Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik / Briefing Paper

Despite growing awareness, the global regulation of facial recognition technology (FRT) remains fragmented, much like the governance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). International initiatives from the United Nations (UN), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and World Economic Forum (WEF) provide guiding principles but fall short of enforceable standards. On 27 July 2025, UN tech chief Doreen Bogdan-Martin warned that the world urgently needs a global approach to AI regulation, as fragmented efforts risk deepening inequalities. 
This policy brief explores how FRT challenges existing governance frameworks due to its rapid development, complexity and ethical implications. Our research shows that delays in regulation are not only caused by the rapid pace of technological change but also by whose voices are included in the debate. In FRT debates, early warnings from civil society about privacy and rights were sidelined until echoed by governments and major tech firms. This lack of representation, as much as the rapid pace of innovation, helps explain why regulation so often lags behind public concerns. To better govern FRT, the policy brief proposes an adaptive and inclusive model that balances flexibility with democratic legitimacy. Adaptive governance, marked
by decentralised decision-making, iterative policy learning, and responsiveness, helps address the uncertainties and evolving risks of narrow AI applications like FRT. Inclusivity is equally critical in legitimising FRT governance. 
We propose three policy recommendations to national regulators, multilateral bodies and regional policymakers for future AI governance: (1) require transparent labelling of AI systems, 
(2) reframe AI as a societal issue, not just a security tool, and (3) embed civil society in AI governance forums. Taken together, these actions would promote a more proactive, equitable and context-sensitive framework for regulating AI globally. These recommendations are particularly timely ahead of the AI Impact Summit, scheduled for February 2026 in Delhi, which will bring global policymakers together to shape an international vision for AI governance that includes FRT.

The global system of development cooperation is entering uncertain territory. For decades, multilateralism and global solidarity shaped the expectations of how global development policy should be organised and justified. These norms provided a degree of stability, even if practice often fell short. In a new Discussion Paper we argue that those assumptions can no longer be taken for granted.

Zunehmend drängt sich der Eindruck auf, dass europäische Entscheidungsträger den Glauben an das multilaterale Handelssystem verlieren – ein Eindruck, der sich auch im deutschen Diskurs in der Abwertung der Welthandelsorganisation (WTO) als „funktionsunfähig“ niederschlägt. Als Alternative zur WTO werden zunehmend Freihandelsabkommen gesehen, von denen Deutschland als Teil der Europäischen Union (EU) mehr als 40 Abkommen mit mehr als 70 Ländern abgeschlossen hat. Hierbei wird es jedoch nicht bleiben. So will die EU das schwelende Abkommen mit dem lateinamerikanischen Wirtschaftsverbund Mercosur endlich ratifizieren. Erst letzte Woche wurden die Verhandlungen mit Indonesien abgeschlossen und auch mit Indien will die EU bis Ende des Jahres handelseinig werden. Zuletzt in der Diskussion: eine engere Kooperation der EU mit den zwölf Mitgliedern der Transpazifischen Partnerschaft, ein besonders umfassendes und innovatives Abkommen.

Gibt es außerhalb der krisengeschüttelten WTO also tatsächlich einfachere, pragmatischere Wege regelbasierten Handel zu ermöglichen?

Leider wird oft übersehen, dass in dem Maße wie Freihandelsabkommen überschätzt werden, die Rolle der WTO vielfach unterschätzt wird. Das zentrale Argument gegen Freihandelsabkommen kommt aus der italienischen Küche: der Handelsökonom Jagdish Bhagwati verglich Freihandelsabkommen einst mit einer Spagettischüssel. Er kritisierte damit die mangelnde Kohärenz und Übersichtlichkeit zahlreicher bilateraler Abkommen. Freihandelsabkommen schaffen tatsächlich ein unübersichtliches Geflecht aus Zöllen und Bestimmungen, das Kosten und Bürokratie verursacht, durch die die Vertragsparteien versuchen, andere Länder von den Handelsvorteilen auszuschließen. Dies schmälert die Effizienzgewinne, die mit niedrigen Zöllen einhergehen. Gerade kleine und mittlere Unternehmen ohne gutausgestattete Abteilungen für Zollwesen greifen daher oft lieber auf die zwar teils höheren aber einfacher umzusetzenden multilateralen Zölle zurück, die im Rahmen der WTO vereinbart wurden. Zudem dauert es oft Jahre, bis die zunehmend komplexen Freihandelsabkommen verhandelt und ratifiziert sind. Auch ist mit den beiden anderen Handelsgroßmächten, China und den USA, kein Abkommen in Sicht. Freihandelsabkommen sollten daher als Ergänzung, nicht aber als Ersatz für die WTO angesehen werden.

