Balsillie School of International Affairs

Workshop on Strategies for Publishing in Interdisciplinary Journals
2021-02-25 13:00 - 14:00 (America/Toronto) | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Open to graduate students and early career scholars!
Interdisciplinary research integrates insights from different disciplines for the purpose of advancing the knowledge base in a more holistic manner and helping to solve complex societal problems. However, it often requires more work, time, and creativity to publish interdisciplinary work successfully. This workshop discussion, aimed at PhD students and new scholars, explores the challenges associated with getting interdisciplinary work published.
Panelists
Dr. Andrea M. Collins is Assistant Professor in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo, researching the role of gender in the governance of food, land, and agriculture in both local and global contexts.
Dr. Christopher Lemieux is Assistant Professor and John McMurry Research Chair in Environmental Geography at Wilfrid Laurier University, researching the priority policy and management issues pertaining to natural resources, with special emphasis on parks and other forms of protected areas.
Dr. Mark S Winfield is a Professor in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change (EUC) at York University and co-chair of the Faculty’s Sustainable Energy Initiative, researching a wide range of climate change, environment and energy law and policy topics.

Research Support Cafe at the Global Health Research Cluster
2021-02-25 12:15 - 13:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Register

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS: The Global Health Research Cluster (HRC) welcomes BSIA, UW and Laurier graduate students to participate in their ‘Student Research Support Cafe,’
Senior HRC members will advise students on any matter of concerns as they relate to research project preparation and development. This session is open to students working on projects that deal with health topics, such as Major Research Papers (MRPs), term papers, theses or external projects.
This event is not a group seminar; rather, students are invited to share project details via webform prior to the Cafe, and receive targeted advice based on their particular needs. Students who hope to network with researchers and senior faculty in their field are encouraged to attend!
All requests for consultation will be considered, however, some examples might include:
Research question development
Is my question compelling and answerable?
Does my hypothesis fulfil assignment instructions?
How can I make my research question more concise?
Research design
What methods could I use to answer this research question?
Is the scope of my project too large? Too narrow?
Identifying relevant resources, organizations, or literature
What is the landscape of organizations working in this area?
What important authors should my paper consider?
Where can I find resources to address my research question?
Publication and grant application insights
How could I fulfil a specific requirement of a funding application?
Which journals may be receptive to this paper?

Global Insights: The Challenge of Forced Displacement
2021-02-25 11:00 - 12:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Webinar link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87929253598?pwd=[REDACTED]
According to the UN refugee agency, there are currently 80 million people in the world who have had to flee their homes because of conflict or persecution, or the equivalent of 1 percent of the world population. The number of displaced has never been higher in history, and yet it doesn’t even include those who are stateless, Indigenous populations who were forced from their traditional territories as a result of colonization, or those who are facing no choice but to move because of climate change. This week’s panel will discuss the problem of forced displacement and what the international community is and is not doing to address it.
Panelists
Bree Akeeson is an Associate Professor of Social Work, the Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Global Adversity and Wellbeing, and the Associate Director of the Centre for Research on Security Practices at Wilfrid Laurier University. Her research ranges from micro-level understandings of the experiences of families impacted by war and displacement to macro-level studies on social service and mental health systems strengthening.
Jessica Di Salvatore, is Associate Professor in Political Science and Peace Studies at the University of Warwick. Her research focuses on UN peace missions and their impact on political and criminal violence. Warwick.
Jesse Ribot works on rights and vulnerabilities of resource-dependent populations in Sub-Saharan Africa. He teaches environmental political economy in the School of International Service at American University and is a visiting Guggenheim Fellow at the New York University Wagner School and the City University of New York Graduate Center Anthropology Program for 2018–19.
Moderated by Scott Hamilton, Balsillie School of International Affairs

Women, Peace and Security: A conversation with Canada’s first Ambassador, Jacqueline O’Neill
2021-02-12 12:00 - 13:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Watch the recording of this event here: https://youtu.be/yO1Sm0-QHn0
As we mark the 20th anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, the BSIA is delighted and privileged to host Canada’s First Ambassador for Women, Peace and Security, Jacqueline O’Neill, to speak as a 2021 Distinguished Keynote Speaker on the subject of Women, Peace and Security. As we also mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action from the Fourth World Conference on Women, and based on Global Affairs Canada’s recent announcement of plans supporting a Feminist Foreign Policy White Paper, this keynote event is both timely and critically important.
About the speaker
Jacqueline O’Neill is Canada’s first Ambassador for Women, Peace and Security. Appointed by the Prime Minister in June 2019, her primary role is to advise ministers of Foreign Affairs, Defence, and numerous other departments engaged in implementing Canada’s National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security.
Previously, Ambassador O’Neill was President of The Institute for Inclusive Security, a US-based organization that increased the inclusion of women in peace negotiations and related processes, including the reform of police and military organizations. Over 13 years at Inclusive Security, she supported the creation of national strategies and policy frameworks for more than 30 countries, NATO, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the United Nations. She also worked directly with coalitions of women leaders in Colombia, South Sudan, Sudan, Pakistan, and beyond.
Prior to that, Ambassador O’Neill worked at the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Sudan and at Khartoum’s Ahfad University for Women. Along with former Lt. General Roméo Dallaire, she helped found the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative to eliminate the use of children during conflict. She was also a policy advisor to Canada’s Secretary of State for the Asia-Pacific region.
Most recently, Ambassador O’Neill was a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Canada Institute, an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, and a member of the board of directors of the Canadian International Council. She has a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Alberta and a master’s in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Global Insights: Steps towards Lasting Peace in the Middle East?
2021-02-11 11:00 - 12:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
2020 may come to be remembered as a momentous year for the Middle East. The civil conflicts in Syria and Yemen continued for yet another year without any end in sight, while the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran intensified. However, perhaps the most notable development was the Abraham Accords, the agreement brokered by the United States that not only normalizes relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, but set the stage for similar agreements between Israel and other nations in the region, including Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. The Trump administration’s ‘Peace for Prosperity’ plan, however, was roundly rejected by the Palestinian Authority which broke ties with the US and Israel as a result. With President Biden seeking to restore aid and reopen diplomatic relations with the Palestinians, as well as facing pressure from progressives in his party to take a more critical approach to Israel, what are the prospects for a more comprehensive peace? Panelists on this week’s episode of Global Insights will discuss the opportunities for an end to conflict in the Middle East, the barriers that still exist, and what steps the international community might take to secure lasting peace in the region.
Panelists
Nathan C. Funk is Associate Professor and Chair of Peace and Conflict Studies at Conrad Grebel University College, the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Ontario. His research and writing address religious and cultural dimensions of conflict and peacemaking, and focus especially on the Middle Eastern context, “Islamic-Western” identity conflict, local empowerment in international peacebuilding, and sustained dialogue.
Jasmin Habib is Associate Professor in the Political Science department and Associate Director of the PhD in Global Governance at the University of Waterloo. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, Dr. Habib focuses special attention on transnational relations to Israel and Palestine. Current ethnographic interests include historicizing the Israeli Communist Party from the perspective of some of its Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian members; and engaging with Israeli emigres in the US and Canada on their ‘critical distance’ from the Israel/Palestine conflict. She is the author of Israel, Diaspora and the National Routes of Belonging and co-editor and contributor to America Observed.
Following an initial career with the Israeli defence forces, Uzi Mahnaimi served as a war correspondent across the Middle East region for more than 30 years – 20 of these years were with the Sunday Times as its Middle East correspondent. A graduate of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, he has lectured at many institutions on issues related to Middle East security, including at Columbia and the New York City School of Journalism. His current focus is on connecting Israeli technology companies with new partners across the Middle East and worldwide.
Nicola Pratt is Associate Professor (Reader) in the Politics and International Studies Department at the University of Warwick, UK, and Vice President of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES). She teaches and researches on the international politics of the Middle East, with a particular interest in feminist and decolonial approaches and a focus on ‘politics from below.’ She has written and co-edited a number of books on women and gender in the Middle East and on modern Egyptian politics. Her latest book is entitled Embodying Geopolitics: Generations of Women’s Activism in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon.
Guy Ziv is an assistant professor at American University’s School of International Service (SIS), where he teaches courses on U.S. foreign policy, international negotiations, U.S.-Israel relations, and Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. His book, Why Hawks Become Doves: Shimon Peres and Foreign Policy Change in Israel, was published by SUNY Press in 2014, with an updated paperback version published in 2015.
Moderated by Ann Fitz-Gerald, Director, Balsillie School of International Affairs.

