The effects of climate change have brought arctic governance as an emerging issue on the international agenda. The five Arctic coastal states have recently stressed, in the Ilulissat Declaration, the significance of a legal framework for the region. Different aspects of such a governance structure will be discussed at a March conference in Berlin, jointly organized by the three foreign offices of Germany, Norway and Denmark. More information on the conference and background materials concerning arctic governance are available here.

A recent briefing paper by GRAIN has shed light on an ongoing but widely unnoticed global land grab: "Food insecure" governments and private companies are identified as drivers of this process. While the former are shopping for land to produce their own food offshore, the latter are turning towards land as a new source of revenues in these times of financial and food crises. Interestingly, the countries (e.g. Uganda, Sudan) that governments and companies choose to invest in often suffer from food stress themselves and are potentially prone to conflicts. The briefing paper is available here.

In February, Mikhail Gorbachev launched a high-profile Peace with Water Initiative in the European Parliament. In a Memorandum for a World Water Protocol, the initiative calls for water issues to be included in UN negotiations on a successive process to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. An in-depth article about the initiative, including further links on the issue is available here.

Published in:ECC-Newsletter, February 2009