The IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE is specialised in op-ed pieces written by
authors of international acclaim on culture, politics, economics, and
social issues.
The columns are published by a range of media outlets, in both the
North and the South, and are available here on a read-only basis;
their use by or reproduction in any other media is prohibited.
Yash Tandon THE G8 HAS NO LEGITIMACY IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE, July 2008 Legitimacy is a
philosophical-political concept. It is also an ethical concept. In
Western philosophy a distinction is sometimes made between legality
and legitimacy. Before the dawn of liberal democracy in the West, the
will of the sovereign monarch constituted the legal order. The French
Revolution changed that. Henceforth, only the will of the people,
expressed through representative institutions or directly by
referendum, conferred legitimacy to the legal order.
More Columns by Yash Tandon>>
Ignacy Sachs AFTER OIL: MODERN BIOCIVILISATION IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE, July 2008 The long co-evolution of humankind and the biosphere
was marked by two great historical transitions. The first, from
hunting and gathering to agriculture and animal husbandry, occurred
thousands of years ago. The second, to the age of abundant and cheap
fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas), took place just a few centuries ago.
We are now at the threshold of the third great transition: out of the
oil and, hopefully, the fossil energy age.
More Columns by Ignacy Sachs>>
Jacques Diouf THE FOOD CRISIS AND THE WRONG SOLUTIONS IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE, July 2008 At the opening of the High-level Conference on World
Food Security held in Rome on 3 June 2008, I indicated that “the
structural solution to the problem of world food security is an
increase in productivity and production in the low-income food-deficit
countries. This would require, in addition to official development
assistance, innovative new solutions. To this effect, it is necessary
to develop partnership or joint-venture agreements between, on the one
hand, those countries that have the financial resources and on the
other, those that possess land, water and human resources. Only in
this way will it be possible to ensure sustainable agricultural
development in the context of more equal international relations.”
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Mark Sommer RESILIENCE ECOLOGISTS LOOK TO NATURE FOR STRATEGIES TO STAY AFLOAT IN TURBULENT TIMES IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE, July 2008 Between floods, droughts, epidemics, food
shortages and rising prices, the world seems about to spin off its axis. For
all the drama of the past half century, historians and natural scientists
tell us that the postwar era has actually been something of an anomaly, a
period of relative calm in nature and human events in a world that history
has shown to be reliably unpredictable. That hiatus may now be ending.
Moreover, they say, we are approaching a threshold moment, a change of phase
that will throw every long-held habit and assumption into question. War and
revolution are just such moments, but never before have we endured
simultaneous transformations of politics, culture and nature. More Columns by Mark Sommer>>
Elisabetta Zamparutti CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS ON THE WAY OUT IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE, July 2008 The 2008 world report on the death penalty from Hands Off
Cain, which covers 2007 and the first six months of 2008, confirms that
there has been positive movement in the fight to end capital punishment for
more than a decade, and highlights the most striking advance yet: the
universal moratorium against capital punishment. On December 18, 2007, the
62nd General Assembly of the United Nations approved a resolution calling on
member states to "impose a moratorium on executions with a view towards
ultimately abolishing capital punishment"; 104 voted yes, 54 against, 29
abstained.
More Columns by Elisabetta Zamparutti>>
Leonardo Padura Fuentes CUBA: SOCIALIST REALISM IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE, July 2008 Forty-six years after it was proclaimed, Cuban socialism
seems to have finally revived the idea of the value of money as an economic
regulator and social catalyst. An almost half-century reign of flowery
rhetoric, the invocation of moral and material stimuli (never too
stimulating), and a frontal assault on money is giving way to a kind of
realism (socialist) in which the people are being asked to work not only
because work is ennobling and provides you justification as a social being,
but because the more and better you work, the more money you make. More Columns by Leonardo Padura Fuentes>>
Johan Galtung COLD WAR I AND II - SOLUTIONS ANYONE? IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE, July 2008 Cold War I came and went, lasting roughly from
1949-1989. Then in the mid-1990s Cold War II started, building on the
ruins of Cold War I and now gathering strength. What will happen now?
Is there anything to learn from the past?
More Columns by Johan Galtung>>
Leonardo Padura Fuentes CUBA: HEAT AND SCEPTICISM IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE, July 2008 In the fierce heat of summer, the expectations of Cubans
tend to shoot up like the mercury in the thermometers. Whether they hope for
the materialisation of certain wishes or are convinced of certain
disappointment, a day looms in the near future: July 26, anniversary of the
beginning of the armed struggle of Fidel Castro and his followers in 1953
with the attack on what was then called the Moncada Garrison, the second
most important of the Cuban army at the time
More Columns by Leonardo Padura Fuentes>>
