Research and Publications

The impacts of climate change are pervasive across the biosphere, stressing virtually all biotic kingdoms and supporting habitats. Contemporary lifeforms respond to climate stress and are early sentinels of how the biosphere could evolve over the longer term. Our capacity to detect biostress has improved markedly with new genetic, biochemical, and biogeochemical techniques; model organisms; ubiquitous in situ and remote sensors; simulations; artificial intelligence tools; socio-environmental perspectives; and global-scale data analytics. Based on these advancements, we present a conceptual climate biostress model, together with an integrative Climate BioStress Sentinel System (CBS3). The sentinel system represents a vehicle for uncovering synergistic and cumulative climate effects in urban settings and their biological, built, and social infrastructures. Developing an integrated CBS3 constitutes a pan-scientific grand challenge requiring integration across traditional disciplinary perspectives spanning at least 12 orders of magnitude each in space and time. By providing operational tracking of the success or failure of commitments to long-term climate and environmental action, CBS3 can provide insights into necessary policy investments and adjustments.

A revealing study of how the arrival of refugees affects and transforms cities Cities all over the world experience large humanitarian influxes, and refugees and citizens alike must navigate the related risks and opportunities. Over the past twenty-five years, Karen Jacobsen has studied the interaction of refugees and cities and has trained scores of graduate students, many of whom now work with United Nations agencies or humanitarian nongovernmental organizations. Her research team at Tufts and this global network of aid workers give her firsthand knowledge of the impact of forced migration on cities and the lives of refugees living there. Focusing on cities and refugees in Africa and the Middle East, Jacobsen draws universal lessons, distilling her research findings and wisdom from decades of experience into clear, vivid prose. The book is valuable for researchers, policy analysts, donors, and humanitarian workers in cities around the globe and for all readers trying to understand, beyond the headlines, one of the most troubling and volatile issues of our time.

This essay considers major landmarks in the development of a norm on democracy in Africa and the elevation of democratic participation into a standard of continental significance. There are at least two - potentially contradictory - reasons why this is important. First, it calls into question suggestions that governmental legitimacy is an exclusively local matter. Second, this transition may also raise complicated questions regarding democratic deficit when regional institutions are seen to insert themselves into domestic political processes or to oversee them. While regional institutions can no longer abdicate jurisdiction in disputes over governmental legitimacy,¹ they may nevertheless suffer constraints as to the scope of remedies that they can offer in such situations. The trajectory of a continental law of democracy for Africa could depend on how it navigates these tensions.

Although returning home in conditions of dignity and safety is one of the durable solutions for which the global refugee regime advocates, many constraints hamper displaced individuals’ return to their areas of origin. Even after they return home, returnees face various challenges.

Australia is one of the few countries currently in the world to have signed the Artemis Accords in 2020 while having previously acceded to the 1979 Moon Agreement. Several commentators have argued, however, these two instruments are incompatible under existing space law. This article considers the extent to which Australia’s accession to the Moon Agreement and signature of the Artemis Accords constitutes an irresolvable legal dilemma. More specifically, the article explores whether Sections 9, 10 and 11 of the Accords relating to space heritage, the extraction of resources, and the creation of safety zones on the Moon or other celestial bodies present an irreconcilable legal conflict with Australia’s obligations under the Moon Agreement. In so doing, particular attention is given to analysing how these two instruments complement or contradict each other, and whether a real or apparent conflict may already exist or emerge in the future.

The literature on worker protection in global supply chains typically has a global North focus. This paper seeks to capture and compare global North and global South societal perceptions of initiatives for worker safety in the Bangladesh apparel industry after the Rana Plaza disaster. It offers an analysis of UK, USA and Bangladesh mainstream media coverage of two key initiatives: the European ‘Accord’ and the North American ‘Alliance’. It uses organizational legitimacy as a lens to evaluate coverage of the initiatives during their inception, operationalization, and transition. Media in the UK and the US at the inception stage emphasize moral legitimacy in terms of the initiatives’ design and governance processes (e.g., concerning stakeholder inclusion) and pragmatic legitimacy in terms of their ‘effectiveness’ (e.g., concerning safety improvements). Bangladesh media highlight pragmatic legitimacy at the implementation stage around the initiatives’ impact on ‘efficiency’ (e.g., concerning supply chain productivity). These differences between Bangladesh and US/UK media raise questions about the ability of global supply chain initiatives simultaneously to be deemed legitimate by global North and global South societies. The paper also demonstrates and reflects on the relative neglect of the issue of worker safety in both sets of media coverage.

The Middle East is on the brink of a profound transformation, primarily driven by economic corridors. From China's Belt and Road Initiative to the Development Road and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, these projects facilitate not only the movement of goods but also the exchange of energy, information, and services across regions. However, while such corridors are seen as fostering economic prosperity and political unity, they often deepen divisions and exacerbate existing geopolitical tensions in the region. The central question of this article is how, and through what mechanisms, do economic corridors change the geopolitics of the Middle East? To answer, the analysis advances a new understanding of corridors as vehicles through which regional states leverage their geoeconomic influence to achieve their goals. Introducing the concept of corridor geopolitics, the article illuminates the consequences of these corridors for the regional order. It also explores the possibility that corridor wars between Middle Eastern countries will emerge from their competition over strategic control of these routes.