the Atlantic and elsewhere.

The concept of a “Wider Atlantic” has been finding its way into mainstream discourse, as it is progressively molding into an alternative to the present-day understanding of transatlantic relations. The attention is being refocused to a wider geographic area around the Atlantic basin, which includes Southern Atlantic states in the policy and opinion-shaping conversation (s). With 23 states now comprising the Western Atlantic Coast of Africa, this continent has an ever-growing role to play in the new geopolitical discussions pertaining to a “Wider Atlantic” region. Enlarging the exchange to include states that were previously perceived as the strategic backwater is therefore a reality aimed at engaging a wider range of Atlantic partners, who could potentially contribute to reshape and redefine the existing standards. Hence, the wider Atlantic encourages new forms of multilateralism, as well as a discursive and practical reconfiguration, that account for the change in underlying power dynamics and consequent modern global challenges.

The Atlantic basin faces considerable challenges on multiple fronts. Financial and economic struggles, coupled with political shifts and social turmoil, are reshaping the region’s geopolitical landscape. Unemployment, poverty, violence, migration, extremism, climate change and other problems are on the rise and the need to tackle them effectively is pressing.

This podcast is performed by Danielle Piatkiewicz. The aim of the Atlantic Future Project was to study the rationales of cooperation in the Atlantic area and to suggest strategies to the EU on how to engage with the wider transatlantic relationship in the context of the ongoing redistribution of power and the overall rebalancing of relations around and within the Atlantic space. As the project concluded in December 2016, the results and findings analysed the fundamental trends in the Atlantic basin and to show how changing economic, energy, security, human, institutional and environmental links are transforming the wider Atlantic space. What does this mean in the scope of a joint Atlantic policy?

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on the global economy and has challenged the best minds to rethink how to design and implement an effective recovery. Countries in the wider Atlantic region have followed different paths to cope with the pandemic. A number of countries in Europe succeeded in vaccinating most of their eligible populations, enabling life to return somewhat to normal.