Die WTO befindet sich in einer Krise, sicher; dysfunktional ist sie deswegen aber nicht. Während der Streitbeilegungsmechanismus – früher als Kronjuwel der WTO bezeichnet – aufgrund einer Blockade des Berufungsorgans durch die USA geschwächt ist, werden stetig neue Streitfälle eingebracht. Der Austausch in den technischen Komitees der WTO führt dazu, dass viele Missverständnisse gelöst werden können, bevor aus ihnen Streitfälle werden. Die WTO hat zudem nach wie vor eine wichtige Rolle im Monitoring der Handelspolitiken ihrer Mitglieder und sorgt damit für systemweite Transparenz. All diese Funktionen der WTO können und müssen weiterentwickelt werden. Sie können aber nicht durch ein Netz von Freihandelsabkommen ersetzt werden, die diese Systemleistungen nicht bereitstellen.

Im Schatten der Diskussion über den vermeintlichen Stillstand in der WTO, bleiben erzielte Fortschritte oft unbemerkt. Eine wichtige Funktion der WTO ist die Aushandlung neuer Handelsregeln. Der Verhandlungsmotor der WTO läuft untertourig und zu langsam, abgewürgt ist er aber nicht. Erst vor wenigen Tagen ist das Abkommen gegen Fischereisubventionen in Kraft getreten. Dieses Abkommen kommt spät – mehr als 20 Jahre nach Verhandlungsstart – es hat dennoch das Potential einen Beitrag zur Verhinderung weltweiter Überfischung zu leisten. Auch wurde vor Kurzem ein Abkommen zur Erleichterung des Dienstleistungshandels beschlossen und ein Abkommen über Investitionserleichterungen liegt verhandlungsfertig auf dem Tisch. Gerade diese beiden „plurilateralen“ Abkommen verdeutlichen, wie auch angesichts der Blockadehaltung einiger weniger Mitglieder in Zukunft das WTO-Regelwerk weiterentwickelt werden kann: durch themenspezifische Kooperation in Allianzen mit gleichgesinnten Mitgliedern.

Das WTO-Abkommen für Investitionserleichterungen kann hierbei den Weg weisen: es ist ein Abkommen, das vor allem von Volkswirtschaften (mittlerweile: 127 der 166 WTO-Mitglieder) niedrigen und mittleren Einkommens initiiert und verhandelt wurde. Es enthält ein flexibles Regelwerk und eine umfassende Entwicklungsdimension. Es hat das Potential den weltweiten Wohlstand zu steigern, auch von Nicht-Mitgliedern. Nach wie vor blockieren Länder wie Indien und Südafrika die Aufnahme des Abkommens in das WTO-Regelwerk. Dessen ungeachtet haben die Mitglieder bereits angefangen, das Abkommen umzusetzen, indem sie die Implementierung der darin enthaltenen Regeln vorbereiten, weil sie davon überzeugt sind, dass sie hierdurch einen verlässlichen Rahmen für ausländische Direktinvestitionen bieten können. Deutschland und die Europäische Union sollten diesen Umsetzungsprozess noch stärker unterstützen, im Interesse der Partnerländer, aber auch der eigenen im Ausland investierenden Unternehmen.

Die WTO sollte nicht ohne Not zum Problemfall gemacht werden. Gerade angesichts der Notwendigkeit, die wirtschaftlichen Risiken in den Handelsbeziehungen zu China und den USA zu reduzieren, sind Deutschland und die EU auf die WTO angewiesen. Sie bleibt die zentrale Plattform, um mit der Mehrheit der Volkswirtschaften themenspezifische Partnerschaften aufzubauen, um ein kooperatives und regelbasiertes Welthandelssystem zu fördern.

El laboratorio urbano (LU) es un enfoque de gobernanza experimental para la creación conjunta de soluciones innovadoras a los desafíos urbanos como el cambio climático. Los estudios sobre los laboratorios urbanos han pasado por alto la conformación de laboratorios como un proceso diferenciado y han basado su análisis casi exclusivamente en los casos europeos. Por ello, se sabe poco acerca de la influencia que las condiciones del contexto ejercen en la conformación de los laboratorios en general y fuera de Europa en particular. Para abordar este vacío, el presente estudio analiza en forma inductiva la conformación de LU en cinco ciudades situadas en Argentina, Brasil y México, desarrolla un marco para el análisis comparativo, y plantea la siguiente pregunta: ¿Qué nos dicen los desafíos encontrados y las soluciones desarrolladas durante la conformación de los LU en estas ciudades acerca de la dependencia del contexto; qué consecuencias y limitaciones genera esa dependencia con respecto a su potencial desarrollo fuera de Europa? Comparando las experiencias europeas con las conclusiones alcanzadas respecto de América Latina, el estudio responde a estos interrogantes e identifica preguntas para investigaciones futuras.

