The Doha Round of World Trade Organization (WTO)talks is in its death throes. It could provide urgently needed stimuli for a rule-based enhancement of international trade, but there is currently no consensus on some of the main sticking-points. Probably the most important of these is the...

Palm oil production is currently the focus of much contentious debate. On the one hand, palm oil production has a substantial, positive (socio-) economic impact in countries which produce it, like Indonesia, and is a powerful engine of rural development. On the other hand, palm oil production...

The concept of sustainable development and the idea of an integrated approach that satisfies the complex linkages between water, energy and land should be part of a post-2015 development agenda. Water, energy and land are essential for many lifesupporting functions and key for satisfying basic...

Global economic governance stands for the institutions, regulations and mechanisms that manage the increasing interdependency of global challenges in the world economy and forms the foundation of stable global economic development. However, global economic governance remains largely mired in...

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is currently the subject of heated debate – but with a narrow focus. The debate is primarily concerned with the impact of TTIP on Germany and Europe. Too little attention is being paid to the implications of this mega-regional for the...

The UN Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa in July 2015 will pave the way for the implementation of the post-2015 development agenda. The Briefing Paper series “Financing Global Development” analyses key financial and non-financial means of implementation for the new...

In September 2015, the United Nations (UN) adopted a new global development framework, the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, which includes the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs thereby replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were supposed to be realized...

Mitigating climate change and limiting global warming to no more than 2°C require a fast and radical transformation of politics, the economy and society. Worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases need to fall to zero by 2100. Action needs to be even faster in the case of carbon dioxide (CO2),...

The United Nations (UN) climate summit (COP 21) in Paris is the most important opportunity for years to come to organise effective collective action at the international level to stabilise global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (°C), or at least limit it to a maximum of 2°C; facilitate the...

Since the first meeting of the G20 at the leaders’ level in Washington in November 2008, trade has been an integral part of their agenda. This first meeting took place at the peak of the global financial and economic crisis, which led to a strong contraction of world trade. Remembering the...