International Organisations

The author of this opinion, Joana Ama Osei-Tutu, is a 2017 alumna of the Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders Program.South-South cooperation (SSC) is often presented as an alternative to the hierarchical relationships that have historically characterized international development. In principle, SSC means Global South countries learn from one another, share expertise and resources, and develop solutions grounded in their own experiences, rather than importing models designe ...

This Paper was originally published on cgdev.org. Escalatory attacks on multilateral rules and institutions in this era of raw power politics have plunged international politics into uncharted territory. Traditional alliances have been fractured and new partnerships between unlikely bedfellows are emerging. No longer in transition, the post-World War II world order is in rupture. This paper examines international cooperation under these conditions and argues that a new "flexi-l ...

The next Secretary-General should begin with an act of institutional rebellion: refuse to become the Secretary-General ofeverything. Over three decades the office's political and administrative reach has spread across sustainable development, climate, health, migration, digital governance, financing, gender, food systems, and a still-growing list of global priorities. These issues are not unimportant; the trouble is that institutional ambition has simply outrun institutional capabil ...

Predictions of American decline have become increasingly prevalent. The United States has run persistent trade deficits for decades, but its public debt now exceeds its annual economic output. Meanwhile, and new centers of industrial and technological power continue to emerge across Asia. Yet despite these developments, no country has so far replaced the United States as the main organizing power of the international economy. Conventional explanations explain this in terms of U.S. m ...

The Resolution adopted by an overwhelming majority of elected European officials in Strasbourg on June 10, 2021, on "the violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the exploitation of minors by the authorities in the migration crisis in Ceuta" (2021/2747/RSP), could not fail to leave its mark.Decoding the ResolutionThe Resolution shocked Moroccans to such an extent that it was quickly set aside at the time, as if there were a wish to forget it as fast as possible. ...

The Mecca Agreement: A First Step Towards a New Regional Security Architecture? On 7 August, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan signed the Mecca Agreement, a trilateral defense pact aimed at strengthening collective security and defense cooperation between the three countries. At its core lies a collective defense commitment under which an attack on one member is considered an attack on all three. While many details concerning its practical implementation remain unclear, the agreeme ...

THE END OF AN ERAThe US-Israeli war on Iran, a 'little excursion' envisaged to be over within a matter of weeks, has entered its fourth month. Shock waves ripple across the globe. This war is just one in a series of recent crises which have fractured the international community, making the decades of the 2020's among the most disruptive in recent history. Each crisis compounds the deleterious effects of those which came before. The war in Iran is no exception. It abruptly stalled ec ...

Is Europe Prepared for War?European public opinion is moving from treating a major conflict as unthinkable to regarding it as a possibility for which governments must prepare. Attention is increasingly focused on Russian hybrid operations, vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure and the risk of fragmentation within NATO. European defence policy is consequently undergoing a rapid transition from post-Cold War complacency towards preparations for high-intensity warfare. Recent ...

We Are Watching You In April 2026, the UK Ministry of Defence revealed that it had tracked a covert Russian submarine operation apparently intended to map critical undersea cables and pipelines in the North Atlantic and the North Sea. A Russian attack submarine and two specialised intelligence vessels operated by the Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research, commonly known as GUGI, were reportedly monitored for four weeks by the Royal Navy, including HMS St Albans and P-8 Poseidon ...

For much of the post-war period, the Global South was framed as an object of history, defined by dependency, constrained by structural asymmetries, and confined to the margins of global decision-making. That narrative, once empirically grounded, is now no longer adequate. A profound yet uneven transformation is underway. The Global South is no longer only reacting; it is increasingly shaping rules, institutions, and narratives.This Policy Brief argues that the Global South is thus t ...

For a long time, security in the Sahel relied on Western military deployments, which failed to curb the jihadist threat, thereby demonstrating the limitations of a cooperation model based on logistical and doctrinal dependence on foreign partners. The three Sahelian states have decided to break away from this system and build“integrated security sovereignty.” This approach has taken hold against a backdrop of openness to new partners. Russia has thus established itself as the main m ...

We take the 2026 G7 Summit in Évian-les-Bains as a case study for understanding how a leading existing multilateral organisation adapts to a more fragmented, technologically inflected, and multipolar world. We argue that the significance of Évian lies less in the summit agreements themselves than in what the summit reveals: a qualitative shift in governance away from exclusive summit diplomacy and towards more selective coalition-building, broader engagement with non-state actors, a ...

Three years after the adoption of the first National Action Plan (NAP) on the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda, Morocco has made real institutional progress, but implementation is still inadequate. The extension of the NAP opens a window of opportunity to prepare a second, more ambitious and operational cycle.This Policy Brief identifies four persistent obstacles: a virtually stagnant female employment rate of 19.1%, less than 3% female representation in peacekeeping contingen ...

L’Organisation pour la coopération et le développement économiques (OCDE), forte de 38 membres, a longtemps fait figure d’Organisation regroupant les « démocraties industrielles développées ». Cette image n’est plus vraie, du fait de l’adhésion en son sein de pays, qualifiés jadis en développement, et que l’on considère souvent comme faisant partie du « Sud global ». C’est ainsi que l’ont intégrée : le Mexique (1994), qui lui a donné un Secrétaire général, Angel Gurria, la Corée du ...

Pendant longtemps, la sécurité du Sahel reposait sur les dispositifs militaires occidentaux qui ne sont pas parvenus à juguler la menace jihadiste, démontrant ainsi les limites d’un modèle de coopération fondé sur la dépendance logistique et doctrinale envers les partenaires étrangers. Les trois États sahéliens ont décidé de rompre avec ce système et de construire « une souveraineté sécuritaire intégrée » Cette orientation s’est affirmée dans un contexte d’ouverture à de nouvea ...

The International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) 2025 advisory opinion on climate change marks a significant expansion of international law into the governance of global public goods. By framing climate inaction as a potential violation of international law and human rights, the Court advances a progressive legal agenda that extends beyond existing political consensus and enforcement capacity. This article develops a realist critique of the ruling that avoids both legal romanticism and ni ...

Trois ans après l'adoption du premier Plan d'Action National (PAN) sur l'Agenda Femmes, Paix et Sécurité (FPS), le Maroc affiche des avancées institutionnelles réelles mais une mise en œuvre encore insuffisante. L'extension du PAN ouvre une fenêtre d'opportunité pour préparer un second cycle plus ambitieux et opérationnel.Ce Policy Brief identifie quatre obstacles persistants : un taux d'activité féminine de 19,1% en quasi-stagnation, une représentation des femmes inférieure à 3% da ...

This essay examines the establishment of the Board of Peace as a test case in contemporary peace governance and hegemonic experimentation. While the Board, politically activated in early 2026 and formally anchored in a resolution of the United Nations Security Council, benefits from derivative legality under the UN Charter, its legal foundation remains constitutionally fragile, its mandate ambiguously constrained, and its accountability architecture underdeveloped, notwithstand ...