Category: Op-Ed

The production of plastics now accounts for 6 percent to 8 percent of all oil consumption globally. America has a dangerous and deadly addiction to plastic. If recent trends in New York State are any indication, it’s not going away anytime soon, thanks in part to multi-million-dollar lobbying by the plastic manufacturing industry.

Not holding a fifth UN world conference in 2015 has left a vacuum, a dangerous thing when patriarchal ethno-nationalists are colonizing public space. It is time to insist that international human rights institutions deliver for women.

It is significant that the first mass mobilization that will take place immediately after Trump’s inauguration has been called by women. Though it has now morphed into a display of the breadth of resistance to the growing assault on democratic institutions, it will be expressed through the lens of women’s rights.

As the UN’s ninth Secretary-General, Antonios Guterres, prepares to take up office on January 1 2017, he is being flooded with advice on repurposing the UN to respond to 21st century challenges. Women’s leadership and participation – and an institutional capacity to promote gender equality – has to be at the core of these proposals.

A global campaign to engage women around the world in conflict resolution called ‘Women’s Peace Tables’ is underway, with a view to building a significant global coalition of women peacemakers by 2020. A strategy session of conveners and advisors to this initiative was held at the NYU Center for Global Affairs on December 8th.