International Governance Structures Research Articles

Drivers and attitudes of public support for technological solutions to climate change in 30 countries

Abstract Some experts contend that addressing global climate challenges requires consideration of technologies such as Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) and, possibly, Solar Radiation Modification (SRM). Previous studies, primarily centered on the OECD region, have indicated that most of these technologies are contentious, eliciting low levels of public support. By conducting a set of nationally representative surveys examining seven CDR and three SRM technologies in 30 countries, we show that public skepticism is most prominent in wealthier countries. Respondents from these countries express lower confidence in the potential of science and technology to address climate change, diminished trust in industry, and expect to experience less personal harm from climate change. At the same time, there are many countries, not previously studied, where the levels of support for CDR and SRM are relatively high. As middle-income countries, their capability to effectively implement these technologies may be deficient; additionally, there is a risk of the unilateral implementation of certain technologies with uncertain implications in terms of their impacts on climate. This underscores the necessity for long term climate strategies that are context-specific and tailored to individual countries, while moreover emphasizing the imperative for extensive international collaboration, including through technological and financial transfers. Finally, strong international governance structures, especially in the context of SRM, are crucial to ensure a responsible approach towards these technologies.

Collaborative Real-World Evidence Among Regulators: Lessons and Perspectives.

The International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities (ICMRA), comprising 38 global medicines regulatory authorities, collaborates on shared challenges, notably during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article focuses on the ICMRA COVID-19 Real-World Evidence (RWE) and Observational Studies Working Group. The Working Group aimed to address challenges related to RWE and observational studies during the pandemic, resulting in impactful studies and ICMRA statements on international collaboration for RWE and COVID-19 vaccine safety. Reflecting on 3 years of collaboration, the Working Group surveyed members for insights, and recommendations were formulated to enhance research preparedness, collaboration, and response to future public health emergencies. The lessons learned highlight the importance of global collaborations, governance structures for rapid decision-making, and effective utilization of existing networks. Recommendations include the establishment of an international governance structure, a "coalition of the willing" for swift research collaboration, dedicated sub-groups, periodic workshops, common protocols, joint timelines, and data model templates, leveraging existing infrastructure, and strengthening outreach for transparency and engagement. The Working Group envisions repurposing into an RWE strategic and operational entity, contributing to global public health emergency response mechanisms. In conclusion, the Working Group's success lies in effective communication, collaborative research, and leveraging existing infrastructure, with ongoing contributions to global emergency response mechanisms.

Minilateralism and global governance: effectiveness of hybrid models

ABSTRACT The liberal world order is showing signs of disarray: two recent catastrophes in adjoining parts of the world (the Middle East and South Caucasus) have opened the fissures of the international governance gap; and the continuing ramifications of COVID-19 have already paralysed the world. On top of this post-pandemic disquietude, multiple conflicts this year are either in danger of precipitating or wars have already re-ignited over long-standing continuing conflicts, highlighting the failure of international governance institutions, including the UN system. In recent years, one of the central responses to the multilateral failures at multiple levels has been for states to form ‘narrower’ and ‘more flexible’ frameworks called ‘minilaterals’. Thus minilateralism has been contrasted through the lens of receding multilateralism, which has been a long-standing hallmark of the American-led liberal international order. This paper examines how far global governance would be dependent on minilateralism by exploring this growing trend in the Indo-Pacific and explores how minilateralism models can enhance international governance structures. This paper also attempts to analyse whether minilateralism is a product of regional fragmentation, or whether it can reinvigorate the comatose multilateralism. Then this paper posits that minilateralism helps rejig the chaotic multipolar order and thus re-invent global governance.

Building a Community with a Shared Future for Humanity: Promoting the Resolution of Economic Justice Issues in the International Context

Achieving economic justice remains a persistent value goal for humanity. Economic justice manifests itself in the disparities between individuals and has become a universal social concern. This implies that, from the perspective of the relationship between individuals and communities, we can examine and analyze the fundamental causes of economic justice and find contemporary approaches to addressing economic justice issues through the correct handling of the historical development path of the relationship between communities and individuals. The commitment to building a community with a shared future for humanity in the international community is a great innovation of the socialist ideology with Chinese characteristics in the new era. It aims to realize the common values of humanity in the new international governance structure. From the principles of consultation, joint construction, and shared benefits, the core issue of justice should be economic justice. Managing the relationship between the community with a shared future for humanity and various countries and regions is conducive to promoting the resolution of economic justice issues on the international stage.