In Mongolia, a mining boom has significantly increased pressures on water resources, negatively affecting human health and ecosystems. In this chapter, we ask how polycentric water governance and the interaction of different modes of coordination play out in Mongolia and what this implies for the protection of rivers against pollution from mining. By presenting a case study from a developing and transitioning country, this chapter also contributes to a better understanding of how contextual factors affect different coordination modes. We find that protecting rivers from mining pollution remains a considerable challenge in Mongolia. While new rules and actors at the basin level have fostered cooperation among public-sector agencies, due to power asymmetries, public agencies tend to avoid direct cooperation with mining companies. Instead, interaction with mining operators mainly happens through different types of hierarchical interrelations, but their effectiveness is undermined through lobbying, collusion, and corruption. Next to power asymmetries, economic, political, cultural, and environmental contextual factors constrain mining pollution abatement.

Tax expenditures (TEs) in Colombia accounted for approximately 7.8% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2022, broken down as follows: the fiscal cost of this expenditure was 0.6% in terms of personal income tax and 1.5% in terms of corporate income tax. The remaining 5.6% corresponded to VAT. In total, this represents a four-percentage-point increase on the previous year.
This report stresses the need to review TEs. Such an evaluation was already crucial before the pandemic, but has now become all the more urgent in the wake of COVID-19 and its impact on inequality and state revenue.
Transparency: there is no comprehensive data available on TEs in Colombia and the data that does exist is not accessible to researchers or the general public. In several cases, information is patchy or aggregated, making it difficult to evaluate.
Complex fiscal landscape: the Colombian tax system is complex, due in part to the numerous special exemptions, exclusions and deductions inherent in the regulatory framework. This complicates matters in terms of tax compliance, oversight and auditing.
Evaluation challenges: Colombia had no defined benchmark for determining its TE. While initial work was undertaken in mid-2024 to define a benchmark for income tax and VAT, the disaggregated report is not available at the time of writing this analysis. Additionally, the absence of effective and ongoing assessment to determine the appropriateness of tax benefits has led to an accumulation of incentives, many of them unjustified, and an increase in the country’s TE.
Fiscal sustainability: limited tax collection is impinging on the ability of the Colombian state to maintain healthy public finances and comply with its fiscal rule. This is not only the result of a stagnating economy, but also stems from numerous tax benefits that drive up TE. These benefits already corresponded to 7.4% and 7.8% of GDP in 2021 and 2022 respectively.
Policy recommendations: there is a need to restructure the Colombian tax system to make it more efficient, sustainable and equitable. Tax benefits must be reviewed and, in some cases, progressively removed in order to help achieve tax justice and streamline the system.

En 2022, los gastos tributarios (GTs) en Colombia representaron aproximadamente el 7.8% del PIB, desglosándose de la siguiente manera: el costo fiscal de estos gastos en el impuesto sobre la renta fue del 0.6% para personas naturales y del 1.5% para personas jurídicas. El otro 5.6% corresponde al IVA. Este total representa un aumento de 4 puntos porcentuales en comparación con el año anterior.
Este informe destaca la necesidad de revisar los GTs, una evaluación que ya era crucial antes de la pandemia, pero que se ha vuelto aún más urgente en el contexto post-COVID-19, dado su impacto en la desigualdad y en los ingresos estatales.
Transparencia: La información sobre GTs en Colombia no es detallada ni accesible para los ciudadanos o los investigadores. En algunos casos está dispersa o solo se dispone de información agregada, lo que dificulta su evaluación.
Escenario fiscal complejo: El sistema tributario colombiano es complejo, en parte, debido a las numerosas exenciones, exclusiones y deducciones especiales presentes en la regulación, lo que complejiza el cumplimiento tributario y el proceso de fiscalización y control.
Desafíos en la evaluación: Colombia no tenía definido su sistema de referencia (Benchmark) para la determinación del gasto tributario (GT). A mediados de 2024 se realizó el primer acercamiento a dicha definición para el impuesto sobre la renta y para el IVA, pero, al momento de este análisis no está disponible el informe desagregado. Sumado a ello, los beneficios tributarios no son objeto de una evaluación permanente y efectiva que permita determinar su pertinencia, lo que ha generado una acumulación de incentivos, muchas veces injustificados y que implican un elevado GT para el país.
Sostenibilidad fiscal: La capacidad del Estado colombiano para mantener unas finanzas saludables y cumplir con la regla fiscal se está viendo afectada por el escaso recaudo tributario. Esto se debe no solo al estancamiento de la economía sino, a la existencia de numerosos beneficios impositivos que conducen a un elevado GT que, solo en 2021 y 2022 representó 7.4% y 7.8% del PIB respectivamente.
Recomendaciones de política: en Colombia se requiere una reestructuración del sistema tributario para hacerlo más eficiente, sostenible y equitativo. Los beneficios tributarios se deben evaluar y, en ciertos casos, desmontar gradualmente con el fin de contribuir a la justicia tributaria y a la simplicidad del sistema.