The Return of National Self-Sufficiency? Excavating Autarkic Thought in a De-Globalizing Era
2021-02-05 13:30 - 14:30 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
This event is open to WatPEG/Global Political Economy Research Cluster members. Please email events@balsillieschool.ca for the event link.
As the global crisis triggered by the COVID-19 virus unfolded, The Economist magazine published a cover in May 2020 titled “Goodbye globalization: the dangerous lure of self-sufficiency.” The title summed up well the new political interest in the ideology of national economic self-sufficiency in the pandemic context. Unfortunately, contemporary textbooks in the field of international political economy (IPE) say little about this kind of “autarkic” thought. No survey of the history of autarkic thought exists even within specialist IPE literature or in the fields of intellectual history and the history of economic thought. Filling this gap in existing scholarship, this talk provides an overview of the history of autarkic thought that includes the ideas of famous thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Fichte, Mohandas Gandhi, and John Maynard Keynes. It highlights the core rationales that have been advanced for a high degree of national self-sufficiency in the past as well as some disagreements that have existed among autarkists.
About the speaker
Eric Helleiner is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Waterloo. He received his B.A. in Economics and Political Science from the University of Toronto, and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the Department of International Relations of the London School of Economics. Dr. Helleiner has published over 100 journal articles and book chapters, and has been a member of the Warwick Commission on International Financial Reform and the High Level Panel on the Governance of the Financial Stability Board. He has received the Killam Research Fellowship, the CPSA Prize in International Relations, the Trudeau Foundation Fellows Prize, the Donner Book Prize, the Francesco Guicciardini Prize for Best Book in Historical International Relations, the Excellence in Arts Award, the Marvin Gelber Essay Prize in International Relations, and the Symons Award for Excellence in Teaching. He has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and has been a Canada Research Chair and a CIGI Chair. His latest books include The Forgotten Foundations of Bretton Woods: International Development and the Making of the Postwar Order (Cornell, 2014) and The Status Quo Crisis: Global Financial Governance After the 2008 Meltdown (Oxford, 2014).

Working in the United Nations System
2021-02-05 10:00 - 11:30 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Ever wonder what it’s like to work for the United Nations? Join us for a roundtable discussion with BSIA and MPACS graduates to discuss career opportunities within the UN system.
Panelists
Adnan Ali – Since September 2019, Adnan has been working with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women). A former MAGG student, Adnan was placed with UN Women’s Europe and Central Asia Regional Office (ECA RO) in Istanbul, as part of the BSIA and UNAC partnership in facilitating students with abroad placements in the UN System. Adnan’s main work is with statistical data concerning SDG-5 on Gender Equality and in the related sub-areas of women’s economic empowerment, political participation, violence & discrimination, and health and survival. Adnan is further involved with capacity development of 17 Country Offices (COs) under ECARO’s care, including the creation of national reports and providing technical assistance for achieving SDG targets. For Adnan, the intersectionality of assessing primary data at work with that of evidence-based policies learned at school, is where work gets really interesting.
Merran Eby, a MAGG programme alumna, started working for UNDP in the fall of 2018 while finishing her degree with the BSIA. She now serves as Climate and Disaster Resilience Officer with the Viet Nam country office in Hanoi, where she primarily supports the implementation of a US$30 million Green Climate Fund project on building the resilience of vulnerable coastal communities to the impacts of climate change-related disasters. More recently, she has also been part of UNDP’s emergency response and recovery efforts since record-level floods and storms hit central Viet Nam in late 2020.
Merran comes from a highly diverse background that encompasses fine arts, archaeology, and language education in addition to international development, project management, and community-based disaster risk reduction. Prior to her time at the BSIA, she spent several years in coastal Fukushima, Japan, where she was involved in many volunteer activities focusing on community recovery. The intervening years have lessened neither her deep personal dedication to lessening the impacts of disasters nor her unquenchable enthusiasm for karaoke.
Yelena Gyulkhandanyan works with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Yemen as a Transition and Recovery (T&R) Officer, working on interventions that focus on service improvement, capacity development and social cohesion building in conflict and crisis affected communities. Prior to her work in Yemen, she has worked as a Capacity Building Officer with the IOM Somalia Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) unit. Yelena graduated from the Masters of Peace and Conflict Studies (MPACS) programme in 2014. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts, Specialist in International Development from the University of Toronto.
Malambo Moonga is a migrant, firm believer in international cooperation and proud MAGG graduate. His journey as a UN professional began in 2016 when he, as a recent graduate from the University of Zambia, interviewed for an HR position at a private company and ended up being hired as a human rights educator at a gender-focused poverty eradication NGO! This turn of events was critical – it set Malambo on a path that has included fulfilling roles in poverty eradication and HIV/AIDS response in Zambia, civil society strengthening in Canada, and migration governance in different countries.
In pursuit of a lifelong interest in understanding international cooperation on major global issues, Malambo enrolled into the MAGG programme and went on to have his most intellectually rewarding & professionally pivotal experience to date. Since 2016, Malambo has headed the migration management programme for the International Organization for Migration in Ethiopia. Malambo also serves as coordinator of the UN Network on Migration in Ethiopia as well as a member of the UN Joint Policy Advisory Team. Malambo’s UN career UN began with A 2014 MAGG internship at the IOM Regional Office in Pretoria, South Africa.