Tackling the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies by making peace with nature 50 years after the Stockholm Conference

Today’s increasingly unequal and resource intensive development model degrades and surpasses Earth’s finite capacity to sustain human well-being. Society must restore this capacity and adapt to it without surrendering hard won development gains while also honoring the rightful aspirations of poorer nations and people to enjoy better living standards, according to the UNEP report “Making Peace with Nature”. This article presents findings from the report and reflections on how to take advantage of the 50 years of experience gained since the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. The interconnected environmental emergencies of climate change, loss of biodiversity and pollution need to be addressed together. International scientific assessments are providing the knowledge base for informed evidence-based decision-making, but none of the internationally agreed environmentally targets for climate and biodiversity have been met and the situation is becoming more dire with each passing year. Unless these issues are addressed in the next 5–10 years none of the 2030 sustainable development goals will be achieved. Human knowledge, ingenuity, technology and cooperation need to be mobilized in such an effort. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals provides a blueprint for the transformation. The international environmental governance structure needs to facilitate a system-wide cross-sectoral transformation of humankind's relationship with nature. Transformed economic, financial and productive systems can lead and power the shift to sustainability. Major shifts in investment and regulation are key to just and informed transformations that overcome inertia and opposition from vested interests. Government actions at all levels are needed together with strengthened actions by all actors in society and the next decade is critical.

Multilateral Cooperation on International Migration Governance in the Context of Community of Shared Human Destiny Based on Big Data Sharing

In view of the noise of the data collected by the traditional multilateral cooperation mode of international migration governance, which leads to the small value of the actual task completion degree of the final mode, this paper designs a multilateral cooperation mode of international migration governance under the background of the community of human destiny based on big data sharing. Taking the governance process as the guidance, the multilateral cooperation database of international migration governance is constructed. In the multi direction of development, we should rely on the background of the community of human destiny to set up the legal construction system. The middleware data sharing model is built on the model of international migration governance, and the multi-lateral cooperation model structure of international migration governance is created by using big data sharing technology. After building the big data sharing architecture, simulate and set the data group of multilateral cooperation mode, and prepare two traditional multilateral cooperation modes and the designed multilateral cooperation mode for experiment. The results show that the designed multilateral cooperation mode has the highest task completion degree.

P128: ITHANET: AN INFORMATION AND DATABASE COMMUNITY PORTAL FOR HAEMOGLOBINOPATHIES

Background: The ITHANET Portal (www.ithanet.eu) is an expanding, publicly available biomedical resource dedicated to haemoglobinopathies. It provides a manually curated, literature-derived collection of published genetic and epidemiological data, also integrating the latest updates on news, events, publications, clinical trials, funding opportunities, and many more. Methods: A team of expert biocurators is involved in the collection, validation and annotation of information with weekly updates on scientific literature collected from PubMed, while the curation strategy also involves the incorporation of new and updated information from existing public databases. ITHANET also accepts contributions to its content with acknowledgement of unpublished data in a specifically designed section. Results: The ITHANET Portal offers a wide range of curated databases, as follows: IthaGenes is a database that organises genes and variations affecting haemoglobinopathies and integrates the NCBI sequence viewer for detailed graphical representation of each variation. IthaMaps is a database that stores epidemiological information as documented in published literature and illustrates this information on a dynamic global to regional map for a total of over 196 countries. IthaChrom provides digitised reports of standard diagnostic high-performance liquid chromatography analyses as a reference tool for haemoglobinopathy diagnosis, allowing database searches of key data. IthaPhen is a database that demonstrates the correlations between genotype and phenotype and is a unique and powerful tool for clinicians and molecular geneticists Conclusions: The ITHANET Portal has a high-profile international governance structure and is already the most comprehensive knowledgebase on haemoglobinopathies. As an official partner of the Human Variome Project’s Global Globin Network, ITHANET has been selected for data storing, curation and sharing within and between countries, as well as for the development of a thalassaemia-specific genotype-phenotype database. In addition, ITHANET is coordinating an Hemoglobinopathy Variant Curation Expert Panel for haemoglobinopathy-specific variant classification under the Clinical Genome Resource.

