Global Regime Research Articles

“Embedded developmentalism”: normative and institutional responses to the global catastrophic risk of underdevelopment

ABSTRACT We examine the enduring legacy of the Founex Report on the Environment and Development, prepared for the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment. Authored by Global South intellectuals, the report argued that environmental challenges in their countries arose from underdevelopment rather than industrial excesses, influencing early environmental debates and shaping calls for a New International Economic Order (NIEO). Commemorating 50 years since the adoption of the NIEO, we demonstrate that the Founex Report – by explicitly linking environmental problems to underdevelopment – has been more influential in shaping the design of international institutions than the NIEO, which largely overlooked this connection. Through case studies of global climate, economic, and financial regimes, we illustrate how “embedded developmentalism”, or the integration of developmental considerations into environmental governance, remains critical yet contested. We conclude that addressing underdevelopment is indispensable for effectively responding to catastrophic climate change.

Millimeter-scale niche differentiation of N-cycling microorganisms across the soil-water interface has implications for N2O emissions from wetlands

Abstract Wetlands can be a significant source of N2O under current global climate change regime with the soil-water interface representing a biogeochemical hotspot for microbial activity. However, the role of soil-water interface in controlling N2O emissions remains poorly understood. We hypothesized that the millimeter-scale redox gradient across the soil-water interface generates corresponding distinct niche for N-cycling microorganisms that collectively regulate the production and consumption of N2O over the same spatial scale. The abundance, transcriptional activity and spatial organization of different N-cycling guilds across the soil-water interface were characterized in mesocosms from three different paddy soils with different N2O emissions. Results demonstrated millimeter-scale stratification of N-cycling microbial activity across the soil-water interface, and in particular within the first 10 mm of flooded soils. Ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms were only transcriptionally active in the top 4 mm, suggesting a previously underestimated contribution to N2O emissions from wetlands. Variation in N2O accumulation was observed across the soil-water interface, with the highest concentrations measured at either the soil-water interface or in the deeper anoxic layer of paddy soils. Despite this difference, N2O-reducing microorganisms exhibited high transcriptional activity at the soil-water interface in all soils, suggesting that there is a microbial-mediated sink for N2O across the soil-water interface that can reduce N2O produced from both oxic and anoxic layers. This work demonstrate an underappreciated and essential role of the microbial hot zones at soil-water interface in regulating N2O emissions from wetlands.

A meta-analysis of warming and precipitation change effects on soil nitrogen cycles

Abstract Global warming and altered precipitation regimes may profoundly affect soil nitrogen (N) transformations. However, a comprehensive understanding of how soil N cycling responds to such climatic changes remains lacking, with few syntheses of field-based observations. Here, a meta-analysis was conducted using 755 paired data points from field observations worldwide to explore the effects of warming and altered precipitation on soil N transformation rates and to assess possible drivers of these effects. Warming positively affected the soil N mineralization and nitrification rates (+21.8% and +20.9%), but had no effect on the microbial immobilization rate. Similarly, increased precipitation accelerated soil N mineralization and nitrification (+10.2% and +9.4%), but did not alter microbial immobilization. In contrast, decreased precipitation did not affect any of the three N transformation rates. Moreover, warming effects on the N mineralization rate were mainly driven by the variations in soil moisture and soil total N content, while effects on the nitrification rate were regulated by changes in ammonia-oxidizing bacterial abundance. In addition, effects of increased precipitation on the N mineralization rate were largely dependent on changes in soil moisture and experimental manipulation characteristics, while effects on the nitrification rate were shaped by MAP, soil pH, ecosystem types, and treatment duration. Overall, increased temperature and precipitation accelerated soil N cycling and increased soil N availability, but decreased precipitation did not. These findings may improve predictions of biogeochemical cycling under future climate change scenarios.