Global Insights: Vaccines and a Vaccinated World
2021-02-04 11:00 - 12:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
The development of not one but a handful of COVID-19 vaccines in less than one year is a momentous and unprecedented scientific achievement. Even so, demand for the vaccines far outstrips supply, and several governments have struggled to distribute the few vaccines they do have to their citizens in a timely manner. Moreover, some rich economies have hoarded vaccines at the expense of poorer nations. Panelists on this week’s episode of Global Insights will discuss the politics of vaccinations, whether a fully vaccinated world is even possible, and what needs to be done to get there.
Panelists
Liliana Abreu, PhD in Public Health, is a postdoctoral researcher at the Development Research Group, Department of Politics & Public Administration at the University of Konstanz. Her research interests and experience focus on behavioral studies, social epidemiology, and more recently, on the impact of social adversity experiences, namely violence and trauma, as social causes of mortality and morbidity.
Maria De Jesus is an associate professor at American University’s School of International Service and a research fellow at the university’s Center on Heath, Risk, and Society. Her areas of expertise are global health inequities, immigrant and migrant health, and culturally responsive and effective health communication.
Alan Whiteside is a Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University’s School of International Policy and Governance and at the BSIA. He is a member of the Governing Council of Waterford Kamhlaba United World College in Swaziland. In 2015 he was invested as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. Dr. Whiteside’s current research program focuses on interrelated areas of global health concerns.
Moderated by Ann Fitz-Gerald, Director, Balsillie School of International Affairs.

2021 Balsillie Lecture: "War: How Conflict Shaped Us"
2021-02-02 11:00 - 12:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Watch the recording of this event at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCGZhO6PhJ4&ab_channel=BalsillieSchoolofInternationalAffairs
The Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA), in partnership with the Canadian Ditchley Foundation, is delighted to announce that Professor Margaret MacMillan, visiting distinguished historian at the Council on Foreign Relations and honourary fellow and former Warden of St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, will give the first, inaugural, Balsillie Lecture.
The Balsillie Lecture provides an annual platform to distinguished and leading international thinkers whose work has influenced, and continues to influence, contemporary ideas on international public policy and global governance. The 2021 Balsillie Lecture is the first of these special annual events, which will be held each year at the beginning of the post-Christmas winter term.
Professor Margaret MacMillan specializes in British imperial history and the international history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She is an emeritus professor of international history at the University of Oxford and a professor of history at the University of Toronto. She was provost of Trinity College at the University of Toronto from 2002 to 2007 and warden of St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, from 2007 to 2017. She has taught modern history and international relations at Ryerson University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Oxford. Visiting appointments include the Humanitas Professor of War, Cambridge University, the Xerox Foundation Distinguished Scholar at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins SAIS, and Distinguished Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto. She is also an honorary fellow of the British Academy and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Her publications include: Women of the Raj (1988), Paris, 1919: Six Months that Changed the World (2002), Nixon and Mao: the Week that Changed the World (2007), Dangerous Games: the Uses and Abuses of History (2009), The War that Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 (2013), and History’s People: Personalities and the Past (2015). In 2018 she gave the BBC’s Reith Lectures on the subject of war and humanity, and in 2020 will publish an expanded version as The Mark of Cain: War and the Human Condition.

Rethinking Global Governance and Education Through the Prism of COVID
2021-01-29 12:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Watch the recording of this event at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMcpIMM8Cuw&ab_channel=BalsillieSchoolofInternationalAffairs
Georgios Kostakos, co-founder of FOGGS, will discuss the work he is currently doing with FOGGS, including the UN2100 initiative on UN reform and the COVIDEA initiative on COVID and education.
About the speaker
Georgios Kostakos is a co-founder of FOGGS and has almost thirty years of work experience in international affairs, both as a practitioner and as a researcher. This includes fourteen years with the United Nations, with assignments such as observing the elections that ended apartheid in South Africa (1994), promoting human rights in Haiti (1995), reporting from post-Dayton Bosnia (1996), serving as Assistant Secretary of the UN General Assembly’s Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (2000-2003), promoting UN strategic planning and reform as First Officer in the UN Secretary-General’s Strategic Planning Unit (most of 2003-2006), organizing the first ever high-level event on climate change in New York (2007), advancing the UN system delivering as one on climate change from the Secretariat of the UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB, 2008-2009), laying the ground for the Sustainable Development Goals as Senior Adviser and Acting Deputy Executive Secretary of the UN Global Sustainability Panel (GSP, 2010-2012), supporting the negotiations that resulted in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP21, 2015). Georgios was until recently Climate Action Thematic Coordinator at NEEMO EEIG, where he coordinated the monitoring of climate change adaptation and mitigation projects co-financed by the European Union’s LIFE Programme. He has previously held numerous senior positions at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), has organised postgraduate courses in international affairs at the University of Athens and has taught Global Governance and International Organisations to postgraduate students at the Brussels School of International Studies, University of Kent. Georgios holds MA and PhD degrees in International Relations (Kent, UK), as well as an advanced degree in Mechanical Engineering (NTUA, Greece).

Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas: A New Era of Indigenous-led Conservation in Canada and Beyond
2021-01-28 14:30 - 15:30 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
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Eli Enns is a leader in Indigenous-led conservation in Canada. In this seminar, Eli will discuss how Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) lead to positive biodiversity outcomes, make tangible progress on our Sustainable Development Goals, and foster alternative pathways to economic certainty.
A member of Tla-o-qui-aht Nation, Eli is Co-founder and President of the IISAAK OLAM Foundation and CEO of the CleanTech Community Gateway. Eli co-chaired the Indigenous Circle of Experts for the Pathway to Canada Target 1 producing the ground-breaking report “We Rise Together”. A Nuu-Chah-Nulth Canadian political scientist, Eli is passionate about constitutional law, international dispute resolution and Indigenous economic theory and practice.
This seminar is brought to you by the Cold Regions Research Centre (CRRC), the Balsillie School of International Affairs Environment and Resources Research Cluster, the Office of Indigenous Initiatives, and the John McMurry Research Chair in Environmental Geography.

