Archives for March 2016

Work started at the United Nations this week on the next big global environmental treaty. The treaty would create rules of the road for management of the high seas, including provisions to create marine sanctuaries and other mechanisms to preserve sea life and biodiversity.

The high seas are areas beyond the territorial waters of any country. It covers 60% of the planet, and is basically the Wild West — there is no internationally agreed upon way to ensure marine life and commercial activities co-exist in harmony.

On the line to discuss this new treaty (which does not yet have a name) is Elizabeth Wilson of the Pew Charitable Trusts. She explains the problems that this new treaty aspires to solve, how it would fit into already existing treaties, like the Convention on the Law of the Sea, and the process and politics surrounding the crafting of this treaty and its eventual ratification.

The new treaty, which does not yet have a name, is one of the most important efforts for conservation of the global commons in the history of the planet. This conversation offers great insight into the debates that will shape the crafting of this new treaty.

The attacks in Brussels this week are accelerating an already heated conversation in Europe about the unrelenting movement of refugee from the Middle East to the continent.

The attacks on Tuesday came just days after the EU sealed a highly controversial agreement with Turkey in which refugees arriving to the greek islands would be expelled back to Turkey.

A refugee mother and her two children rest after arriving by boat on the island of Lesvos.

This agreement is highly maligned by the United Nations and refugee advocates for reasons I discuss with a UN official and a refugee advocate. This episode is in two parts. First, I speak with Melissa Fleming,  a spokesperson for the UN Refugee Agency, also known as UNHCR. She offers a grounds eye view of how this new deal is affecting the work of the UN Refugee Agency on the Greek Islands and explains why UNHCR is refusing to collaborate in the implementation of this agreement.

Next, I speak with Michel Gabaudan, president of Refugees International, who discusses the details of the deal and does a good job of putting it in a larger context of global refugee policy.

The Islamic state is seemingly on the ascent in Libya. It controls territory, including the coastal city of Sirte, and over the past several weeks it has launched a series of spectacular attacks in Libya and Tunisia.

So how did ISIS gain a foothold in Libya? I put that question to Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Phd candidate and proprietor of Jihadology.net.  Aaron explains how the Islamic State in Libya can trace its start to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq in the mid 2000s, and how through a series of contests it muscled out other jihadist groups in Libya to become a potent and destabilizing force for the entire region.

If you are interested in learning more about what will be one of the defining global security challenges of the near future, have a listen.

On March 1 a man named Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi  made an appearance at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, and in so doing earned the dubious distinction of being the first person to ever appear at the ICC for the crime of destroying cultural heritage. He is accused of ordering and participating in the destruction of centuries old mausoleums in Timbuktu, Mali. Timbuktu was taken over by Islamist extremists in 2012 in the midst of a civil war in Mali, and their puritanical vision of Islam clashed with local customs which imbued these mausoleums with religious significance.

Now, one of the people who allegedly orchestrated this destruction is sitting in a jail in the Hague, possibly awaiting trial. This is not only a high profile case of an individual facing possible trial for the crime of destroying cultural heritage, but it is the first time that a jihadist is facing ICC prosecution.

On the line with me to discuss the facts of this case and its broader significance to the International Criminal Court and global human rights more generally is Mark Kersten. He’s a post doctoral fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.