Socialisation, policy opportunity, and bureaucratic bargaining: explaining China’s zig-zag engagement with multilateral debt restructuring

Scholars have long debated how emerging powers like China engage with global governance regimes. This paper contributes to the debate by suggesting a framework for discontinuous change of China’s engagement mode. We use China’s participation in the Group of Twenty (G20)-Paris Club Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) and the Common Framework for Debt Treatments (Common Framework or CF), as a case study. Drawing on archives, new data and over 170 interviews, our findings suggest that China became more cooperative with the existing international regime as more Chinese bureaucrats were socialised into the regime. But this can be a slow process. Observed from outside, Chinese behavior can be confusing: The state makes a new commitment to international cooperation but then appears to renege on that commitment. We explain this ‘zig-zag’ behavior as the result of an interplay between uneven socialisation, policy opportunity, and bureaucratic bargaining. The compliance problem can therefore be seen as part of the progress rather than a setback of integrating China into the multilateral regime. Only when the majority of Chinese officials are socialised and when bureaucratic and banking interests are realigned through domestic reforms, can we expect full cooperation from China with the multilateral regime.

Forest fire regimes in the Northwestern Himalayas: unravelling microlevel impact of topography, weather, and human activity on fire behaviour

ABSTRACT Global forest fire regimes are synergistically modulated by topography, anthropogenic activities and climatic change. In the current decade, the Northwestern Himalayas, particularly Uttarakhand, have witnessed an escalation in fire incidence and intensity. The fire regime over this terrain is profoundly influenced by the anisotropic characteristics of meteorology, topography, fuel characteristics and human footprint at an urban level. Despite these facts, an in-depth investigation of fire behaviour and its driving mechanisms in Uttarakhand remains conspicuously absent, underscoring the significance of this study. This research delineates the spatiotemporal variation of fire intensity [Fire Radiative Power (FRP)] and occurrences (count) across 13 urban microregions, employing 10 km and 20 km buffer zones, 2018–2023. It examines the influence of vegetation dynamics (NDVI), meteorology [air temperature (AT), wind speed (WS), relative humidity (RH)], topography and human footprint on fire behaviour; also elucidates the association between environmental variables and FRP through Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Random Forest. The findings revealed pronounced spatial variability in fire behaviour across the microregions, with the highest FRP (32.55 MW) observed during the peak fire season (April to June). Fire count and FRP exhibited significant variation with elevation gradient, slope, terrain ruggedness, terrain position, slope, aspect, humidity and population density. Higher elevation microregions (≥1500 metres) with steep south-facing slopes had more intense fires compared to flatter south-facing slopes (<1000 metres). PCA and RF SHAP analysis jointly underscore the key determinants of FRP. PCA reveals human modification and population density as negative contributor to FRP; meanwhile, RF SHAP corroborates this by identifying AT and RH as major positive contributors to FRP predictions. This study explained the intricate interactions governing fire regimes in the Northwestern Himalayas and advocates for integrated management strategies to mitigate fire impacts.

Undocumenting Citizenship: Mixed-Status Families in María Escandón’s González and Daughter Trucking Co

ABSTRACT The development of what Nicholas de Genova terms the global deportation regime adds to the fears of mixed-status families, given the impact to those who must face the loss of their parents or siblings. Community protests against deporting family members have attempted to leverage the rhetoric of family values, but by doing so have left unconsidered how those with citizen status have themselves been represented as undocumented by familial association. María Escandón’s novel González and Daughter Trucking Co. through its consideration of mixed-status family members as experiencing a form of “undocumented citizenship” and by its focus on the textuality of documentation—on storytelling and personal history—complicates arguments that seek to legitimate national sovereignty and deportation by grounding these terms in a binary understanding of citizenship.

Environmental Health: Towards Synthesis in Global Law and Governance.

International law and global governance regimes for environmental health challenges have been slow to reflect the intertwined relationship between the environment and human health. Historical legacies have caused artificial fragmentation between the two that has resulted in distinct fields of international law and institutions for the environment and health. However, new global paradigms for thinking about environmental health have emerged to foster synthesis under global health law, including One Health and Planetary Health approaches, as well as through international human rights law like the recognition of the right to a clean, safe, and healthy environment. Guided by equity, new international law and global governance reforms, including the proposed Pandemic Agreement and Plastics Treaty, are opportunities to synthesize the intersecting dimensions of the environment and global health. However, future paths towards cohesion must explicitly incorporate human rights in environmental health governance, including the rights of Indigenous Peoples, while actively addressing inequities in global health law, between and within countries, and across generations.