Global Insights: Leadership and Legitimacy in Post-pandemic Latin America
2021-01-28 11:00 - 12:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Watch the event live at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83095801686?pwd=[REDACTED]
After four years marked by the contentious rhetoric and policies of the Trump administration, most Latin Americans welcomed the victory of Joseph Biden. Indeed, the new US president has promised a more cooperative and multilateral approach to many of the problems the hemisphere faces: a response to the ongoing pandemic and its economic and social aftermath, longstanding migration crises, climate and environmental emergencies, and high levels of insecurity in a number countries, fed by transnational illicit markets [perhaps add other themes depending on the participants]. In an era of eroding US credibility and Brazilian and Mexican ambivalence about global affairs, who in the hemisphere retains the credibility to spur collective actions in response to these problems?
Panelists
Julia Buxton is British Academy Global Professor at the University of Manchester, a Region Head (Latin America) at Oxford Analytica and Senior Fellow at the Global Drug Policy Observatory, University of Swansea. She specialises on drug policy, illicit economies, and conflict and development with geographic expertise on Venezuela.
Juliano da Silva Cortinhas is Professor of International Relations at the University of Brasilia. He researches issues related to International Security and Brazilian Foreign and Defense Policies. He has published articles and chapters in Portuguese, Spanish and English.
Tom Long is Associate Professor at the University of Warwick. He is a member of Warwick’s Global History and Culture Centre. Tom is also an Affiliated Professor at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) in Mexico City. His research primarily focuses on U.S.-Latin American relations and the dynamics of asymmetry in IR, as well as topics related to emerging powers, Latin American politics, North America, and small states. Tom’s first book, Latin America Confronts the United States: Asymmetry and Influence (2015), was named one of the best books of 2016 by Foreign Affairs.
Luis Schenoni is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Konstanz and Affiliated Professor at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas in Mexico. He obtained his PhD in Political Science at the University of Notre Dame in 2020 with a dissertation exploring the impact of war on state formation in Latin American history.
Matthew Taylor is an associate professor at the School of International Service at American University. He has lived in Latin America on and off for more than two decades, and is the author or co-editor of four books and a variety of articles on crime, corruption, courts, and development in the region. His most recent book is Decadent Developmentalism: The Political Economy of Democratic Brazil (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

January 2021 Global Economic Prospects Report
2021-01-22 12:00 - 13:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
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Justin-Damien Guénette presents the highlights of the January 2021 edition of the Global Economic Prospects report. In a nutshell, although the global economy is emerging from the collapse triggered by COVID-19, the recovery is projected to be subdued. The pandemic has exacerbated the risks associated with a decade-long global wave of debt accumulation. It is also likely to steepen the projected slowdown in potential growth over the next decade, undermining prospects for poverty reduction. With weak fiscal positions severely constraining government support measures in many countries, an emphasis on ambitious reforms is needed to rekindle robust, sustainable and equitable growth.
About the speaker
Justin-Damien Guénette is a Senior Economist in the Prospects Group of the World Bank. Previously, he served as Director of International Model Development at the Bank of Canada. His work experience includes research and policy work on macroeconomic modelling, forecasting, emerging markets and energy commodities. He is one of the lead authors of the flagship Global Economic Prospects report, which presents the institution’s view on the global economy and associated policy challenges for developing countries. He also coordinates the World Bank’s Global Monthly report, which monitors major macroeconomic, financial, and commodity market developments. Mr. Guénette holds a M.A. in Global Governance and Economics from the University of Waterloo.
Moderated by Robert Fay, CIGI
This event is co-hosted by the Balsillie School and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI).

Global Insights: US Leadership in the World Under Biden
2021-01-21 11:00 - 12:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Webinar link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87458097194?pwd=[REDACTED]
On January 20th, 2021, Joseph R. Biden, Jr. will became the forty-sixth president of the United States of America. He will assume office at a time when the need to address global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change has never been pressing, but the international reputation of the US has been undermined by the Trump administration’s “America First” foreign policy. The purpose of this panel discussion is to discuss ways in which the new Biden administration can restore US standing and leadership in the world.
Panelists
Georg Lofflmann, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow and Research Fellow in International Security, University of Warwick
Georg is the author of American Grand Strategy Under Obama: Competing Discourses. His current research project examines the political impact of populist security narratives under the Trump presidency.
Roy Norton, Fellow, Balsillie School of International Affairs and Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of Waterloo
During his career with the Canadian Foreign Service, Roy was posted to the USA four times: twice to Canada’s Embassy in Washington, DC as Minister, Congressional Affairs and Media Relations; as Consul General at Detroit; and as Consul General at Chicago. From 2016-2019, Roy was Canada’s Chief of Protocol, based at Global Affairs in Ottawa.
Sarah Snyder, Professor, School of International Service, American University
Sarah is the author of two award-winning books, From Selma to Moscow: How Human Rights Activists Transformed U.S. Foreign Policy and Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network.
Moderated by Ann Fitz-Gerald, Director, Balsillie School of International Affairs.

Working for Global Affairs Canada: A Discussion with BSIA Graduates
2021-01-15 12:00 - 13:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Registration for this event is now closed. To request the link, please email events@balsillieschool.ca.
Ever wonder what working for Global Affairs Canada would be like? Join us for a roundtable discussion with BSIA graduates to discuss career opportunities with Canada’s ministry of foreign affairs.
About the speakers
Rebecca Bell, MAGG 2016
Rebecca is a Policy Analyst with the International Assistance Policy Coordination Division at Global Affairs Canada. In this role, she is responsible for developing Canada’s policy direction on Financing for Development and Least Developed Countries, and coordinates international assistance policy within GAC and across other departments for policy coherence. Prior to her work at GAC, Rebecca worked in community services in Toronto and in global health in Uganda and Rwanda. Rebecca is a graduate of the MA in Global Governance program (2015/2016), where her research focused on opportunities for behavioural economics in preventing communicable disease. Rebecca also participated in the UN Association in Canada-BSIA internship program, working as a consultant in UN-Habitat’s Youth & Livelihoods Unit in Nairobi, Kenya.
Isaac Caverhill-Godkewitsch, MAGG 2012
Isaac is a Senior Desk Officer (India) at the South Asia Division of Global Affairs Canada in Ottawa, Canada. Building on his experience in multilateral affairs in the G7/G20 Summits division and Canada’s Permanent Mission to the UN in New York and Geneva, Isaac’s current role focuses on building momentum in the strategic partnership between Canada and India. His responsibilities include the Canada-India bilateral framework, human rights, the Indo-pacific region, and India’s foreign policy. His previous work in G7 and G20 policy focused on digital innovation as well as climate change, oceans, and clean energy issues. Before joining the federal government, Isaac worked in the office of the Minister of Health of Alberta, where he advised on the development of a mental health mobile application for better service delivery and mental health resources. Isaac also worked on policy innovation at the Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience (WISIR) and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) while he was completing his Master’s in Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA) in Waterloo, Canada. In his graduate research, Isaac focused on the effects of environmental change on human and national security, and published several articles on these issues.
Carly Hayes, MAGG 2016
Carly is a Program Officer with the International Assistance Research and Knowledge division at Global Affairs Canada. In this role, she is the lead officer on the development and implementation of the International Assistance Research and Knowledge Facility, a program that focuses on the generation and dissemination of evidence to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Carly has previously worked with the International Development Research Centre (2017-2019) as a Program Management Officer for the Livestock Health program, as well as a Research Award Recipient with the Food, Environment and Health program. In the latter position, she served as the Primary Investigator on two food systems research projects, one in Peru and one at the global level. Carly is a graduate of the Master of Arts in Global Governance program (2015/2016), where her research focused on the impact of mega-regional free trade agreements on sustainable agriculture, farmer livelihoods, and nutrition in the Global South.
Jacob Hayes, MAGG 2016
Jacob is a Policy Analyst with the Trade Portfolio and Strategy division at Global Affairs Canada. In this capacity, Jacob is responsible for leading on matters related to the corporate governance of Export Development Canada (EDC), a Crown corporation and Canada’s sole Export Credit Agency. He also plays a key role in the development of policy and strategic guidance for EDC through the Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade in her capacity as the Minister responsible for EDC in Parliament. Prior to accepting his current role at Global Affairs Canada headquarters, Jacob was the Trade Commissioner for Advanced Manufacturing at the Ontario regional office of the Trade Commissioner Service. Jacob is a graduate of the Master of Arts in Global Governance program (2015/2016), where his research focused on the impact of modern free trade agreements on the role of the United States as a world leader.
Patrick Segsworth, MAGG 2016
Patrick is a Senior Project Manager for the Counter-Terrorism Capacity Building Program at Global Affairs Canada, where he has worked for the past two years. In his current work, Patrick is responsible for managing a large portfolio of capacity building initiatives in support of Canada’s Middle East Strategy, and others in support of broader, global counter-terrorism efforts. Prior to this position, Patrick was a Policy Analyst in the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Division at GAC (Sept 2016 – Aug 2018), where he provided policy guidance on key issues relating to space security and nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Patrick is a graduate of the Master of Global Governance program (2015/2016), where his research focused on the nexus of space security and nuclear non-proliferation.

