Policy Briefs

This policy brief suggest that the Arctic Council’s member states should welcome East Asian states as observers to enmesh them into “Arctic” ways of thinking.

The need for stronger surveillance and better foresight in financial governance was made clear during the global financial crisis. In 2009, the Group of Twenty sought to bolster these by initiating the semi-annual early warning exercise.

A free trade agreement between the United States and the European Union is finally moving closer to reality. While significant challenges remain, strong support in both markets has dramatically improved the likelihood of the deal’s success, shaking the lull created by the demise of the Doha Development Round.

The Canadian government, after a decade of neglect, is prepared to re-engage East Asia, particularly China. Through maritime defence and cooperation endeavours, Canada’s re-engagement efforts could improve the region’s strategic stability and foster economic growth. Including maritime diplomacy on its economically oriented regional re-engagement strategy would signal that Canada is making a determined return to the region, building the reputation it will need to become a member of East Asia’s premier institutions, and, eventually, create closer economic ties with East Asia. Maritime diplomacy is essential to Canada’s broader regional strategy.

As the Arctic Ocean’s sea ice continues to melt, developing the North American Arctic’s marine, resource and community potential is a clear imperative for both Canada and the United States. Such development will require an intense and focused effort in multi-level domestic and binational governance.

Fifty years after the Cuban missile crisis, there is a deep appreciation of how close the world came to Armageddon in 1962 and this policy brief argues that this close call is the prerequisite for moving towards zero nuclear weapons. Drawing on a quarter century of research on the Cuban missile crisis, James G. Blight and janet M. Lang suggest that existing global governance mechanisms are more than capable of reaching zero nuclear weapons, if empowered to do so by the international community.

Social media played a central and celebrated role in the uprisings that took place in the Arab world in 2011, facilitating the organization and coordination of popular resistance to dictatorial regimes in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. The use of social media channels to popularize and concentrate resistance was made possible, in part, by the recent growth of the information and communications technology (ICT) sector in the region. While the lack of economic growth, job opportunities and political agency were fundamental driving forces behind the Arab revolutions, ICT and social media were critical tools that helped transform the deep-seated discontent into a widespread social movement.

The importance of providing clean, safe drinking water and sanitation to rural inhabitants of developing countries is widely recognized; inadequate access to safe drinking water and sanitation has direct and immediate consequences for quality of life, food security, long-term socio-economic development and the eradication of poverty.

On June 27, 2012, Queen Elizabeth II shook the hand of Martin McGuinness, a former Irish Republican Army commander, symbolically solidifying the long peace process that had sought to resolve the Troubles of Northern Ireland. This historic gesture illustrates that even the most ideologically heated and intractable conflicts can be resolved.

The 2007–2009 global financial crisis demonstrated that the world required a much stronger framework for cooperation on financial and economic issues. In September 2009, G20 heads of state responded to this need at the Pittsburgh G20 Summit with the “Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth.” The Mutual Assessment Process (MAP) was created to both monitor and support G20 countries in their follow-through on commitments made under the Framework.