Global Policy最新文献

Climate change refers to persistent alterations to global Earth's climate, such as a rise in global temperatures, which have reached unprecedented peaks in recent years. At the same time, global mean ocean-and-sea levels are on an upward trajectory. These climatic shifts significantly influence the frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, heavy precipitations, droughts, floods, and tropical cyclones, which represent substantial risks and challenges for the insurance industry. This paper delves into the profound impact of climate change on the insurance sector, with a particular focus on the agriculture, property, health, and life insurance industries. Our scientific approach consists in measuring climate change through an index composed of a basket of climate and weather-related extremes, such as the Actuarial Climate Index™ (ACI) defined in and for North America, and its European counterparts, the Iberian ACI (IACI) and French ACI (FACI) climate indices. We discuss how these indices help quantify the impact of climate change on the balance sheets of insurance companies and, therefore, its impact on the sustainability of the insurance business. The paper underscores the pressing need for the insurance industry to adapt and strategically plan for the increasing risks associated with climate change.

This paper provides an introduction to this Special Issue on sustainability from different approaches. In a global situation of uncertainty due to wars, political conflicts, elections, social inequalities, and climate emergency, sustainability emerges as a potential solution. However, the pursuit of social, economic, and environmental sustainability is a complex task with many facets. Our contribution is multifaceted and ranges from insurance to zombie companies, climate change regulation, temporary trade measures, financial reporting transparency standards, earnings management, and social enterprises, among others. This introduction provides an overview of all the topics that we have covered as well as their main findings and implications.

It is commonplace today to state that the international rules-based order is in decline, or at least severely under threat. The European Union has been a steadfast self-proclaimed defender of such order, with a strong commitment to multilateralism, the United Nations, and international law based on its founding treaties. This contribution asks how deep and consistent the EU's choice for multilateralism is and how the Union is coping with the challenges to the international rules-based order. It briefly inquires through what instruments, mechanisms, and tools the EU aims to live up to its commitment to multilateralism and to what extent the Union itself consistently respects international law. It ends with the question of how the EU can reinforce its multilateral commitment to the international rules-based order, in particular through the UN.

This contribution examines the integration of the youth, peace and security (YPS) agenda within the European Union (EU). This integration has evolved from initial recognition to a stronger implementation phase. Key milestones include the Young Med Voices Plus Initiative and the recent Youth Action Plan for 2022–2027. However, challenges remain. These include inconsistent support and the need for more specific strategies for youth in conflict settings. Recent developments such as the inclusion of the YPS agenda in EU Peace Mediation Guidelines signal progress towards a more systematic integration.

The study explains how interparliamentary cooperation (IPC) contributed to maintaining unity in the European Union's (EU) response to the Russian–Ukrainian war. A theoretical framework is derived from the concepts of Crum's and Fossum's multilevel parliamentary field and Christopher Lord's theory on the role of parliamentary cooperation in the external relations of the EU. The empirical material for the qualitative and quantitative content analysis covers 25 IPC documents adopted between March 2022 and September 2023. Findings indicate that national parliaments have actively used IPC forums in the EU to address the war in Ukraine, emphasizing EU unity and collective actions over national concerns. Maintaining unity in the EU is highlighted as essential for managing and implementing decisions, especially given the likelihood of the Ukraine conflict becoming a prolonged crisis.

The study examines the potential of the European Union (EU)–India cooperation in health diplomacy and the exchange of lessons learned by both actors. Particularly, the growing discourse on achieving strategic autonomy in health has not been adequately analysed in the existing literature, which is surprising given that both actors share this interest. This paper begins by contextualising the discourse of strategic autonomy in the European and Indian political discourse with a specific focus on achieving autonomy in health and subsequently argues for a transition from strategic autonomy to a strategic partnership by recognising the strategic interdependencies. A qualitative content analysis was used to analyse all 16 EU–India summits to locate health diplomacy in their relations and present recommendations for future cooperation. The shift from strategic autonomy to strategic partnership also necessitates a strategic vision towards shaping the EU–India cooperation. With the upcoming EU–India Summit in 2025, research and development, strengthening supply chains, harmonisation of regulations, and financing of healthcare are key areas that can be deliberated on to enhance the cooperation between the two global actors in healthcare.

Social enterprises are firms that actively create jobs for people with disabilities and reduce social and labour inequalities, thereby participating in the social economy. Due to their importance to society and the work they do towards diversity integration and social sustainability, they have recently attracted much attention in academic literature. For this reason, the main objective of this study was to analyse the survival of social enterprises, identifying key variables that condition their continuity in the market or their failure. The initial sample consisted of 999 social enterprises for the year 2022. The Altman Z-score and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms were used to obtain the basic survival patterns. The main findings were that, on average, social enterprises are highly experienced companies and only one-third of them are at risk of bankruptcy. This means that most of these enterprises can continue their social function. Moreover, the results of return on assets (ROA), equity and debt turnover can predict being at risk of bankruptcy of social enterprises. This study contributes to the scarce academic literature on social enterprises and promotes the existence of such enterprises for social and economic sustainability.

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered unprecedented governmental responses worldwide, revealing weaknesses in health systems and public health policies due to lack of “complex thought” required to manage complex adaptive systems. Understanding COVID-19 response strategies' multiple effects is particularly important now that pandemic preparedness and response (PPR) is on top of the global health political agenda. Here, we adopt a complex adaptive systems approach to critically analyze the literature and draw lessons from the COVID-19 response to inform future PPR strategies. We observe that in many contexts, strategies implemented in response to COVID-19 were poorly effective, inefficient, and inequitable. We explain the limitations of these prevailing measures and propose approaches and strategies to manage pandemics arising from a “systems thinking” perspective. PPR demands the adoption of an evolving, evidenced-informed, and context-specific strategy based on comprehensive approaches reflecting the complexities of health crises. This means moving away from single-focused health security paradigms to consider the full range of health problems facing populations and adopting a package of interventions chosen via participatory and deliberative processes that are context-specific and sensitive, as well as evidence-driven, to ensure a fair balance between various pillars of pandemic responses: health promotion, non-pharmaceutical interventions, prophylaxis, vaccines, and treatments.

Governance of artificial intelligence (AI) has not achieved global participation. The primary state-led instrument focusing specifically on the global governance of artificial intelligence is the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI). Although GPAI aims for broad international participation, the only GPAI member from Southeast Asia is Singapore. GPAI's imbalanced global participation, restrictive membership process, and limited translations are potential barriers to Southeast Asian participation. However, a comparative policy analysis suggests that GPAI members and nonmembers in Southeast Asia have AI governance policies which are largely compatible, despite key differences. This study uses quantitative topic-modeling and qualitative content analysis to compare the AI governance policies of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam with the policies of Australia and Singapore, as reference GPAI members. The policies of GPAI, Australia, and Singapore emphasise the function of ethics while the policies of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam emphasise the function of human capital development. State-led, global AI governance efforts could attract more Southeast Asian participation by further emphasising human capital development and deemphasising the function of ethics. GPAI could increase the likelihood of Southeast Asian participation by decreasing its emphasis on political systems, allowing intergovernmental organisations to join, and recruiting all G20 members.