Gender, COVID, and Health Workforce
2021-01-14 10:00 - 11:30 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Watch the recording: https://youtu.be/rRkDzvNReU8
Join us for this panel of experts from the Gender and Covid-19 working group, health worker subgroup and Gender Equity Hub Women in Global Health to focus on COVID-19 and gender inequalities in the health workforce.
Panelists
Dr. Roopa Dhatt is the co-chair of the Gender Equity Hub hosted by Women in Global Health and WHO, convening on COVID-19 and gender inequalities in the health workforce.
Dr. Dhatt will discuss advancing gender transformative policy action on the health and social workforce during COVID-19, challenges and strategies to overcome them, specifically addressing violence, harassment and hazards in the workplace.
Dr. Julia Smith, Simon Fraser University, Canada, is an expert in health policy analysis, co-leading the Gender and COVID-19 Research Project, analyzing impacts of COVID-19 on healthcare workers.
Dr. Smith will discuss experiences of women healthcare workers in Canada, including access to protection and information during COVID-19, their well-being and career advancement
Saskia Duijs, MSc, Amsterdam UMC, location VU University Medical Centre, the Netherlands, is a PhD researcher on the health of (un)paid caregivers in the elderly care sector from an intersectional perspective.
Ms. Duijs will discuss freelance eldercare work in the Netherlands during COVID-19, labor market inequalities and moral dilemmas of care workers.
Chantal Umuhoza, MA, Executive Director at SPECTRA Young Feminists Activism in Rwanda, is the founder and director of SPECTRA, a Rwandan based grassroots feminist organization working on sexual and reproductive justice. Activist at African Union and UN levels (CSW,UN CPDP, CEDAW and HRC).
Ms. Umuhoza will share first hand experiences of the impact of COVID19 measures on nurses and midwives in Rwanda from gender and economic justice perspectives.
Dr. Margaret Walton-Roberts, Balsillie School of International Affairs, Waterloo Canada is an expert in gender, care work and migration, focussing on international migration of health care professionals.
Dr. Walton-Roberts will discuss immigrant care workers in LTC facilities in Canada, their increased exposure to risk during the COVID-19 pandemic, devaluation of feminized and racialized care and policy solutions to the LTC crisis that prioritize social justice arguments.
Discussant
Dr. Pavitra Kotini-Shah, MD, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Emergency Medicine physician is also an awardee of the NIH BIRCWH scholar, currently researching gender disparities in emergency cardiovascular conditions, and sex differences in racial and ethnic minorities with HTN and COVID-19.
Dr. Kotini-Shah will draw upon experiences from the frontlines of urban emergency departments on the gender and racial disparities in COVID-19.
This event will be moderated by Dr. Alan Whiteside, OBE, Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University’s School of International Policy and Governance and at the BSIA.

Dissertation Defence: "Taking Complexity Seriously in International Law: A View from the Arctic"
2021-01-06 11:30 - 14:30 | In Person, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
This event is by invitation only.
Tahnee Prior‘s PhD dissertation defence.
Supervisors: Dr. Thomas Homer-Dixon & Dr. Neil Craik
Committee: Dr. Simon Dalby & Dr. Whitney Lackenbauer
Internal/external: Dr. Dan McCarthy (SERS)
External: Dr. Klaus Dodds, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway University of London
Abstract

Over the past three decades, the Arctic system has undergone significant, large-scale transformational change – a shift which has profoundly altered human-environment interactions and feedbacks within the system. What was once described as a relatively closed area, both in terms of its material and social reality, has become increasingly open and complex.
I am interested in the capacity of international law, as an instrument of governance, to manage this rapidly changing Arctic system. More specifically, I seek to answer the following research question: Is the emerging material reality of the Arctic system fundamentally incommensurable with the functional requirements of the law which seeks to govern it? I conclude that that is the case and argue that a complex systems ontology can help us identify how to build a better governance structure for the Arctic.
Contrary to existing scholarship, which often defines the Arctic based on geography or issue area, I begin by drawing on a complex systems ontology to introduce what we seek to manage: an increasingly open and tightly-coupled Arctic system. This is followed by an overview of current governance approaches and their response to the nature of change in the Arctic system, where I draw on three case studies to point to a disjuncture between the emerging material and social reality of the Arctic system and current governance responses, which can give rise to governance failure. I argue that a significant part of the problem is an insistence on law and formality as one of the primary responses.
Then, I highlight how the theoretical underpinnings of current approaches, specifically legal positivism, make it difficult for us to envision alternative methods of Arctic environmental governance which can account for complexity and change. I argue that there is a fundamental incommensurability between the demands of legal positivism – defined by characteristics like predictability, closed boundaries, and formal legal rationality – and the demands of the complex systems it seeks to govern – defined by characteristics like thermodynamic openness, heightened non-linearity, and connectivity. In search of an alternative theoretical underpinning, I turn to non-positivist legal theories including research on Transnational Legal Process and Interactional Legal Theory, and find that both theories are insufficient because they give little focus to the co-evolution of various systems including the human-environment nexus.
Recognizing a shortfall between the rapidly rising need for legal innovation and its inadequate supply in both current Arctic environmental governance and Arctic scholarship alike, I point to research in Earth systems science, on social-ecological systems, and Earth system governance which increasingly draws on a complex systems ontology to think about the ways in which different components of a system fit together, interact with one another, and respond to change. More precisely, I make note of a call to action for the juridical sciences to embrace a complex system ontology and vice versa.
Finally, having diagnosed the problem and seeking to respond to this call to action, I outline a prospective research agenda for a complex systems ontology and Arctic environmental governance. Specifically, I propose a set of three complexity tools – the WIT framework, the energy landscape metaphor, and the law of requisite variety – which can help us re-imagine the Arctic system and explore the role of international law in anticipating and responding to critical transitions therein.