This book has come up with the most up-to-date, comprehensive and objective analysis of China’s investments in Pakistan under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative. It covers the broad range of Sino-Pakistan relations in the backdrop of Pakistan’s complex political, governance, security, socio-environmental and technological challenges that hinder implementation of CPEC projects.

This study takes a critical look at Franco-German relations in the field of international cooperation along the entire humanitarian-development-peace (HDP) spectrum to better gauge the usefulness of bilateral collaborative action in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Both the corresponding potential – for example in the current Syrian transition – as well as existing coordination formats are of interest to the inquiry. The latter are examined in more detail against the background of German and French activities in Libya and Iraq. In this context, the analysis also considers the HDP nexus as an instrument of cooperation, which offers ideal conditions for application in fragile, conflict-prone (Libya) or war-torn countries (Iraq) due to their complex needs. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations for initiating or strengthening Franco-German cooperation in fragile states of the MENA region in the fields of humanitarian aid, development policy, and peacebuilding measures.
The study is divided into three thematic sections, the first of which examines bilateral relations between Paris and Berlin, with a focus on the phase following the signing of the Aachen Agreement in 2019. The analysis of national and international framework conditions for and against international cooperation is also part of this section, taking into account the effects of the Trump 2.0 administration. In the second part, the foreign and development policy approaches of both countries are analysed with a focus on their Middle East policies. Here, convergences and divergent approaches are of special interest, allowing conclusions to be drawn about the ability and willingness to cooperate. The third section is devoted to a synthesis of the operationalisation of activities within the HDP spectrum, with Libya and Iraq as country examples, as well as additional considerations relating to Syria.
On the one hand, this approach enables one to identify structural factors that either hinder or promote bilateral Franco-German cooperation in the international context. On the other hand, sufficient space is also given to current developments in order to be able to categorise trends and contextual factors which have a reinforcing or weakening effect on cooperation drivers. The Discussion Paper concludes with a recapitulation of the findings, and derives actionable recommendations for strengthening cooperation between Paris and Berlin in the crisis-ridden MENA region on the basis of HDP coordination.

Promoting female employment remains a pressing challenge in many low- and middle-income countries. Despite ongoing efforts, too few women participate in the labour force – particularly in regions such as the Middle East and South Asia – and too many remain locked out of more decent wage employment – especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Promoting women’s employment is not just about fairness; it is essential for inclusive and sustainable development. Women’s economic participation matters for four reasons: it fosters growth and reduces poverty by increasing household income, it enhances women’s autonomy in the household, it promotes equity and cohesion in societies, and it strengthens the resilience of households to shocks by diversifying income sources. Recent research has deepened under­standing of both the barriers and enablers of gender equality in labour markets, offering useful guidance for development cooperation.

Building on empirical research by IDOS, this policy brief highlights that development cooperation can take three key approaches to promote female employment:

• Address foundational barriers: Development cooperation can work with local partners to remove the root barriers holding women back. This includes addressing restrictive gender norms in ways that respect cultural contexts, e.g. by investing in community-based care solutions (as successfully practised in several African cases) or better access to services and mobility. Projects should not only target women individually but also address constraints within households and communities and engage broader society. They must also challenge gendered labour market structures that limit women’s paths into wage work.
• Strengthen gender equality on the opera­tional level: The green and digital transitions offer new employ­ment opportunities – but women risk being left behind. Development cooperation can help to ensure that women benefit from these shifts. In cooperation with national governments, it can embed gender targets into economic reforms, incentivise companies to adopt inclusive hiring practices and to implement flexible work time arrangements (such as in Jordan), and fund training for women to reskill and motivate them for these fields.
• Create an enabling policy mix: Employment-focused reforms succeed when they connect with broader policy frameworks. Aligning employment initiatives with social policies – such as childcare support or public works – can boost women’s ability to work. At the same time, gender-sensitive approaches in areas like transport, finance and infrastructure can help overcome structural disadvantages that affect women at different stages of life.

