With the award of the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize to the antinuclear group Nihon Hidankyo and discussion of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, this is a fitting time to discuss the arguments for and against the abolition of nuclear weapons. Florian Eblenkamp, Advocacy Officer of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and Jack Cunningham, Program Coordinator of the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History offer contending perspectives, followed by a Q&A and general discussion.
On November 25th, Dr. Eboe-Osuji and Prof. Orange will discuss the concept of immunity within International law and the issue of holding heads of state accountable for war crimes, genocide, and other crimes against humanity.
This book traces the history of Canadian foreign policy from a time when positioning Canada First meant shunning international obligations to today. It highlights key decisions taken and not taken in Ottawa that have shaped Canadians' safety, security, and prosperity over the last one hundred years. Case studies focused on environmental reform, Indigenous peoples, trade, hostage diplomacy, and wartime strategy illustrate the breadth of issues that shape contemporary Canada's global realm.
Dr. Sundeep Waslekar will argue that we live in the most dangerous epoch in the history of human civilization. With the fires spreading in Ukraine, the Middle East, Africa, and East Asia, and an escalating arms race in killer robots, hypersonic missiles, and deadly pathogens, is the world sleep walking into a global catastrophic war that will annihilate the human race? He will then proceed to propose a global social contract, a blueprint for multilateral reform, and a framework for reorienting global governance which will enable a paradigm shift to make lasting peace a reality.
The 25th anniversary of the arrival of Kosovar Albanians to Canada and Canada’s military and diplomatic involvement in Kosovo presents a special opportunity to revisit Canada’s unique humanitarian undertaking in 1999. To commemorate this event, a two-day symposium will be held which will bring together academics, immigration officials, policymakers, politicians, private citizens, representatives from aid organizations, as well as members of the Kosovar Albanian community.
Canada’s longest war (2001-2014) pushed military, diplomatic, development and humanitarian organizations to their limits. Was it all in vain?
Based on interviews with twenty-one key decision-makers and participants, many of whom are speaking publicly for the first time, Unwinnable Peace recounts the personal and professional challenges faced by individuals deeply committed to securing and rebuilding Kandahar province.
You’re invited to the Annual Couchiching Conference on October 8-9, 2024 at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, Ontario in the beautiful Nanji Family Foundation Auditorium.
The Couchiching Conference, co-hosted by the Canadian International Council (CIC) and in partnership with the Aga Khan Museum, aims to foster an inclusive dialogue on the evolving role of diplomacy on the international stage. This event will provide a platform for citizens, journalists, academics, and students to engage in meaningful discussions on international affairs, reflecting our shared mission to give Canadians a voice in global matters.
In Disruption, Michael De Groot argues that the global economic upheaval of the 1970s was decisive in ending the Cold War. Both the West and the Soviet bloc struggled with the slowdown of economic growth; chaos in the international monetary system; inflation; shocks in the commodities markets; and the emergence of offshore financial markets. The superpowers had previously disseminated resources to their allies to enhance their own national security, but the disappearance of postwar conditions during the 1970s forced Washington and Moscow to choose between promoting their own economic interests and supporting their partners in Europe and Asia.
Join us on September 18th from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM at the Munk School (University of Toronto) for an in-depth exploration of the ongoing challenges and emerging threats in Afghanistan, three years after the Taliban's return to power. This event will feature two comprehensive sessions, each focusing on critical themes and featuring distinguished speakers.
What is the state of the World's largest democracy in the time of Narendra Modi and BJP rule? What can we expect after the current Indian general elections? Eminent political scientist and former Assistant Secretary General of the UN Ramesh Thakur and longtime Toronto Star editorial editor Haroon Siddiqui discuss these questions in the Trinity College Combination Room, on August 17, 4-6 pm.
War, Work & Want asks why global migration, which should have fallen after 1970, tripled over the next fifty years.
Hansen argues that the OPEC oil crisis unleashed economic and geopolitical changes that led to over 100 million unexpected migrants. The quadrupling of oil prices permanently halved economic growth in the West, leading to a five-decade stagnation in wages.
The middle classes responded by rebuilding their inflation-shattered standards of living on the back of cheap migrant labour, leading to millions of low-skilled migrants – documented and undocumented.
About the Event
George S. Takach will discuss some of the key themes of his new book, including: what it means for the democracies and the autocracies to be in a cold war, especially one that is technologically driven; why the democracies do technology and innovation better than the autocracies; and what the democracies have to do to leverage their edge in technology and innovation in order to prevail in Cold War 2.0.
