Peer2Politics

While much of the momentum to fight climate change is focused on political channels, there are parallel efforts using law to force government to take specific, enforceable actions to reduce carbon emissions. It’s a difficult battle, but in recent weeks two notable initiatives have gained further momentum – a court ruling relying on the public trust doctrine and a new human rights declaration that has broad international support.

Few commentators have mentioned that the Volkswagen scandal would not have happened if the software for the pollution-control equipment had been open source

Here’s a very special treat. Originally published on Guerrilla Translation, Movimiento por la Democracia´s “Charter for Democracy” stands out as premier example of citizen-led solution making to the various crises we face. It is a constitution for the commons written by commons.

Another exceptional essay by Richard White. I really like the way he doesn’t shy away from the huge problems we face, yet he doesn’t sink into narcissistic doomer-ism that affects many authors delving into similar subjects. The original essay is quite long but thoroughly documented. We’ve selected a short segment on what he feels needs to be done. It would be really interesting to hold a conversation with him about some of the ideas we document and promote at the Foundation as concrete means to realise some of these proposals.

Hard hitting commentary from Chris Hedges on the futility of appealing to corporate-bought regulatory agencies and bodies.

The idea of POC21 is to invent inexpensive, modular household devices, farm tools and energy systems that can be replicated cheaply and shared by anyone.

Common wealth trusts address the two greatest flaws in contemporary capitalism—its relentless destruction of nature and widening of inequality.

Indigeneity is an unusual way to think about International Relations (IR). Most studies of world politics ignore Indigenous perspectives, which are rarely treated as relevant to thinking about the international (Shaw 2008; Beier 2009). Yet Indigenous peoples are engaging in world politics with a dynamism and creativity that defies the silences of our discipline (Morgan 2011). In Latin America, Indigenous politics has gained international legitimacy, influencing policy for over two decades (Cott 2008; Madrid 2012). Now, Indigenous political movements are focused on resisting extractive projects on autonomous territory from the Arctic to the Amazon (Banerjee 2012; Sawyer and Gómez 2012). Resistance has led to large mobilized protests, invoked international law, and enabled alternative mechanisms of authority. In response, governments have been busy criminalizing Indigenous claims to consultation that challenge extractive models of development. Indigenous opposition to extractivism ultimately promotes self-determination rights, questioning the states’ authority over land by placing its sovereignty into historical context. In that sense, Indigeneity is a valuable approach to understanding world politics as much as it is a critical concept to move beyond state-centrism in the study of IR.