The Changing Contours of India’s Arms Control and Disarmament Policy

India has been at the forefront of the global nuclear disarmament campaign. However, in recent decades, its relationship with the global nuclear disarmament regime has undergone a subtle change. While in the pre-1998 phase, India pursued the cause of global nuclear disarmament vociferously; in the aftermath of the May 1998 tests, the country reoriented the thrust of its nuclear diplomacy by directing more policy thrust on arms control and non-proliferation while largely de-emphasising time-bound global nuclear disarmament. The signing of the Indo-US nuclear deal in 2008 heralded a new initiative in India’s engagement with the global nuclear order. Currently, India’s diplomatic energies are devoted towards gaining membership of the global nuclear rule-making architecture. While India occasionally reiterates its commitment to the cause of global nuclear disarmament, India, in recent years, has not made any new disarmament proposals. Notably, while India welcomes any disarmament and arms control proposal that aligns with its own preferences, it steadfastly opposes any initiative that threatens its nuclear status. With the global nuclear disarmament and arms control regime in complete disarray, it is time for India to seize the moment and regain its historical leadership role by reframing and re-energising the cause of nuclear disarmament on the global agenda.

A Diagnosis of Oceanic Precipitation in IMERG-GMI

Abstract Diagnosing errors in spaceborne oceanic precipitation estimates is difficult due to complicated multisatellite algorithms and limited surface-based measurements. The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission helps to alleviate these challenges with NASA’s Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) product, which is transparently designed to encourage community validation activities, and the GPM Validation Network, which collects observations across global precipitation regimes from over 100 ground-based weather radars to serve as reference datasets for the GPM precipitation products. This study uses the GPM Validation Network’s oceanic precipitation observations from 32 island and coastal radars to diagnose the performance of IMERG V06B and V07B Final Run products during GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) overpasses (i.e., IMERG-GMI) in the period June 2014–September 2021. Errors are traced from the input level 2 (satellite footprint) Goddard profiling algorithm climate (GPROF-CLIM) GMI product through the successive gridding, calibration, and precipitation distribution restoration steps of IMERG’s level 3 (gridded) algorithm. Results highlight that IMERG-GMI V07B outperforms V06B in detecting and quantifying oceanic precipitation, with a significant improvement over high-latitude ocean (V06B: +143%; V07B: +50%). Furthermore, there is a clear oceanic latitudinal trend in the mean relative bias of IMERG-GMI V07B (high latitude: +50%; midlatitude: +10%; tropical: −41%), which largely traces back to GPROF-CLIM V07 (high latitude: +22%; midlatitude: −8%; tropical: −44%), with bias differences driven by IMERG’s passive microwave calibration scheme. This error tracing approach supports future IMERG algorithm developments by disentangling how algorithm steps enhance or mitigate errors. Significance Statement Most precipitation occurs over the ocean, yet precipitation products are rarely evaluated there due to a lack of surface-based measurements. This study utilizes the GPM Validation Network’s datasets from coastal and island radars to conduct the first oceanic evaluation of the NASA IMERG V07B multisatellite precipitation product. The performance of IMERG at different successive algorithm steps is assessed to understand which processing steps reduce or increase errors and to support future algorithm improvements. The latest IMERG version provides more accurate and reliable precipitation estimates than the preceding version. However, IMERG-GMI is biased high by +50% and low by −41% over the high-latitude and tropical oceans, respectively.

Microalgae as environmental helpers: A comprehensive review on their role in climate mitigation, ocean health, and ecosystem restoration

Microalgae are the indispensable components of different ecosystems, ranging from marine and freshwater to terrestrial environments. These tiny organisms contribute a lot to ecological stability, nutrient cycling, and biogeochemical processes. Their potential contribution to environmental sustainability has increasingly been realized, and hence microalgae are now being explored for various applications in climate change mitigation, water quality improvement, and ecosystem restoration. The review hereafter tries to assess in some detail the multiple environmental services of microalgae, with a focus on carbon sequestration, ocean acidification buffering, nutrient recycling, and ecosystem restoration. It focuses on the local uses of microalgae for enhancing coastal and marine ecosystems health, with a focus on sensitive areas. Microalgae have a very important role in the fight against climate change since they can capture atmospheric CO₂, which is functional in the correct running of the carbon cycle. They also contribute to the betterment of water quality by serving as natural biofilters, absorbing excess nutrients and contaminants. Their contribution to aquatic food webs and habitat creation is vital in terms of maintaining biodiversity. In the process of ecosystem restoration, microalgae play a vital role in the rehabilitation of degraded marine, coastal, and terrestrial habitats by stabilizing sediments, enhancing nutrient availability, and supporting ecological resilience. Considering their impressive adaptation and sustainability features, microalgae can form a potentially attractive opportunity for inclusion into global and regional environmental management regimes. More precisely, the involvement of microalgae in conservation endeavors will contribute substantially to water quality improvement, marine biodiversity maintenance, and mitigation of climate change impacts in areas like the coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh, India. Further research and technology development in various microalgal technologies offer the potential not only to provide solutions to global climate change but can also be used to confront local ecological nuisances.