Safe Haven Documentary Screening, The Global Migration Film Festival
2020-12-17 19:00 - 21:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Safe Haven is a documentary collaboration between Alison Mountz, faculty member at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and Wilfrid Laurier University, and filmmaker Lisa Molomot. The film weaves together the powerful stories of U.S. war resisters who sought safe haven in Canada during US-led wars in Vietnam and Iraq. The film also explores the intersection of these two cohorts during the Iraq war as many Vietnam era resisters participated in a movement to support the younger generation. Safe Haven shows the reality and the myth of Canada as a welcoming country to those seeking protection. It delves into the life worlds and decision making of people who left home and military service, reflecting on these decisions at different stages of the life course.
The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with the filmmakers and US war resisters.
About the filmmakers
Lisa Molomot has produced and directed award-winning documentaries about immigration and immigrant communities including Safe Haven, Missing in Brooks County, The Cleaners, and Soledad. She spent the winter of 2019 as a Fulbright Scholar at the Balsillie School of International Affairs editing Safe Haven with collaborator Alison Mountz. She has also focused on stories about education. Her award-winning film School’s Out has been an integral part of the movement for providing outdoor education for young children, and her recent short film Teaching in Arizona is an inside look at the education crisis in that state. Lisa teaches at the James E. Rogers School of Law at the University of Arizona, where she has worked with the Immigration Law Clinic for the past four years and has taught in the UA Human Rights Practice Graduate Program.
Alison Mountz is professor of geography and Canada Research Chair in Global Migration at Wilfrid Laurier University. She first moved to Canada from the United States in 1998, and has spent much of her adult life crossing and researching the border between the two countries. Her work explores how people migrate across borders, access migration and asylum policies, survive detention, resist war, and create safe havens. Alison’s books include Seeking Asylum: Human Smuggling and Bureaucracy at the Border (Minnesota, awarded the Meridian Book Prize); Boats, Borders, and Bases: Race, the Cold War, and the Rise of Migration Detention in the United States (California, with Jenna Loyd); and The Death of Asylum: Hidden Geographies of the Enforcement Archipelago (Minnesota). Mountz directs Laurier’s International Migration Research Centre, edits the journal Politics & Space, and is a member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada.

China's Diplomacy of Multilateralism: The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and Its Implications
2020-12-17 09:00 - 10:30 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Link to webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86503440490?pwd=[REDACTED]
This discussion ponders whether the Western and other Asian states can really bind China to international norms and rules in the long term.
About the speaker
Sonny Lo is Professor and Deputy Director at HKU SPACE. He graduated from University of Waterloo (UW) for his Master degree in political science in 1986 and taught at UW Department of Political Science from 2004 to 2010, before he relocated to work at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. His published books include earthquake management in China, cross~border crime and organized crime in Greater China, the politics of policing in Greater China, democracy movement in Hong Kong, casino capitalism in Macau, and China’s united front work and its policy toward Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Book Launch: "The Death of Asylum: Hidden Geographies of the Enforcement Archipelago"
2020-12-03 12:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Watch the recording: https://youtu.be/Xwc8f9ktD7M
Join us to discuss Professor Alison Mountz’s new book The Death of Asylum: Hidden Geographies of the Enforcement Archipelago. The book has just been released with the University of Minnesota Press.
The Death of Asylum: Hidden Geographies of the Enforcement Archipelago
Alison Mountz traces the global chain of remote detention centers used by states of the Global North to confine migrants fleeing violence and poverty, using cruel measures that, if unchecked, will lead to the death of asylum as an ethical ideal. She demonstrates how remote sites curtail the basic human right to seek asylum, forcing refugees to take more dangerous risks.
Join the author, together with panelists Micheal Collyer (Geography, University of Sussex), Shahram Khosravi (Social Anthropology, University of Stockholm), Shiva Mohan (Geography and Environmental Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University), Sarah Turnbull (Sociology and Legal Studies, University of Waterloo), and William Walters (Political Science, Carleton University).
This event is sponsored by Migration, Mobility and Social Politics research cluster and the International Migration Research Center.

Recent Developments in Ethiopia: A Conversation with Ambassador Nasise Challi Jira
2020-11-27 10:30 - 11:30 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Watch this event at https://youtu.be/SRYkNBCXp1I
Over the past two weeks, Ethiopia has become impacted by conflict between the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) and the country’s federal government of Nobel Peace Prize winner, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Prospects for peace, still appear to be unclear.
We are delighted to host Ambassador Nasise Challi Jira, Ethiopia’s Ambassador to Canada who will discuss the recent developments in Ethiopia.
About the speaker
Nasise Challi Jira is Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia to Canada. Ambassador Jira began her career as a lecturer at universities in Ethiopia, including Jimma University, St. Mary’s University and Adama Science and Technology University. She then joined public service working as a director for the directorate of protocol and public relations in the president’s office of Oromia National Regional Government. Ambassador Jira received her first and second degree from Addis Ababa University. She received additional degree from the renowned University of Washington in Seattle in informatics, specializing in information assurance and cyber-security. Prior to her current role, she was a cyber-security engineer with The Boeing Company in Seattle.

How COVID-19 and Digital Worlds Intersect in Global Governance
2020-11-26 12:30 - 13:30 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
CIGI’s President, Rohinton Medhora, will address BSIA graduate students and faculty members to speak on the topic of “How Covid-19 and the digital worlds intersect in global governance”. Dr. Medhora will present for approximately 30 minutes and take questions for the remaining time.
This event is open only to BSIA students, faculty and fellows.
About the speaker
Rohinton P. Medhora is president of CIGI, joining in 2012. He served on CIGI’s former International Board of Governors from 2009 to 2014. Previously, he was vice president of programs at Canada’s International Development Research Centre. His fields of expertise are monetary and trade policy, international economic relations and development economics.
Rohinton was recently named to The Lancet and the Financial Times Commission on Governing Health Futures 2030, as well as to the Commission on Global Economic Transformation, co-chaired by Nobel economics laureates Michael Spence and Joseph Stiglitz. He serves on the boards of the Institute for New Economic Thinking and the McLuhan Foundation, and is on the advisory board of the WTO Chairs Programme and UNU-MERIT.
Rohinton received his doctorate in economics in 1988 from the University of Toronto, where he subsequently taught for a number of years. In addition to his Ph.D., Rohinton earned his B.A. and M.A. at the University of Toronto, where he majored in economics.
He has published extensively on these issues in professional and non-technical journals, and has produced several books: Finance and Competitiveness in Developing Countries (Routledge, 2001) and Financial Reform in Developing Countries (Macmillan, 1998), which he co-edited with José Fanelli. In 2013, he was co-editor of Canada-Africa Relations: Looking Back, Looking Ahead, which is volume 27 in the influential Canada Among Nations book series. In 2014, he co-edited International Development: Ideas, Experience, and Prospects (Oxford University Press) and Crisis and Reform: Canada and the International Financial System, which is volume 28 in the Canada Among Nations book series.

