POLS170 Group 3

  Covid as a tragedy of the commons     The tragedy of the commons is a phenomenon where freely available but limited resources are not used efficiently and are threatened by overuse, which also threatens the users themselves. As Susan Jane Buck Cox describes, one can observe that model in medieval England and many contemporary aspects and challenges. Examples can be seen in the overfishing of the seas, deforestation of forests, and the discharge of wastewater into streams and rivers. These activities share selfish behavior and a lack of thinking about the public good. I argue that you can see a similar phenomenon today in the Covid era with people refusing to get vaccinated.      Vaccine refusers, for whatever reasons, often argue that they are allowed to make their own decisions about their bodies. With this statement, however, they do not note that they endanger other people with their refusal. People that are vaccinated can still be at risk of getting infected because the vaccine,

  COP 26 has made progress on the problem of deforestation. Deforestation is a Tragedy of the Commons, a situation where shared environmental resources are overused and exploited, and eventually depleted, posing risks to everyone involved. In order to address this issue, over 100 nations pledged to end deforestation.  At the COP 26 in November, over 100 countries pledged to end deforestation by 2030. These nations cover over 85% of the world’s forests, meaning there is a real opportunity for the goal to be achieved. Over the decades, the world has seen deforestation occur on a massive scale. According to The World Counts, in the last 40 years, over 1 billion hectares of forest were destroyed, which is about the size of Europe. Since 2016, deforestation has only worsened, as an average of 28 million hectares have been cut down each year. The loss of trees has devastating impacts on both local and global climates. According to the Guardian in 2018, “Deforestation destroys wildlife habita

  Suzanne Hannigan Professor Mark Shirk International Politics November 29 2021 The underrepresentation in global health is overwhelming in all demographics. Specifically it is incredibly surprising how women are underrepresented in global health considering they make up half of the world’s population. Global health is, in my opinion, something that should have full representation especially considering the fact that health effects people of different nationalities, gender, etc. differently. This underrepresentation of  women in global health closely relates to how women are not accurately represented in the health based decision in their own country. How can we expect women to be accurately represented globally, when women are not represented domestically? Specifically in the United States, women are not accurately represented when making decisions about reproductive and abortion laws and regulations. This underrepresentation allows for people who these laws do not affect to be maki

  It is important for the United States to work with the United Nations and other international organizations. The previous president of the United States acted independently from the international community by pulling the United States out of multiple international agreements like the Paris Climate Accord, the World Health Organization. Donald Trump did more to harm the United States’ standing with the international community than Bush. First, even though the US is one of the world’s largest emitters of carbon dioxide, his administration chose to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord. This decision placed the United States in unfortunate company, as we were one of the few states in the world not committed to solving the greatest threat to the world, climate change. Trump pulled out of the accord because he thought that it was harming the United States. However, by doing this, he hurt both the US and the rest of the world, as the United States government was no longer

     The ICC is an international organization with a mission to prosecute individuals for high international crimes. In total, the court has indicted 45 people for crimes ranging from war crimes to genocide. While  the ICC on paper appears as a very effective and positive institution in our world, there is a great deal of  reform that needs to take place for the institution to actually become effective in its mission.        The first shortcoming of the ICC as an organization is that major powerhouse nations are not involved  in the organization, which raises questions about the legitimacy of the organization. Firstly, the lack of  presence in the ICC from the United States, China, Russia, and most of the rest of Asia means that the ICC  does not have the backing of major world powers, and that a lot of things and crimes that go on in those  countries are left unchecked. Another shortcoming and poor result of this lack of large countries leads to  increased ‘picking on’ poorer, less de

The United Nations was originally created in order to maintain peace and security. It is an assembly of a variety of nations that all work together to maintain order. The UN has a variety of councils that specialize in different areas to ensure efficient work and action. One of those councils is the security council. This council is designed to look at global threats and help neutralize them. There is a large debate on why or why not this council should continue to operate. First they operate under international law. This widley differs from the idea of law that most people have and the difference is an important distinction. First, while it is written like traditional law there is no country or entity to back it up. This is crucial because there is no prosecution, so no jail time or fines. So knowing that the security council operates under international law, what is their purpose and how do they back up their actions?  The security council is made up of five permanent countries and t

       The International Criminal Court is a flawed system that depends upon cooperation to put into effect its accusations and carry through on its convictions. It only truly has control over members of the International Criminal Court, which does not include the United States. The International criminal court has the potential to hold countries accountable for their war crimes and to foster international peace through more cooperation. This begs the question if the United States would benefit from joining the International Criminal Court? I believe it would not be in the United States best interest to join the International Criminal Court. The International Criminal Court is unstable and based heavily on power. The addition of the United States would most likely not create the stability the International Criminal Court would need to truly be effective. The United States would be joining an unpredictable force that could cause problems with the United States international relatio