Events

Extremes: Protecting Worker Health in a Warming World

• Date: 19 November 2024
• Organizers: Pulitzer Center, Science Magazine, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
• Institution: Pulitzer Center
• Speakers: Aryn Baker, TIME magazine senior international climate and environment correspondent; Cathy Feingold, deputy president of the International Trade Union Confederation, and director of the international department in the AFL-CIO; Douglas Parker, assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration; Meredith Wadman, Science Magazine staff writer and medical doctor; and Barrak Alahmad, research fellow in the Exposure, Epidemiology and Risk (EER) program, department of environment health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
• Moderator: Tim Appenzeller, Science Magazine, AAAS
• Topic: Journalists, policymakers, and other experts discuss the impact of high heat on workers and vulnerable communities in the U.S. and around the world. How does high heat impact health? What are governments and other entities doing to protect individuals? Where can communities assist?

Crafting a new global order? The United Nations and international politics in the 1990s

• Date: 30 October 2024
• Organizer: Oxford Martin School
• Institution: University of Oxford
• Speaker: Prof. Fabian Klose, is the Chair of International History and Historical Peace and Conflict Research at the University of Cologne and Director of the newly founded Cologne Center for Advanced Studies in International History and Law (CHL). His research focuses on the history of decolonisation, international humanitarian law, human rights, and humanitarianism in the 19th and 20th centuries. On the history of human rights and humanitarianism he has published Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence. The Wars of Independence in Kenya and Algeria (Philadelphia 2013), and recently In the Cause of Humanity. A History of Humanitarian Intervention in the Long Nineteenth Century (Cambridge 2022).
• Topic: The 1990s are pivotal for understanding the mobilisation of the international system in the face of significant geopolitical upheaval and different types of global shock.

  After the end of the Cold War, this decade marks the beginning of a quest for a new global order. New visions of global governance emerged, which were based on a redefinition of fundamental principles such as peace, security, sovereignty and the idea of responsibility. However, these developments were overshadowed by mass violence, ethnic cleansing, genocide and the failures of the international community to prevent them.

  In his talk Professor Fabian Klose, Chair of International History and Historical Peace and Conflict Research at University of Cologne, will investigate the consequences these turbulent times had for the United Nations and how the world organisation reacted. He will explore the ambiguous role of the United Nations as a global actor responding to global shocks, in complex and often controversial circumstances. 

Lessons from battlefield Ukraine: A conversation with Ukraine’s former defense minister Oleksii Reznikov

• Date: 17 October 2024
• Organizer: MIT Center for International Studies (CIS), MIT Security Studies Program (SSP), MIT-Eurasia Program, and the MIT-Ukraine Program
• Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• Speaker: Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine’s former defense minister, led Ukraine’s defense establishment in the lead up to Russia’s full-scale invasion and during the first year and a half of the war. Mr. Reznikov will discuss the successesand challenges of Ukraine’s defense eff ort, the role of technology and uncrewed systems, and the evolution of the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war.
• Discussant: Mariana Budjeryn, PhD, is a senior research associate with the Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) at theHarvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. She is the author of “Inheriting the Bomb: The Collapse of the USSR and the Nuclear Disarmament of Ukraine.”
• Co-Chairs: Carol Saivetz is a senior advisor in the MIT Security Studies Program. She is the author and contributing co-editor of books and articles on Soviet and now Russian foreign policy issues.; Elizabeth Wood is the Ford International Professor of History at MIT. She is the author most recently of “Roots of Russia’s War in Ukraine,” as well as articles on Vladimir Putin, right-wing populism in Russia and Turkey, andmore.
• Topic: Lessons from the Russo-Ukrainian war battlefield. 

A Negotiated Peace between Ukraine and Russia: A Realistic Prospector a Dangerous Delusion?

• Date: 16 October 2024
• Organizer: Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard (HURI)
• Institution: Harvard University
• Speaker: Oleksii Reznikov served as Ukraine’s minister of defense in 2021-2023 and as minister for reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine in 2020-2021. As a deputy mayor of Kyiv in 2014-2018, he headed the Ukrainian delegation at the Congress of local and regional authorities of the Council of Europe in 2015-2016. A lawyer by training and profession, Mr. Reznikov was the deputy head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Minsk negotiations on the peaceful settlement of thewar in Ukraine’s east and Russian occupation of the Donbas.
• Introduction: Emily Channell-Justice, Director of the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program at the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University.
• Moderator: Mariana Budjeryn, Senior Research Associate with the Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center.
• Topic: As Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine continues well into its third year, claiming ever more civilian and military lives, calls for a negotiated solution to the conflict abound. Mr. Reznikov discusses the prospects of reaching a negotiated end of the war in Ukraine from his vast experience of negotiating with the Russian side, before and after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. What are Russian aims in Ukraine and are they compatible with Ukrainian sovereignty and European security? Under what circumstances can the space for negotiations be created? What role can Ukraine’s international partners and third parties play in ending the war? 

Sustainable Infrastructure: Enabling data-driven decision making

• Date: 9 October 2024
• Organizer: UN Environment Programme – World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC)
• Institution: United Nations (UN)
• Speakers: Kate Newman, Vice President, Sustainable Infrastructure, WWF-US; Ash Welch, Biodiversity and Nature Positive Lead, AECOM Singapore; Stacey Baggaley, Principal Specialist, Nature & Business, UNEP-WCMC; Diego Juffe Bignoli, Independent Biodiversity Consultant
• Moderator: Hamza Butt, Programme Officer, Nature Economy, UNEP-WCMC
• Topic: Enabling data-driven decision-making for sustainable infrastructure; and how data and tools are pivotal in advancing sustainable, inclusive, and nature-positive infrastructure.