Is Global Governance on the Rocks?
2020-11-24 12:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Link to webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85455079694?pwd=[REDACTED]
Colin Bradford, co-chair of VISION20, questions how leaders can agree to have their governments cooperate, when the leaders themselves have different geopolitical interests and ambitions.
About the speaker
Colin Bradford was a political appointee in the Carter and Clinton administrations for six years and served on the staff of the United States Senate for four years.
As a development economist, Dr. Bradford was a leading voice in pushing for integration of social impacts into economic policy in the early 1990s, when he brought together the OECD, the Inter-American Development Bank and the UN Economic Commission for Latin America in several conferences and books forging new paths forward. While he was representing the U.S. in development cooperation coordination, he was a pivotal figure in developing the first set of global goals at the OECD DAC in 1995. In the early 2000s, as a consultant at the World Bank, he forced the transition from divergent approaches to a single set of goals, targets and indicators for 2015, now known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
In 2004 as a Brookings expert, Colin Bradford was the first person to push for transforming the G8 to G20 at leaders level and became a leading convener of conferences, workshops and seminars of influential professionals to work for international institutional reforms to bring the emerging market economies more fully into the global system. As a CIGI and Brookings senior fellow, he helped create the THINK20 (T20) engagement track for G20 Summits and helped the U.K., Canada, Korea, France, Mexico, Australia, China, Germany, and Argentina host G20 Summits from 2009 through 2018. In 2016, he worked with China to highlight the importance of the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the China G20 Summit. During the China G20 year, he wrote a book on Global Leadership for Achieving Systemic Sustainability published subsequently by the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS).
Colin Bradford is a co-chair of VISION20 (V20), an informal engagement group that since 2016 has convened annual events with Brookings to encourage longer-term strategic thinking for the future. In 2018, he was a member of the T20 Advisory Board for the Argentine G20 Summit. Colin has participated in all three Global Solutions Summits, having been on the concluding panels of the last two events, and also he was a panelist and chaired a panel at the Young Global Changers events in 2019.

Combatting Modern Slavery: Why Labour Governance is Failing and What We Can Do About It
2020-11-19 13:00 - 14:30 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86919123539?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 869 1912 3539
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Over the last decade, the world’s largest corporations – from The Coca Cola Company to Amazon, Apple to Unilever – have taken up the cause of combatting modern slavery. Yet, by most measures, across many sectors and regions, severe labour exploitation continues to soar. Corporate social responsibility is not working. Why? In this talk, Genevieve LeBaron will explore why over twenty years of corporate social responsibility initiatives have failed to produce worksites that are free of forced labour, modern slavery, and human trafficking, in spite of this being a key aim. Drawing on ground-level data in tea, cocoa, and garment supply chains — including over 1200 interviews with vulnerable workers at the base of global supply chains — she will explore how dynamics of corporate power, profit, and consolidation, and supply chain dynamics give rise to forced labour. She will argue that the booming private industry of accounting firms, social auditors and consultants that have emerged to monitor and enforce labour standards do little to disrupt business models configured around forced labour, and ultimately, while corporate social responsibility serves to bolster corporate growth and legitimacy, it is failing to protect the world’s most vulnerable workers.
About the speaker
Genevieve LeBaron is Professor of Politics at the University of Sheffield. She is also Co-Chair of Yale University’s Modern Slavery Working Group and an Editor of Review of International Political Economy. She serves on the UK Government Office of Science working group on Trade & Aid and the reference group for United Nations Delta 8.7. She was elected to the College of the Royal Society of Canada in 2020.
Her research focuses on labour rights and standards in the global economy and the governance of supply chains, which is the subject of her most recent book, Combatting Modern Slavery: Why Labour Governance is Failing and What We Can Do About It (Polity, 2020).

Global Insights: “How Achievable are the Sustainable Development Goals?”
2020-11-19 11:00 - 12:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Webinar link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82724638978?pwd=[REDACTED]
To receive an email reminder about this event, please register.
Register

After decades of establishing inter- and trans-national relationships and partnerships to solve humanity’s problems, in 2015 the UN adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a ‘blueprint’ for developed and developing countries to come together in concert to solve international problems. Five years later, in the midst of a global pandemic of COVID-19, fracturing national and global economies, and a rise of nationalist and isolationist leaders such as US President Trump, fears are being heard more and more often – from the public, from NGOs, and from governments alike – that the SDGs will not foster the significant action, changes, and partnerships required to meet their targets and stave off intensifying international calamities. With the future of the SDGs in jeopardy, this Global Insights panel asks: How sustainable are the Sustainable Development Goals? Are they still the transformative medium for global partnerships we hoped for, or are states once again ‘talking the talk’ but not walking the walk?
Panelists
Derrick Cogburn is Professor in the School of International Service at American University. His research and teaching includes global information and communication technology and socioeconomic development, institutional mechanisms for global governance of information and communication technologies (ICTs), transnational policy networks and epistemic communities, and the sociotechnical infrastructure for geographically distributed collaboration in knowledge work. Cogburn directs the Center for Research on Collaboratories and Technology Enhanced Learning Communities, an award-winning social science research collaboratory investigating the social and technical factors that influence geographically distributed collaborative knowledge work, particularly between developed and developing countries. He also served as a member of the High-Level Panel of Advisors for the United Nations Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development (UNGAID).
Ken Conca is Professor in the School of International Service at American University. His research and teaching focus on global environmental governance, environmental peacebuilding in war-torn societies, environmental politics and policy in the United Nations system, water governance, and environmental policy analysis. His most recent books are The Oxford Handbook of Water Politics and Policy and An Unfinished Foundation: The United Nations and Global Environmental Governance. He is the editor of the widely used teaching anthology Green Planet Blues. Dr. Conca’s research has been recognized with several prestigious awards, including the Grawemeyer Prize for Ideas Improving World Order; the International Studies Association’s Harold and Margaret Sprout Award, for best book on international environmental affairs; the Chadwick Alger Prize, for best book in the field of International Organization; and the Al-Moumin Environmental Peacebuilding Award. He is a member of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Expert Advisory Group on Conflict and Peacebuilding.
Marie-Claire Cordonier-Segger is a Full Professor of Law at SEED in the Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo, and International Advisor of the Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change (IC3). She serves as C-EENRG and LCIL Fellow in the University of Cambridge and Senior Director of the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL), and received the international Justitia Regnorum Fundamentum Award in 2016. Her research focuses on international law and governance related to climate change adaptation, mitigation and finance, natural resources, investment, trade and the green economy, among other sustainable development challenges.
Vanessa Schweizer is an Associate Professor of Knowledge Integration at the University of Waterloo in the Faculty of Environment, Director of the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation, and faculty member at the Balsillie School of International Affairs. She researches socioeconomic development as a determinant of climate risk and was a Contributing Author to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Nobel-prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC.