Helen Clark was Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1999-2008, and has also been Administrator of the United Nations Development Program and Chair of the United Nations Development Group. She is Chair of the Global Leadership Foundation, and a member of The Elders, a group of former political leaders founded by Nelson Mandela in 2007. She has extensive experience in issues of development, sustainability, and the promotion of democracy.
Helen Clark will be introduced by the Rt. Hon. Joe Clark, former Canadian Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Minister of Constitutional Affairs.
On December 6, 2023, the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade released a report, "More than a Vocation: Canada's Need for a 21st Century Foreign Service", the first substantive examination of the Canadian foreign service since 1981. Join Committee chair Sen. Peter M. Boehm for a discussion of the report, and the challenges confronting Canada's foreign service as it deals with an increasingly troubled world.
Political Scientist Andrew F. Cooper discusses his forthcoming book, The Contestation Impulse in World Politics.
This book unravels the centrality of contestation over international institutions under the shadow of crisis. Breaking with the widely accepted image in the mainstream, US-centric literature of an advance of global governance supported by pillars of institutionalized formality, Andrew F. Cooper points to the retention of a habitual impulse towards concertation related to informal institutionalism.
The International Legal Order's Colour Line (Oxford UP, 2023) narrates this divide and charts the development of regulation on racism and racial discrimination at the international level, principally within the United Nations. Most notably, it outlines how these themes gained traction once the Global South gained more participation in international law-making after the First World War. It challenges the narrative that human rights are a creation of the Global North by focussing on the decisive contributions that countries of the Global South and people of colour made to anchor anti-racism in international law. The International Legal Order's Colour Line provides a comprehensive history and compelling new approach to the history of human rights law.
What does it mean to live beside an eroding democracy? As this powerful and timely book argues, that question will define the next generation of Canadian politics.
As a congressional staffer in the United States, Rob Goodman watched firsthand as a rising authoritarian movement disenfranchised voters, sabotaged institutions, and brought America to the brink of a coup. Now, as a political theorist who makes his home in Canada, he has an urgent warning for his adopted country: The same forces that have upended democracy in America and around the world are on the move in Canada, too. But we can protect our democracy by drawing on a set of political, cultural, and historical resources that are distinctly of this place.
Can history help us to understand the disastrous state of Russia’s relations with the West in 2023? Leigh Sarty suggests that it can, drawing on his experience as a student, a scholar, and a diplomat over more than four decades to describe some of the key turning points and deeper structural forces that make contemporary Putinism more intelligible.
In this symposium, a distinguished group of speakers will offer their insights about global challenges and potential solutions in the domains of international security, economic relations, and societal transformation. The symposium will consider the role that Japan, Canada, and the United States can play along with other G7 partners in confronting global challenges, building on the progress of the Hiroshima G7 meeting in May 2023.
The Graham Centre brings together leading experts on NORAD to discuss the past, present, and future of this unique institution.
A discussion of potential solutions to the challenges of accessing historic records via Canada’s current Access to Information system.
This event is presented by the Canadian Foreign Intelligence History Project (https://www.csids.ca/canadian-foreign-intelligence-policy-project).
Natural Allies looks at the history of US-Canada relations through an environmental lens. From fisheries in the late nineteenth century to oil pipelines in the twenty-first century, Daniel Macfarlane recounts the scores of transborder environmental and energy arrangements made between the two nations. Many became global precedents that influenced international environmental law, governance, and politics, including the Boundary Waters Treaty, the Trail Smelter case, hydroelectric megaprojects, and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreements. In addition to water, fish, wood, minerals, and myriad other resources, Natural Allies details the history of the continental energy relationship - from electricity to uranium to fossil fuels -showing how Canada became vital to American strategic interests and, along with the United States, a major international energy power and petro-state.
Canada must prepare for an isolationist and unpredictable neighbour to the South should a MAGA leader gain the White House in 2025.
The American-led global order has been increasingly challenged by Chinese assertiveness and Russian revanchism. As we enter this new era of great-power competition, Canadians tend to assume that the United States will continue to provide global leadership for the West.
Dr. Winthrop Bell, University of Toronto philosophy professor and British secret agent A12, may be best known for sounding the first intelligence warning against the Nazi plot for World War II in 1919, and the earliest public warning against Hitler’s plan for the Holocaust in 1939. Yet, defeating Nazi evil was, for Bell, simply a precursor to establishing a just post-war peace, one that would allow friendship and mutual profit for both victor and vanquished.
What was the historical importance of his intelligence work? What is its relevance today? With his papers finally declassified, we can reflect on its relevance for today’s scholars and policymakers who are interested in international relations and Canada’s role in the defense of Europe.