Towards Globally Unique Identification of Physical Samples: Governance and Technical Implementation of the IGSN Global Sample Number

Persistent unique identifiers (PID) are a critical element in digital research data infrastructure to unambiguously identify, locate, and cite digital representations of a growing range of entities – publications, data, instruments, organizations, funding awards, field programs, and others. The IGSN was developed as the International Geo Sample Number to provide a persistent, globally unique, web resolvable identifier for physical samples. IGSN is both a governance and technical system for assigning globally unique persistent identifiers to physical samples. Even though initially developed for samples in the geosciences, the application of IGSN can be and has already been expanded to other domains that rely on physical samples and collections. This paper describes the current architecture and technical implementation of IGSN, how IGSN relates to other sample identifiers, and how its technical systems are supported by an international governance structure.

The private sector to the rescue? Analysis of a hypothetical scenario of SG deployment

As climate change risks become more severe, solar geoengineering (SG) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) are being considered more seriously as potential response options. However, these climate interventions do not fit completely into existing international governance structures. To grapple with and innovate proposed governance mechanisms that accommodate the associated technical, social, and environmental challenges, a scenario exercise took place at the 2019 International Geoengineering Summer School. The present paper summarizes and analyzes the experience working with one of the four hypothetical scenarios of geoengineering deployment, that titled “Private sector to the rescue?”. It describes SG deployment by a centralized non-state actor who also pursues CDR. The exercise revealed that early engagement of a wide range of stakeholders and open sharing of knowledge base are necessary to pursue a constructive international dialogue. First, the scenario directs a particular attention to the power limitations of state actors, suggesting the collaborative governance regime. Second, because governance is not exercised in a vacuum, it is crucial to consider a broader range of transnational challenges that may jeopardize even a thoroughly designed governance structure. Third, the exercise highlights the importance of an integrated view on climate policy response that recognizes interactions, trade-offs, and synergies between mitigation, adaptation, CDR, and SG.

Pandemic Governance

The COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented need for governance by a multiplicity of authorities. The nature of the pandemic—globally communicable, uncontrolled, and initially mysterious—required a coordinated response to a common problem. But the pandemic was superimposed atop our decentralized domestic and international governance structures, and the result was devastating: the United States has a death rate that is eighteenth highest in the world, and the pandemic has had dramatically unequal impacts across the country. COVID-19’s effects have been particularly destructive for communities of color, women, and intersectional populations.This Article finds order in the chaos of the pandemic response by distilling a typology for the predominant intergovernmental relationships that emerged. Two of these behaviors describe intergovernmental conflict. Governments undermined each other by destabilizing and criticizing each other’s actions. They did so at all levels: up (when local governments undermined states), down (when the federal government undermined states), and across (when the federal government undermined itself). Governments abdicated responsibility when they failed to act. Two additional behaviors describe intergovernmental coordination. Governments collaborated when they actively worked together, both vertically and horizontally, to harmonize their policies. And they engaged in bandwagoning when they avoided taking initiative in making pandemic policy, opting instead to follow the leads of others. We argue that these behaviors were the predictable result of well-worn structural and political dynamics. Structurally, pandemic policy lies uncomfortably on two poles of the federal-state division of responsibilities. Ambiguous hierarchies and overlapping roles pushed governments toward conflict rather than coordination. Politically, intense partisanship transformed nearly every governance decision into symbolic, two-sided national battles. These battles provided a default set of relationships that became organizing principles for the pandemic response. We use these insights to sketch the contours of a way forward. To address the role confusion that arose from our multi-sovereigned system of governance, we propose a federal pandemic statute that emphasizes and balances role clarity, state independence, and explicit governmental action that disrupts inequality. To lessen the pull of partisanship, we advocate for the creation of decentralized but inclusive subject-matter networks among international, federal, state, and local authorities.

