accountability Archive

  • Jonathan Sumption QC (picture Brick Court Chambers)

    Foreign policy in the UK courts (14 May 2012)

    Date: Monday 14th May Time: 6.30-8pm Venue: Wolfson Theatre Speaker: Jonathan Lord Sumption Chair: Professor Martin Loughlin Jonathan Lord Sumption was sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court in January 2012. Sumption is known for his appearance as a barrister in the Hutton...

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  • Moisés Naím (picture moisesnaim.com)

    The next head of the World Bank

    The World Bank needs a new manager.  Robert Zoellick is leaving, so the search is on for a replacement.  Tradition has it that the role is always filled by an American (the Europeans have the IMF) but, as a surf of this website will reveal,...

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  • Robert Montgomery plays Philip Marlowe in the 1947 film version of "The lady in the lake"

    The lady in the lake

    Taking a break from thinking about the future of the eurozone or the prospects for a UN Parliamentary Assembly, I took a trip to 1940s California in the company of Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler’s iconic, hardbitten private detective.  But amidst the glitz of Hollywood and...

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  • The Occupy London protest (picture Richard Symonds)

    The case for global democracy

    Based on a talk by Richard Laming at the OccupyLSX camp at St Paul’s Cathedral, 11 December 2011 Before talking about the issue of global democracy, I ought to say a few words about Federal Union and its interest in this issue. Federal Union was founded...

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  • Richard Laming

    No globalisation without representation

    That the protestors outside St Paul’s cathedral are critical of global capitalism should not be surprise.  Doesn’t everybody object to the way in which what was effectively gambling in unregulated markets nearly brought down the financial system and has ground economic growth to a halt?...

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  • obamawestminsterlandscape

    The rights of citizens, the rights of nations

    Barack Obama was widely praised for the declaration in his speech at Westminster Hall on 25 May that “we believe not simply in the rights of nations, we believe in the rights of citizens.” It sounds great, but is it really true?  Here’s a test....

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  • facemaskhead

    Too many vaccines

    It has become apparent that the British government ordered many more shots of swine flu vaccine last winter than turned out to be needed. (The Guardian reports the story here.) The excess cost is not quoted but must run into tens of millions of pounds....

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  • Tuna

    Tuna off the menu and onto the agenda

    Environmentalists are angry about the decision by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) at the weekend to reduce the allowable catch next year from 22,000 to 13,500 tonnes but not to abolish it altogether. Stocks of tuna are at dangerously low...

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  • Compost heap on a frosty morning (picture Andrew Dunn)

    Need for global rules

    By Richard Laming Published in The Daily Telegraph, 4 October 2009 SIR – Janet Daley (Comment, September 27) is correct to warn of the problems posed by global governance but is wrong to dismiss the idea out of hand. Her fear is that global governance...

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  • G8 summit (source whitehouse.gov)

    Not just who but how

    Claire Melamed, head of policy at ActionAid, writes in the Guardian today about the G8 summit to be held in Italy this week and whether it would be better if it were the G20 represented instead. (Read the article here.) She discusses whether the G20...

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