Toward Heisenberg Limit without Critical Slowing Down via Quantum Reinforcement Learning.

Critical ground states of quantum many-body systems have emerged as vital resources for quantum-enhanced sensing. Traditional methods to prepare these states often rely on adiabatic evolution, which may diminish the quantum sensing advantage. In this Letter, we propose a quantum reinforcement learning (QRL) enhanced critical sensing protocol for quantum many-body systems with exotic phase diagrams. Starting from product states and utilizing QRL-discovered gate sequences, we explore sensing accuracy in the presence of unknown external magnetic fields, covering both local and global regimes. Our results demonstrate that QRL-learned sequences reach the finite quantum speed limit and generalize effectively across systems of arbitrary size, ensuring accuracy regardless of preparation time. This method can robustly achieve Heisenberg and super-Heisenberg limits, even in noisy environments with practical Pauli measurements. Our study highlights the efficacy of QRL in enabling precise quantum state preparation, thereby advancing scalable, high-accuracy quantum critical sensing.

Escaping a weaponized network: China’s reaction to the United States escalating technology controls

This paper explores weaponized interdependence and tipping point dynamics. The United States employs export controls to maintain technological leadership and restrict China's access to essential semiconductor technology. Conversely, China intensifies its investment in the semiconductor sector, aiming for technological independence and lessening its dependence on U.S.-controlled technologies. The paper introduces a Stackelberg nested game model to analyze the strategic interactions between the U.S., China, and Chinese semiconductor companies. A tipping point indicates a departure from a unified global network to a polarized structure of technological spheres led by the U.S. and China. Utilizing Bayesian Q-learning, the paper uncovers that continuous escalations could result in detrimental outcomes, including wasted resources and a split global technology regime. The study underscores the limitations of weaponized interdependence as a long-term strategic tool and calls for a recalibration of strategies to prevent irreversible fragmentation of the global technological landscape.

CHINA’S ROLE IN THE UNITED NATIONS IN ADDRESSING CLIMATE CHANGE DURING THE XI JINPING ERA

Climate change has become a critical global challenge in the 21st century, with China as the largest emitter playing a vital role in addressing it. This research aims to analyze China’s transforming role within the UN framework in addressing climate change during Xi Jinping’s era, focusing on diplomatic posture changes and policy implementation. Using qualitative research methods with a descriptive-analytical approach through library research, this study analyzes various official documents, journal articles, and policy reports from 2020-2024. The discussion reveals that under Xi Jinping’s leadership, China has undergone a significant transformation from a defensive position to proactive leadership in global climate diplomacy, reflected through its 2060 carbon neutrality commitment and the establishment of a 3 billion USD South-South Climate Cooperation Fund. Analysis through an offensive realist perspective reveals that China’s active engagement in the global climate regime manifests a power maximization strategy in the international system. In conclusion, China’s transforming role has positively contributed to global climate governance while maintaining its national strategic interests through a combination of ambitious commitments and various policy instruments.

Multilevel Governance and Indonesia’s Strategy for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation

This article critically examined Indonesia’s policies to mitigate and adapt to climate change within the global climate regime and local political dynamics. A qualitative method and a multilevel governance approach were utilized, emphasizing the dispersion of power both vertically among various levels of governance and horizontally among different quasi-governmental and non-governmental organizations and actors. The analysis unveiled that Indonesia’s climate change policies have involved supranational governance facilitated by global-level regimes and institutions. The government has played a strategic role in aligning itself with these global environmental regimes by implementing laws and policy measures to limit greenhouse gas emissions, control deforestation rates, and address forest degradation. Achieving these governance tasks involved active participation from local governments, municipalities, and non-state actors such as businesses and the community.