Global Security Implications of the U.S. Election
2020-11-16 13:00 - 14:30 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Read “Global Security Implications of the U.S. Election” blog, written by Kristy Smith and Ivy Muriuki
The Conflict & Security Research Cluster is hosting this closed and informal discussion of the short- and long-term global security implications of the American election. Everyone in the cluster has unique perspectives and expertise, and this is an opportunity to learn from each other on an emerging question of global politics. The Cluster leads (Tim Donais and Veronica Kitchen) will moderate and pose a series of questions to the group to launch discussion. A rapporteur will compile notes and write a blog post for the BSIA website under Chatham House Rule.
To register please contact Kayla Grant (kgrant@balsillieschool.ca) and if you are not a BSIA member, please indicate your affiliation.

Global Insights: “Asia, the West, and the Global Economy: Promise or Crisis?”
2020-11-12 11:00 - 12:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Link to webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81341184433?pwd=[REDACTED]
To receive an email reminder with the link, please register:
Register

With the world now seemingly in the grips of a second-wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, ‘lockdown’ measures are resulting in economic contractions that are closing businesses and shrinking GDP, globally. With the exception of China, there are grim prospects for the immediate economic futures of emerging and developing economies, especially in Asia. As growth shrinks, socio-political tensions are rising in precisely the areas and countries that are most vulnerable and in need of assistance. With their supply chains and partnerships built through open borders, liberalization, and globalization now being challenged in unpredictable ways, this Global Insights panel offers a critical examination of how the West’s economic ties to Asia are being transformed. Does the future hold promise for Asian markets and Western partnerships? Will our global political economy emerge from COVID-19 with stronger, albeit different, liberal ties and connections, or will a rise in protectionism, border controls, and nationalism irreparably alter the supply chains and economies we took for granted?
Panelists
Amitav Acharya is Distinguished Professor and the UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance and American University, Washington DC and co-author (with Barry Buzan), most recently of The Making of Global International Relations: Origins and Evolution of IR at Its Centenary (Cambridge, 2019).
Fumihito (Fumi) Gotoh, University of Warwick, is researching East Asian politics and political economies, varieties of capitalism, and politics of finance. His monograph, Japanese Resistance to American Financial Hegemony: Global versus Domestic Social Norms, was published from Routledge RIPE Series in October 2019, while his articles have appeared in Review of International Political Economy and The Pacific Review.
John Ravenhill is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo, and the Chair of the Political Science Department. Having formerly served as the Director of the Balsillie School, John’s research focuses on global political economy.

Disability and International Humanitarian Law: Universal Approach Conference
2020-11-10 11:30 - 14:30 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Watch the conference videos at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpm6rbayTSjbKcjhjAUYhV2cX-BKc-g5s
Join us as we explore legal protections that International Humanitarian Law (IHL) provide for persons with disabilities in the situation of armed conflict. The conference will be held online and will bring together experts from the field of IHL and Disability Rights including academics, practitioners and representatives from the Red Cross / Red Crescent Movement.
With keynote by Arlene Kanter, an expert in International and Comparative Disability Law held on Monday the 9th of November at 7:00PM – 8:00PM EST. Watch the keynote address at https://youtu.be/jZ4dGT4Frr0
If you have questions about this event, please contact IHLConference@redcross.ca

Do Human Rights Treaties Matter: Making the Case for the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities
2020-11-09 19:00 - 20:15 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Watch this event at https://youtu.be/jZ4dGT4Frr0
Arlene Kanter provides the keynote address for the “Disability and International Humanitarian Law: Universal Approach Conference” on Tuesday, November 10, 2020. Watch the conference videos at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpm6rbayTSjbKcjhjAUYhV2cX-BKc-g5s
In recent years, the efficacy and wisdom of international human rights treaties have come under attack. Critics point to the continuing existence of human rights violations around the world as evidence of the “failure” of the human rights regime. While it may be true that human rights treaties have not (yet) realized their full potential in every country, Professor Kanter will argue that human rights treaties do have a positive effect, particularly with respect to advancing the rights of people with disabilities. In her talk she will discuss her research and work in various countries on implementing the goals of the UN Convention on the Rights Of People with Disabilities. The CRPD came into force in 2008 and has since been ratified by 182 countries, including Canada.
About the speaker
Professor Arlene Kanter is Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor at Syracuse University College of Law. She is the founder and Director of the College of Law’s Disability Law and Policy Program (DLPP) and the Faculty Director of International Programs at Syracuse University.
Professor Kanter is an internationally acclaimed expert in international and comparative disability law. She publishes and lectures extensively on domestic and international human rights and disability law and policy. Her recent book, The Development of Disability Rights Under International Law: From Charity to Human Rights (Routledge, 2015, 2017) traces the development of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CPRD).
From 2001-06, Professor Kanter worked with the UN committee on drafting the CRPD. Since then, she has worked with governments and disability organizations on implementing the CRPD in more than a dozen countries. She has been invited to speak at the UN General Assembly, the Committee of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, and the Committee on the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. She is currently an expert consultant to the UN Rapporteur on Disability as well as several international and domestic disability organizations.

PhD Dissertation Defence: "Neighbouring horizons: migration, squatting, and citizenship in São Paulo"
2020-11-05 14:00 - 17:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Diana Zacca Thomaz‘s dissertation examines the shared struggles and political horizons of citizens and non-citizens living together in squatted buildings in central São Paulo, Brazil. The arguments in Diana’s dissertation have implications for how we conceptualize the relationship between cities and citizenship, for how we analyse the political horizons of international migrants, and for how we interpret coalitions forged between citizens and non-citizens.
Abstract

Chairperson: Dr. Michael Cinelli
Co-Advisors: Dr. Kim Rygiel and Dr. Paul Freston
Committee: Dr. Alison Mountz and Dr. Peter Neyrs
Internal/External: Dr. Alex Latta
External: Dr. Anne McNevin, The New School, New York, USA
Note: Registration closes November 2nd at 11pm. The link will be sent to registrants in the morning of November 5th.
