Dr Georgios Kostakosis Executive Director of the Brussels-based Foundation for Global Governance and Sustainability (FOGGS). He has been extensively involved in global governance, sustainability and climate-related activities with the United Nations and beyond. The starting point for the work of FOGGS is the need for a new Grand Narrative for a fair, human-centred and inclusive globalization. One of its projects is the UN2100 Initiativefor UN reform, which includes the proposal to establish a Global Resilience Council to effectively address non-military threats to human security like climate change and pandemics.
The news about the United States spying on United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and his deputy, Amina Mohammed, revealed dissatisfaction in leaked US intelligence documents over Guterres’s perceived lack of toughness regarding the Russians and their invasion of Ukraine in 2022. One would expect the Russians, undoubtedly also spying on Guterres, to have different views, annoyed by…
When in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Francis Fukuyama evangelized “the end of history,” he did it in the context of a widely held belief that the collapse of Communism and the victory of Liberal Democracy was a major milestone in human evolution. Beyond the end of the Cold War, this was supposed to…
September 2023 is forecast to be heavy in summiteering, as already two summits and a ministerial meeting are scheduled to take place in the space of a few days, around the high-level “UN Week”, namely: an SDG Summit, another Climate Summit, and a Ministerial Meeting in preparation of the September 2024 Summit of the Future….
Whom to call when you want to talk to Europe was the famous question attributed to Henry Kissinger that pointed to the lack of a central node of international contact and decision-making in the European integration project. The question remained unanswered for decades, despite earnest efforts to provide a credible answer, notably with the establishment…
By Tapio Kanninen and Georgios Kostakos* After the Russian invasion of Ukraine that started on 24 February 2022, the world was horrified at the prospect of a new major war in Europe. Condemnation for the invasion rightly goes to President Vladimir Putin of Russia. An overblown Western reaction, though, may have dangerous consequences for the…
As the war in Ukraine approaches the one-month mark – (the Russian invasion started on 24 February 2022) – and in view of the escalating destruction and human suffering, plus the potential for a wider confrontation and even nuclear war, the need to put an end to it becomes ever more urgent. This article looks…
The images of residential blocks hit by Russian missiles or artillery fire in Kiev, Kharkiv and other Ukrainian cities brought back memories of similar scenes from cities in Syria some years ago. Initially, it was news that something like that had happened. Then it became a commonplace, the lines of who did it – the…
This is a republished version of the original article published on EuroNews, which you can access here. As we slowly exit pandemic lockdown mode – at least those of us who are fully vaccinated and till the Delta and/or other COVID-19 variant submerge our health systems with new cases – it is good to take…
This article was originally published on Passblue and can be accessed by clicking here. Covid-19 has pretty much shut down important negotiations at the United Nations, ranging from climate change to biodiversity. The General Assembly has not been able to meet as a group physically, but Security Council meetings have migrated online, with the Secretariat…
While the fight to cope with the lethal effects of COVID-19 on people and the economy is continuing around the world, another kind of fight is also raging, for geo-political predominance between the world’s foremost powers. In this fight of the titans, the ‘little guys’ are paying the price, be it the individuals that suffer…