Evaluating trends and stakeholders in the international drug control regime complex

This article examines the recent trends in international, in particular multilateral, drug policy and the implications of these changes for shifting alignments and coalitions of actors and stakeholders. It places these changes in the context of the system's historical developments and applies previously unutilised analyses of other international governance structures. It suggests that the the international drug control system is undergoing a long-term process of fragmentation and evolution towards a ‘regime complex’. In the short to medium term it suggests that exogenous challenges to the system remain somewhat limited. This is due to institutional battles over issue suzerainty and a limited funding incentive for other agencies to become involved. Instead, endogenous challenges and changes within the system represent the main avenues of adaptation. It continues on to suggest that in the longer term these endogenous changes will encourage and accelerate exogenous interactions with the system from other regimes and issue areas and thereby expand the terrain for cross-issue and cross-sectoral engagements. Thus, the short to medium term trends within drug control, while in some cases appearing to be in stasis or moving backwards, continue the overarching trend of regime fragmentation and shifting into an archetypal regime complex.

The International Anti-doping Movement and the Council of Europe: An Unexamined Influence

This study explains how the Council of Europe (CE) influenced the international anti-doping movement from the 1960s until the establishment of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in 1999. As a European regional intergovernmental organization, the CE endeavored to cultivate a unified Europe by guiding countries in harmonizing their laws and by facilitating cultural exchanges. This mission led the CE to recruit sport as a tool for cultural exchange and to in turn enact anti-doping legislation. Moreover, given its structure, the CE’s work in anti-doping took the form of harmonized international legislation that helped lay the foundations for an international anti-doping movement. Ultimately, the CE’s work served as a touchstone for many sport organizations, especially the International Olympic Committee and its efforts to manage doping in elite sport. This kind of involvement, including collaboration in the setup of WADA in 1999, makes a plausible case to consider the CE a main, rather than periphery, player in anti-doping history and one of the greater influencers regarding the international anti-doping governance structure and legislation.

542 Lessons Learned from Implementation and Management of Skin Allograft Banking Programs in Low- and Middle-income Countries: A Systematic Review

Abstract Introduction Wound excision and temporary coverage with a biologic dressing can improve survival for patients with large burns. Allograft skin possesses many of the ideal properties of biologic dressings and can play a major role in the management of large burns when autologous tissue is not available or the patient’s condition does not allow safe autografting. Healthcare systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) rarely have access to allografts, which may contribute to limited survival in large burns. Therefore, we aimed to describe the lessons learned from the implementation and maintenance of tissue banks in LMICs to guide system planning. Methods PubMed, MEDLINE, CINAHL, and World Health Organization (WHO) Catalog were systematically searched with database-specific headings and language to represent a priori terms (e.g., skin, allograft, tissue bank) and all LMICs as defined by The World Bank. Data regarding tissue banking programs (e.g., date of creation, location, lead agency, functions, products), governance, capital investments, safety, maintenance and operations, costs per donation, ethics and sociocultural issues were extracted and described in a narrative synthesis. Results The search returned 3,346 records. After eliminating duplicates and non-relevant records, 33 reports were analyzed. The synthesis represented tissue banks from 17 countries. Commonly reported barriers to ideal or planned implementation included high capital costs and operational costs per graft, opt-in donation schemes, and sociocultural stigma around donation and grafting. Reports repeatedly recommended: i) developing a legal framework for oversight, accreditation and ethical practice; ii) engaging diverse stakeholders (e.g., government and non-governmental agencies, community and religious stakeholders, health officials) to improve donation and transplantation rates, iii) creating regional training hubs, and iv) facilitating international cooperation across tissue banking programs to improve transplantation efficiency. Conclusions Many lessons were learned from the development and management of tissue banks around the world. The availability of skin allografts can be improved through strategic investments in international governance and regulatory structures, regional cooperation and training initiatives, standardized protocols, and inclusive public awareness campaigns. Capacity-building efforts that involve key stakeholders may increase rates of transplantations. Applicability of Research to Practice Ubiquitous challenges in implementing and maintaining tissue banks represent important lessons in program planning to improve allograft availability for patients in countries of all national income levels.