In recent years, development cooperation has shifted from measures to support gender mainstreaming towards gender-transformative approaches that aim to reduce structural barriers. Recent funding cuts and public opinion that is becoming more critical of diversity and equity measures, mean that development cooperation must build on its experience to enable women to grasp economic opportunities and live a dignified life.

One influential actor that has been largely overlooked in European debates on China as a ‘systemic rival’ is the Chinese Communist Party’s International Department (CCP-ID). Building on a comprehensive dataset that allows us to trace China’s international party cooperation since the early 2000s, we not only investigate the CCP-ID’s networking activities across Europe but also zoom in on the CCP-ID’s engagement in the Czech Republic, Germany, and the UK. The main purpose of the CCP-ID is to foster elite networks and to build personal relationships. By identifying and mobilising individuals who will ‘speak in favour of China’ in domestic political debates within Europe or who publicly endorse China’s positions in Chinese media, the CCP-ID seeks to provide the CCP with external legitimacy. It is the great flexibility in the CCP’s strategies and instruments and the many faces of its activities that make it a potent player in Sino-European relations to which policymakers and academics alike should pay more attention.

Amidst different global food insecurity challenges, like the COVID-19 pandemic and economic turmoil, this article investigates the potential of machine learning (ML) to enhance food insecurity forecasting. So far, only few existing studies have used pre-shock training data to predict food insecurity and if they did, they have neither done this at the household-level nor systematically tested the performance and robustness of ML algorithms during the shock phase. To address this research gap, we use pre-COVID trained models to predict household-level food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic in Uganda and propose a new approach to evaluate the performance and robustness of ML models. The objective of this study is therefore to find high-performance and robust ML algorithms during a shock period, which is both methodologically innovative and practically relevant for food insecurity research. First, we find that ML can work well in a shock context when only pre-shock food security data are available. We can identify 80% of food-insecure households during the COVID-19 pandemic based on pre-shock trained models at the cost of falsely classifying around 40% of food-secure households as food insecure. Second, we show that the extreme gradient boosting algorithm, trained by balanced weighting, works best in terms of prediction quality. We also identify the most important predictors and find that demographic and asset features play a crucial role in predicting food insecurity. Last but not least, we also make a contribution by showing how different ML models should be evaluated in terms of their area under curve (AUC) value, the ability of the model to correctly classify positive and negative cases, and in terms of the change in AUC in different situations.

This paper applies the concepts and theories of “policy norms” to the disruptive effects of the second Trump administration on global development cooperation. We argue that recent US actions represent more than a domestic political shift. They signal a tipping point to longstanding norms of the development cooperation system and specifically multilateralism as well as notions of global solidarity. This paper’s objective is to explain how, why and through which political and institutional mechanisms policy norms break down or are reconstituted in global development cooperation. It uses the current moment as a case study of “norm antipreneurship”, potentially even “norm imperialism” illustrating the political and institutional strategies through which policy norms are currently been contested, dismantled or displaced. This paper addresses a set of questions: (i) What are the core mechanisms through which development cooperation norms are formed, contested and fragmented? (ii) How is the second Trump administration seeking to reshape normative regimes in development cooperation? (iii) What research agenda is needed to understand norm change in a multipolar and contested development cooperation landscape?

Andy Sumner is Professor of International Development at King’s College in London and President of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes.

