To address the global challenge of plastic waste, 175 UN Member States are negotiating a legally binding instrument, the Plastic Treaty, aimed at ending plastic pollution. This ambitious framework, targeting both terrestrial and marine sources, is being developed through Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee meetings scheduled to conclude by 2025. Amidst uncertainties and power dynamics influencing state positions, this research identifies 10 critical, yet unresolved, points within the treaty negotiations (i.e., the scope of the treaty, equity and differentiation, involvement of non-state actors, integration with existing agreements, standards and specifications, trade implications, monitoring and reporting, responsibility and historical contributions, binding vs. non-binding commitments, and financing and technology transfer). The findings suggest potential compromises in the treaty’s environmental provisions, influenced by domestic interests and international power disparities. As negotiations progress, the imperative for cooperation and decisive action against plastic pollution becomes increasingly pressing, challenging member states to prioritize global environmental integrity over national interests.

The world is witnessing an increase in cross-border data transfers and breaches orchestrated by State and non-State actors. Cross-border data transfers may lead to friction among States to localize or globalize data and to provide regulatory frameworks. “Data warfare” or information-war operations are often not covered under conventional rules; however, they are categorized as acts of espionage and subject to domestic regulations. As such, the operations are used to achieve a variety of objectives, including stealing sensitive information, spreading propaganda, and causing economic damage. Notable instances of the theft of sensitive information include the recent Bangladesh government website breach, exposing 50 million records, and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) website hack.

Regulating the “data war” under the existing principles of international law may be unsuccessful in creating robust international legal frameworks to address the associated challenges. These developments further accentuate the global divide between data-rich regions in the Global North, with strong data protection mechanisms (such as the GDPR and the California Privacy Rights Act), and regions in the Global South, where there is a lack of comprehensive data protection laws and regulatory regimes. This disparity underscores the urgent need for global cooperation for substantial international regulatory mechanisms.

This article examines the complexities surrounding data warfare; it highlights the imperative need for establishing a robust global legal framework for data protection, delving into the concept of data war. It also acknowledges the growing influence of advanced technologies like data computing and mining and their ongoing threats to the fundamental rights of individuals associated with exposed personal data. The authors address the deficiencies in international legal provisions and advocate for a global regulatory approach to data protection as a critical means of safeguarding personal freedoms and countering the escalating threats in the digital age.

The growing plastic production, the lack of their waste management, and fragmented regulatory responses have increased their abundance in the environment. Plastic pollution has created significant environmental concerns leading to planetary boundary threats. As a result, an increasing number of governments and non-state actors have begun negotiations on a legally binding treaty to cover the full-life-cycle of plastics by 2024. While the negotiations were mandated at the United Nations Environment Assembly 5.2 in March of 2022, how the new agreement would link to existing governance bodies addressing plastic pollution at the global, regional, national and local levels requires careful consideration. This analysis examines the main multi-level governance structures in place to govern plastics while highlighting their principal roles as well as shortcomings and gaps. It then explores ways a new global agreement could complement existing governance structures without imposing and duplicating the work of previous agreements.

Cost-effective and equitable climate change mitigation requires the transfer of resources from developed to developing countries. In two behavioral experiments, we demonstrate that American subjects act according to a strong home preference, by making private donations and writing letters in support of public spending more often for mitigation programs located at home versus those overseas. We attempt to overcome the preference to act at home by randomly informing some subjects that foreign programs are more cost-effective than domestic programs. Home preference is mitigated only in the case of private donations. From a separate experimental treatment, we show that the preference against foreign programs is exacerbated when the co-benefits of mitigation programs are made salient. Importantly, home preference crosses party lines, indicating that it is a deep-seeded, affective preference. These findings highlight significant political obstacles to international cooperation on climate change that relies on transfers.