THE ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW IN ADDRESSING CLIMATE CHANGE

The greatest problem of the 21st century is climate change, and due to its global repercussions, it calls for global efforts around the globe in the form of international institutions and law. This research responds to the role of international law in responding to climate change, and the evolution of the history of major treaties, protocols, and agreements such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement. It raises the question of the capacity of international legal regimes to enable adaptation to the effects of climate change, compliance issues, and international institutions' efforts in pushing for progress with climate justice. The article also responds to loopholes and lacunae in current global regimes of law and suggests how the global legal response to climate change might be strengthened, including through demanding accountability, technology transfer, and financing to affected states. The document concludes on policy recommendations and future litigation for a more sustainable, equitable and ethical world order of climate policy.

A new analytical matrix for understanding International Investment Law Agreements in the Global South

Abstract This article explores the unique dynamics of international investment law from the perspective of the Global South, a highly heterogeneous collective of emerging and least-developed economies. Traditional international investment agreements (IIAs) often place these countries in positions where they must compromise their regulatory autonomy to attract foreign investment. By proposing a new analytical matrix, the authors aim to elucidate the various ways in which countries of the Global South engage with IIAs. This matrix is tested through theoretical categorization and concrete examples, highlighting engagement strategies from passive compliance to active reform and radical disengagement. The matrix serves as a foundational tool for understanding these nations’ complexities and varied responses within the global investment regime. The article concludes by emphasizing the need for a reimagined approach that balances foreign investment needs with the Global South’s sovereign developmental and regulatory goals. This new framework seeks to offer scholars and policymakers a refined instrument to advocate for equitable benefits from IIAs, urging a reconsideration of current norms and practices to better align with the developmental objectives of host countries.

Informal strategies in transnational mobilities and their implications for European lifestyle migration

Informality encompasses a wide range of unregulated activities that has usually been associated with the activities of marginalised groups. However, it has been recognised that affluent lifestyle migrants use informal strategies to pursue a good life across borders. How lifestyle migrants resort to informality and how it affects their lives is less well understood. To fill this gap, we present findings from 22 qualitative interviews with Swedish lifestyle migrants in Portugal. Lifestyle migrants can navigate webs of (in)formalities thanks to their privileged position as citizens of the European Union. First, lifestyle migrants gradually appropriate informality, which illustrates their privileged use of informal strategies to establish themselves in a new country. Second, lifestyle migrants never have to settle down in one place because they can employ informal strategies across countries to support their desired life in one of them. Finally, lifestyle migrants end up facing a paradox of immobility because their use of informal strategies to retain connections between countries creates dependency and immobility. Not unlike marginalised groups, lifestyle migrants exploit gaps in formal frameworks of the global mobility regime. Informality is intertwined with the privileged pursuit of a momentarily better life abroad and is thus essential to lifestyle migration.

On all fronts: how to end aviation exceptionalism

We argue that aviation exceptionalism is both a demand side and a supply side problem. Despite exponential increases in demand for international air travel, plane makers have achieved only modest linear movement toward low carbon aviation technologies. Meanwhile, the global aviation regime has become adept at shaping user practices and culture to enable and encourage unconstrained air travel consumption. This has influenced the public’s perception of possible regulatory regimes and, along with persistent overestimation of technical debt, has prevented the use of regulations similar to those that are successfully moving the automotive sector to new low-carbon technologies. On the supply side, there is no realistic prospect of attaining sustainable aviation technology without a government-led, private-sector supported, moonshot-style collective effort. On the demand side, the psychological barriers to behavior change will not be resolved without confronting the drivers that ‘create’ air travel consumption and artificially accelerate demand.

Night O2 (a1Δg) airglow spatial distribution and temporal behavior on Venus based on SPICAV IR/VEx nadir dataset

Night O2 (a1Δg) airglow spatial distribution and temporal behavior on Venus based on SPICAV IR/VEx nadir dataset

Global trends and regime state shifts of lacustrine aquatic vegetation.

Global trends and regime state shifts of lacustrine aquatic vegetation.