Are climate treaties, like the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) or the Paris Agreement, the only way forward for intergovernmental climate cooperation? By now, there are hundreds of multilateral treaties governing a wide range of environmental issues, including energy, freshwater, oceans, air pollution, biodiversity conservation, hazardous waste, agriculture and fisheries. This policy brief examines whether the 379 multilateral environmental treaties that do not primarily address climate change can nevertheless contribute to advancing climate commitments.
We find that decisions adopted under environmental treaties have increasingly mainstreamed climate considerations since 1990. Today, climate-related decisions account for around 10% of regulatory decisions adopted under environmental treaties across different issue areas. Some treaty regimes are particularly active in addressing climate change, such as those focused on energy, freshwater and habitats, with up to 60% of their decisions addressing climate change. In contrast, treaties regulating agriculture and fisheries demonstrate a notably lower level of engagement in climate mainstreaming.
These findings demonstrate that environmental treaties that do not specifically focus on climate change can still contribute to shaping climate governance, albeit to varying degrees. This policy brief concludes with a set of recommendations for researchers, treaty negotiators, secretariats, governments and climate activists seeking to advance intergovernmental cooperation on climate change through means other than climate treaties.
Key policy messages:
Non-climate-focused treaties can serve as a means for developing climate mitigation and adaptation commitments, notably through decisions adopted by their respective bodies. Yet, there is room for increased climate mainstreaming in those decisions. Various actors can contribute to such mainstreaming:
• Researchers could further investigate why some conferences of the parties (COPs) are more receptive to climate concerns than others and what potential trade-offs are associated with climate mainstreaming in environmental treaties.
• Treaty negotiators can favour cross-cutting mandates that enhance policy coherence across interconnected environmental challenges, enabling a more integrated approach to environmental decision-making. They can also design dynamic collective bodies, able to adopt decisions swiftly when new issues or information arise.
• Governments can appoint climate experts in non-climate COPs and advisory committees and report climate-related aspects of their implementation of non-climate treaties.
• Treaty secretariats can coordinate joint initiatives and promote knowledge exchange across climate and other environmental regimes.
• Climate activists can intensify their engagement with non-climate COPs by participating in consultations, submitting position papers, and collaborating with sympathetic delegates to amplify the climate relevance of treaty decisions.

Annabelle Olivier is a PhD student in Political Science at the University of British Columbia.
Jean-Frédéric Morin is Full Professor at the Political Science Department of Université Laval, Canada

Bonn, 15. September 2025. Der jährliche Internationale Tag zum Schutz der Ozonschicht am 16. September erinnert an das 1987 unterzeichnete Montrealer Protokoll – ein Abkommen zum Verbot ozonabbauender Stoffe. Es wurde von allen 198 UN-Mitgliedstaaten ratifiziert und zählt zu den wenigen universell gültigen Verträgen. Die Staaten verpflichteten sich, die Produktion und die Nutzung von rund 100 ozonabbauenden Stoffen (ODS) schrittweise einzustellen. Heute gilt die Erholung der Ozonschicht, eines globalen öffentlichen Gutes, als Beweis dafür, dass internationale Solidarität funktionieren kann – und als Erfolgsgeschichte globaler Umweltpolitik.

Derzeit fordern kleine Inselentwicklungsländer zusammen mit Pakistan nachdrücklich die Ausarbeitung eines Nichtverbreitungsvertrags für fossile Energien. Ähnlich wie das Montrealer Protokoll soll er die schrittweise Einstellung der Produktion und des Verbrauchs fossiler Brennstoffe innerhalb eines bestimmten Zeitrahmens vorschreiben. Viele staatliche und nichtstaatliche Akteure, darunter Städte wie Bonn, unterstützen die Initiative. Auch das Europäische Parlament drängt die Mitgliedstaaten inzwischen, den Vertrag voranzubringen. Trotz wachsender Unterstützung sind beträchtliche Hürden zu überwinden. Dabei stellt sich die Frage, welche Lehren sich aus dem Erfolg des Montrealer Protokolls für den Prozess rund um den Nichtverbreitungsvertrag ziehen lassen. Klar ist: Die schrittweise Abschaffung fossiler Brennstoffe ist weit komplexer als das Verbot von ODS. Außerdem lassen sich nicht alle Erfolgsfaktoren von damals eins zu eins auf den Nichtverbreitungsvertrag übertragen.

Der Blick zurück zeigt: Ohne öffentliches Bewusstsein und breite Akzeptanz wäre der Erfolg des Montrealer Protokolls kaum möglich gewesen. In den 1980er Jahren waren die wissenschaftlichen Beweise für die Auswirkungen ultravioletter Strahlung auf die Menschen noch lückenhaft. Selbst der Zusammenhang zwischen bestimmten Chemikalien und dem Abbau der Ozonschicht war nicht zweifelsfrei belegt. Dennoch war das Abkommen nur zwei Jahre nach der Entdeckung des Ozonlochs über der Antarktis ausgehandelt und ratifiziert. Wissenschaft und Umweltbewegung zogen an einem Strang und brachten das Thema in die Öffentlichkeit. Dabei überwog die Sorge um die menschliche Gesundheit gegenüber den wirtschaftlichen Interessen der Industrie, die ODS produzierte oder nutzte. Sogar Entwicklungsländer, die auf günstige Kühl- und Gefriertechnologien angewiesen waren, schlossen sich an. Die Botschaft war eindeutig: ODS waren gefährlich und mussten verschwinden.