The Untold History of the United Nations, the US State Department, and Organized Interests in the Postwar Era

ABSTRACTIn 1945, a vast range of US civic organizations and other groups were mobilized into a state-sanctioned campaign on behalf of a new international governance structure: the United Nations. This was a novel collaboration, one that demonstrated the State Department’s acknowledgment of the value of civic activity and organized interests to securing foreign policy goals and that positioned US groups to assert an independent role in shaping the formal institutions of the United Nations. While scholars of American political development (APD) have tentatively embraced the notion that international institutions matter to American politics, past research on mid-twentieth century interests, conventionally focused on domestic business and trade associations, has underappreciated how and why the United Nations marked an important movement for interest development. Of particular significance, US voluntary and civic organizations were instrumental in securing a role for nongovernmental organizations in the UN Economic and Security Council, thereby further linking American and international politics and reshaping state-society relationships. In brief, this article argues that the State Department’s campaign to mobilize public support around the United Nations, as well as the creation of the United Nations, generated new incentives for the maintenance and mobilization of existing groups and subsidized the formation of new groups.

The fire this time: Grenfell, racial capitalism and the urbanisation of empire

Over the last few years, an emergent body of International Relations scholarship has taken an interest in the rise of global cities and the challenges they bring to existing geographies of power. In this article, I argue that a focus on race and empire should be central to this literature. Using the Grenfell Tower fire in London as a starting point, the article shows that global cities are part of a historical and ongoing imperial terrain. From London to New York, São Paulo to Cape Town, Singapore to Cairo, the ‘making’ of global cities has typically gone hand in hand with racialized forms of displacement, dispossession and police violence. Drawing on the literature on racial capitalism, as well as Aimé Césaire’s image of the ‘boomerang’, I show that these strategies build on practices of urban planning, slum administration and law-and-order policing long experimented with in the (post)colonies. By examining the colonial dimensions of what many assume to be a strictly national problem for the welfare state, the article thus reveals global cities as part of a much wider cartography of imperial and racial violence. This not only calls into question the presentism of scholarship that highlights the ‘newness’ of neoliberal urbanism. In demonstrating how global cities and colonial borderlands are bound together through racial capitalism, it also exposes the positionality of scholars and policymakers that seek to counter the violence of neoliberalism with a nostalgic return to the post-1945 welfare state. As the Grenfell fire revealed, the global city is less a new type of international actor or governance structure than an extension and reconfiguration of the domestic space of empire.

Can the state take agroecology to scale? Public policy experiences in agroecological territorialization from Latin America

ABSTRACTIn this article we use a food sovereignty frame to analyze the role of the State in favoring agroecological scaling, particularly in Cuba and in the Latin American countries that elected leftist governments in the first years of the 21st century and currently face an upsurge of right-wing political forces. As with social movement participation in international governance structures, at the national level social movements face risks when they allow themselves to become absorbed in collaborations with the State in order to build public policy for taking agroecology to scale. By participating in the institutionalization of agroecology, movements become part of the established rules of the game, having to move within limits defined by a system that exists to preserve the interests of the dominant class. On the other hand, by boycotting the arena of governance, agroecological movements allow resurgent political and economic elites to grab land, territories and resources needed for agroecological food systems to ever become a global substitute for industrial agriculture. At the heart of the matter is the political character of agroecology: shall we continue betting on reform, in times of (counter) revolution?

OC-8723 CREATING AND ENHANCING TRUSTWORTHY, RESPONSIBLE AND EQUITABLE PARTNERSHIPS IN INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH

