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Over the past several weeks, hundreds of thousands of people in the Republic of Georgia have taken to the streets to protest against a law making its way through parliament that would force many NGOs to register as foreign agents. The law is modeled on similar measures in Russia that led to the near wholesale criminalization of pro-democracy and human rights civil society groups. This move in Georgia's parliament is being pushed through by a political party led by an oligarch who made his fortune in Putin's Russia. It is also happening at the same time as Georgia is seeking to establish closer ties with the West and join the European Union.
On the line to discuss what this law actually says, how it may impact Georgia's future, and human rights inside Georgia is Denis Krivosheev, Deputy Director for Europe & Central Asia at Amnesty International.

On Monday, May 20th, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, applied for arrest warrants for three senior Hamas leaders and for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The Hamas leaders include the top official in Gaza, Yahyah Sinwar, Hamas’ military commander Muhammad Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh, the Qatar-based political leader of Hamas. These three men were charged with crimes related to the October 7th attack and their treatment of hostages in captivity. On the Israeli side, Netanyahu and Gallant were charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, including using starvation as a method of warfare.
For those of you who subscribe to the Global Dispatches Newsletter, you'll know that I've been expecting this shoe to drop since November, when Karim Khan first warned Hamas and Israeli officials that his office has jurisdiction in relation to this conflict. Well, this ICC action has now happened, and on the line with me to discuss what these applications for arrest warrants mean and where this ICC case may be headed next is Mark Kersten. He is an assistant professor of criminal justice and criminology at the University of the Fraser Valley who specializes in International Law. He's also a senior consultant at the Wayamo Foundation.
I daresay you will not find a more informed conversation about the ICC from any other podcast out there. To support our work, please become a paying supporter at Global Dispatches at: 
https://www.globaldispatches.org/ 

An arrest warrant has not been issued for these five men — three senior Hamas officials, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Prime Minister Netanyahu--not yet, at least. What happened today is that Karim Khan decided to make public his application for an arrest warrant. It is now up to judges at the ICC to grant or deny that request. Khan could have opted to keep this application under seal, but decided to make it public—and did so for very good reasons.

For humanitarian professionals, people whose job it is to deliver aid in conflict and disaster zones, Gaza is unique. Unlike other crises that suffer from lack of attention, the situation in Gaza is a top priority for governments around the world. Accordingly, there is no shortage of aid available to stem the crisis, which in some parts of Gaza has crossed the famine threshold. Rather, it is distributing the aid that has become the challenge, both in terms of getting the aid through Israeli inspections and, once in Gaza, getting the aid to where people need it most.
My guest today, Jeremy Konyndyke, is the President of Refugees International and a veteran humanitarian professional who served as head of USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance from 2013-2017. We kick off discussing why humanitarian groups, the United Nations, and the Biden administration are so concerned about a full-scale Israeli assault on Rafah in southern Gaza. We then discuss the propriety of a humanitarian pier the US is constructing off the coast of Gaza and why the crisis in Gaza is so different from other humanitarian crises around the world. We conclude our conversation with an important discussion of the crisis in Darfur, and specifically the complicity of the United Arab Emirates in supporting a genocidal paramilitary.

Thousands of delegates gathered in Nairobi, Kenya, last week for the UN Civil Society Conference. The gathering was dedicated to the upcoming Summit of the Future, a major UN conference in September intended to reform and revitalize the UN and the multilateral system. The Nairobi civil society conference was an important opportunity for advocates, the NGO community, and other interested parties to help shape the outcome of the Summit of the Future.
On the line to discuss with me what happened at the Nairobi conference and to explain more broadly the role of civil society as we approach the Summit of the Future is Lili Nkunzimana, United Nations representative at the Baha'i International Community's New York Office. We also discuss the current state of play of the intergovernmental negotiations over the Pact for the Future, which is the outcome document for September's summit.
Today’s episode is produced in partnership with the Baha’i International Community, an NGO that represents the worldwide Baha’i community at the UN and other international forums, where it says that recognizing humanity’s interconnectedness is key to a shared global future. This episode is part of a series on the Summit of the Future. The previous episode in this series was published in January and can be found on http://www.GlobalDispatches.org.
NB. “The inputs for the New Agenda for Peace were in December 2022, not December 2023 as stated int he episode."
 

Each year, the United Nations Development Program produces the Human Development Report. This is a compilation of country-level data around education, health, and economic security that aspires to give a more holistic understanding of a country's development beyond economic indicators alone.
UNDP has been putting this Human Development Report together for decades, and while some countries would sometimes register advances or declines in the so-called Human Development Index, the global trend was always one of unrelenting progress.
Until COVID. The COVID years resulted in global declines along the human development indicators for reasons explained by my guest today, Pedro Conceicao, Director of the Human Development Report Office at the United Nations Development Program. As Pedro Conceicao explains, the most recent report shows that, globally, the Human Development Index is registering progress, but that progress is not as sharp as it was prior to COVID. We discuss this trend and much more about the Human Development Report.