Im Rahmen des Montrealer Protokolls wurde ein multilateraler Fonds eingerichtet, der zu gleichen Teilen von Vertreter*innen aus Entwicklungs- und Industrieländern verwaltet wurde. Sein Zweck war es, Länder bei der schrittweisen Abschaffung von ODS in Kältetechnik oder Kühltechnologien zu unterstützen. Auch übernahm der Fonds die Finanzierung von Forschung und Wissenstransfer im Bereich alternativer Technologien ohne ODS. Da nicht alle Staaten in der Lage waren, gleichzeitig aus der Nutzung auszusteigen, wurden gestaffelte Ausstiegspläne für eine schrittweise Abkopplung entwickelt. Das Protokoll enthielt zudem Flexibilitätsklauseln, die es den Ländern erlaubten, ihre eigenen Ausstiegsverpflichtungen innerhalb festgelegter Fristen umzusetzen.

Auch heute ist das öffentliche Bewusstsein entscheidend für den Nichtverbreitungsvertrag. Die wissenschaftlichen Belege für die gesundheitsschädlichen Folgen der Luftverschmutzung durch fossile Brennstoffe sind zahlreich und eindeutig. Während das 1,5-Grad-Ziel des Pariser Abkommens angesichts politischer Kompromisse und praktischer Hürden oft unrealistisch wirkt, lässt sich die Forderung nach einem Ausstieg aus fossilen Brennstoffen mit dem Hinweis auf ihre direkten Auswirkungen auf die menschliche Gesundheit leichter vermitteln. Da das Pariser Abkommen die schrittweise Abschaffung fossiler Brennstoffe nicht ausdrücklich vorsieht, braucht es ein neues globales Abkommen mit genau einem Ziel: der Begrenzung von Produktion und Nutzung fossiler Brennstoffe. Ein solch klarer Fokus kann breite öffentliche Unterstützung mobilisieren und ein Gegengewicht zur starken Lobby der fossilen Industrie schaffen.

Ein stärkeres öffentliches Bewusstsein kann den nötigen Druck auf politische Entscheidungsträger*innen ausüben, sich klar zu Ausstiegsplänen aus fossilen Brennstoffen zu bekennen – einschließlich konkreter kurz- und mittelfristiger Ziele. Nach dem Vorbild des Montrealer Fonds könnte zudem ein neuer Fonds Länder beim Übergang unterstützen und Forschung, Entwicklung sowie Technologietransfer finanzieren. Dadurch ließe sich auch ein umfassendes Verständnis der sozialen, wirtschaftlichen und politischen Herausforderungen entwickeln, die mit dem Ausstieg aus fossilen Brennstoffen in den jeweiligen unterschiedlichen Kontexten verbunden sind, und darauf aufbauend gerechte politische Handlungsoptionen aufzeigen.

Für viele mag ein Nichtverbreitungsvertrag im aktuellen politischen Kontext wie eine Utopie erscheinen. Doch das Montrealer Protokoll zeigt eindrucksvoll, dass das soziale Dilemma mit klaren Verpflichtungen erfolgreich angegangen werden kann. Am Anfang jeder großen Idee steht der Glaube an ihre Realisierbarkeit. Schritt für Schritt haben Hunderte von Städten – von Bonn bis Kalkutta, von Kingston bis Paris, von Lima bis Toronto – begonnen, an diese Möglichkeit zu glauben und den Nichtverbreitungsvertrag zu unterstützen. Jetzt ist es an der Zeit, eine Welle breiterer öffentlicher Unterstützung zu mobilisieren und gleichzeitig an den vielen Details des Nichtverbreitungsvertrags zu arbeiten, sozusagen als letzte Chance für eine Abkehr von fossilen Brennstoffen, bevor es zu spät ist.