Achieving equity in international research remains a crucial concern of the 21st century. Despite initiatives by international organisations on governance frameworks and standards to guide research conduct, such efforts remain disparate and lack focus. In an interdisciplinary collaboration between multi-level ethics bodies, policy-advisors, civil society, funders, industry and academic scholars, the TRUST project combines long-standing, highly respected efforts to establish international governance structures along with networking opportunities between Europe, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.The goal of TRUST is to catalyse a collaborative effort to improve adherence to high ethical standards in global research. The strategic outputs of the project encompass a set of ethics tools developed through participatory engagement traversing all continents: (i) a global code of conduct for funders, (ii) a fair research contracting web-tool (iii) and a compliance and ethics follow-up tool.Since project inception in October 2015, the TRUST consortium has a) created an international network on global research ethics governance to identify generic risks of exporting non-ethical practices; b) established funder and industry platforms; c) identified typical case studies of exporting non-ethical practices and reported on lessons learnt; d) developed a global code of conduct that will be used by the European Commission and like-minded funders to foster ethical research and equitable partnerships; e) designed an online Fair Research Contracting tool to empower vulnerable populations under non-ideal conditions; and f) drafted a compliance and ethics follow-up tool, for conditions of high vulnerability.TRUST envisages to make a tremendous impact on three major issues: a) enhancing the rights of indigenous people who have borne a disproportionate burden of research whilst being potentially highly vulnerable to exploitation; b) increasing civil society engagement and improving uptake of the ethics dimension in research and innovation; and c) improving global awareness of the highest ethical standards along with clear, defined incentives for research competitiveness.

Eastphalia Revisited: The Potential Contribution of Eastphalia to Post‐Westphalian Possibilities

The rise of Asia in world politics has been inviting heated questions about what implications Asian countries may have for international law and global governance. Whether it will be a blessing or a curse, Asian countries are requested to take their positions toward post‐Westphalian possibilities. Once the main target of Western imperialism and colonialism, Asian countries have been waiting a considerable amount of time to mark their distinctive voices in world politics. With material capabilities, such as rapid economic growth and cutting‐edge technologies, Asian countries attempt to shape international governance structure according to their interests, ideologies, and philosophies. In this course, Eastphalia, which is suggested as an alternative governance system to supplant the Westphalian system, is strongly advocated by powerful Asian countries, including China. However, it is not desirable to understand that Eastphalia only stresses the interests of Asian countries and peoples. Eastphalia is not coined for the interests of Asian countries and peoples only. To the contrary, Eastphalia is crafted to inform Asian countries of what path should be taken to materialize post‐Westphalian possibilities. The successful transition from Westphalia to Eastphalia ultimately depends on whether Eastphalia could actively reflect post‐Westphalian possibilities, especially protection and promotion of human rights under the idea of human security.

Climate-related displacements of coastal communities in the Arctic: Engaging traditional knowledge in adaptation strategies and policies

Climate change impacts lead to alterations in migration patterns and the displacement of exposed native communities and peoples in the Arctic region, forcing them to leave their homes and traditional ways of life as a result of rapid local ecological changes. This paper illustrates climate-related displacements and subsequent relocation as extremely complex processes, and proposes traditional knowledge as a relevant source of knowledge both at local level and policy making spheres.The main conclusions are that the representation of indigenous peoples in international governance structures does not guarantee that traditional knowledge is entirely engaged in evidence-based policy making and that traditional knowledge is not always valued as an equal source of knowledge by some relevant scientific bodies. In this context, changing the approach towards a knowledge-systems-based framework would contribute to the development of more concrete policies and strategies for adaptation of Arctic native communities.

Accountability Challenges in the Transnational Regime Complex for Climate Change

AbstractThis article discusses challenges to accountability in the context of transnational climate governance. It argues that the emergence of a distinct transnational regime complex and the increasingly integrated structure of international and transnational climate governance create new challenges for using established analytical frameworks that rely on accountability regimes for individual actor types. Instead, studying accountability requires a system‐level conceptualization and a revisiting of accountability regimes, taking diversity and networked governance structures into account. Using data from the CONNECT‐project on the transnational regime complex for climate change, the article uses a framework of six elements of an accountability regime to identify three overarching accountability challenges. First, the expanding borders of the transnational regime complex for climate change are starting to shift accountability from the multilateral level (the UNFCCC) to a networked and more intricate structure. Second, transparency, monitoring, and reporting remain an urgent challenge despite a rapidly increasing flow of data and repositories in particular concerning ex‐post impacts. Third, the availability and utility of sanctions are poorly understood in the context of transnational climate governance.