Public works programmes (PWPs) are pervasively used to tackle poverty and unemployment, and to build infrastructure and skills in low- and middle-income countries. While their impacts on poverty, food security and labour outcomes have been widely documented, there is little research focusing on the role of PWPs in supporting household climate resilience in the global context of a deepening climate crisis. To fill this gap, we propose a conceptual framework that links the different components of PWPs – wages, infrastructure, and skills development – to household capacity to cope with, and adapt to, climate-related shocks. We use this framework to guide our review of empirical experimental and quasi-experimental evidence on the multiple short-term and long-term effects of PWPs on resilience to weather shocks, such as floods, droughts and cyclones. Such evidence mostly draws from a few programmes in India, Ethiopia and Malawi. Overall, we find that, through the wage component, PWPs can be effective in enhancing household resilience through increasing savings and productive investments. However, these benefits usually only materialize in the case of regular, long-term programmes, as opposed to ad-hoc/temporal PWPs. PWPs’ infrastructure component can play a crucial role in supporting households’ long-term capacity to adapt to shocks, especially in the case of “climate-smart” infrastructure, with positive externalities beyond direct programme beneficiaries to communities. There is a key evidence gap investigating the effects of PWPs through the infrastructure component on both beneficiaries and other community members, as well as on the role of on-the-job training and its capacity to strengthen resilience in combination with the infrastructure component. Evidence from different socioeconomic contexts is also scarce. Another key gap relates to the identification of the main mechanisms through which these relationships operate. Filling these gaps will support policy makers taking decisions about when to implement PWPs (especially in comparison with other social protection interventions), and how to design them to tackle vulnerability to climate change.

Humanitarian aid is increasingly guided by strategic interests rather than humanitarian needs. Europe’s humanitarian commitments are under strain as geopolitics reshapes international solidarity. Rising nationalism, debt pressures and great-power rivalry have pushed European governments to prioritise strategic interests over humanitarian needs. European politicians are increasingly justifying aid disbursements to their public through the lens of national security and strategic influence.
• Authoritarian regimes weaponise these geopolitical trends to stoke distrust in the international community. They often label humanitarian actors as foreign agents, while state propaganda delegitimises international assistance as self-motivated and hypocritical, reframes aid as interference to justify crackdowns on the humanitarian space.
• That is why the way European donors talk about humanitarian aid matters as much as how they provide it. My experimental research in Turkey shows that transparent communication about the realpolitik behind humanitarian aid may help counter authoritarian propaganda in highly polarised middle-income countries with widespread anti-Western attitudes. My findings indicate that when donors openly acknowledge strategic motivations, propaganda messaging
may lose its effectiveness among conservative, nationalist and Eurosceptic constituencies in recipient countries, whose attitudes are often hard to shift. Transparent communication may reduce conspiracism among this group, increase their trust in Europe and their support for international trade, while their support for the incumbent government may decline. Winning over these constituencies would be critical to democracy protection initiatives, as they often lend normative and systemic support to autocrats.
• However, donors must strike a careful balance and adopt a dual approach. While strategic messaging can persuade Eurosceptics, it may also alienate pro-EU, cosmopolitan citizens who value unconditional solidarity. They may grow disillusioned with European donors if humanitarian aid appears too self-interested or transactional. Donors should communicate strategic interests with transparency but still remain anchored in humanitarian values.
• Further research is needed to fully explore the implications of geopolitical shifts in aid, especially in middle-income autocracies with widespread anti-Western attitudes. In particular, more research is required to fully calibrate transparent messaging and mitigate negative unintended consequences.

This book studies global economic governance using an innovative structure to juxtapose normative arguments with empirical analysis. Chapters investigate the most important areas of global economic governance, including trade, investment, finance, labour and taxation. Bringing together leading scholars in political philosophy, international relations, economics and international law, the book sheds new light on the justice of political decision-making, the distribution of benefits and burdens of the global economy, and intergenerational justice in global economic governance.

Due to the level of global economic interdependence our world has reached, the question of how the global economy should be governed is of utmost importance. The rules of global economic governance have to balance the often-conflicting interests and claims of the diverse actors who participate in or are affected by the global economy. Economic governance structures are never morally neutral; they have particular collective decision-making proce- dures and they strongly influence how the benefits of economic cooperation are distributed. This chapter aims to introduce the reader to the concept of justice and provide an overview of some of the key distinctions in the contemporary normative philosophy of social and global justice, with special attention to the issues relevant to global economic governance.

Foreign Direct investment (FDI) is considered a key promoter of economic development, since it provides access to external financing, technology, managerial expertise and jobs. However, FDI is limited to a small number of locations and many low and middle-income countries (LMICs) continue to be excluded from global foreign investment flows. The reasons for this exclusion are manifold and may vary from country to country. A particular policy instrument LMICs have traditionally resorted to in order to attract FDI are international investment agreements (IIAs).¹ LMICs have signed thousands of these agreements since the late 1950s.[...] The following section reviews the global investment regime from the perspective of socioeconomic justice and analyses the distributional effects of IIAs. Then, the chapter assesses the global investment regime from an intergenerational perspective and asks to what extent IIAs contribute to (or restrict) the pursuit of sustainabale develoment. The final section concludes and provides on overview of current reform proposals.