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When companies or individuals make investments in a business in another country, experts call this “foreign direct investment.” Today, China is the fastest growing source of such investments. From the early 1990s to 2015, Chinese and Hong Kong’s foreign direct investments increased from a few hundred million to $2.5 trillion...

International law is in a rough period. Since 2016 institutions as varied as the European Court of Human Rights, the World Trade Organization, and the International Criminal Court have been harshly criticized by politicians chafing at their strictures. The reasons for growing dissatisfaction vary. Africans unhappy with human rights prosecutions...

Many citizens in Europe and the United States believe that the quality of democracy has declined over the last few decades. Political cartelization and patronage-oriented styles of governance can help explain how parties collude to survive as public debates narrow and the grassroots bases of parties wither. Global development ties...

In his original plan for the city of Philadelphia, William Penn declared that every home should have ample space “for gardens or orchards or fields, that it may be a green country that will never be burnt and always be wholesome.” Before militiamen or throngs of protestors, the Boston Common...

International investment has a substantial impact on the natural environment. In 2016 for instance, the energy sector attracted $1.7 trillion worth of investments, with two-thirds dedicated to fossil fuel power. That kind of power generation is the primary cause of air pollution, and poor air quality is linked to an...

Starting in late April of 2018, the small Central American country Nicaragua entered the media spotlight as massive street protests rocked the decade-long authoritarian regime of President Daniel Ortega. Brutal government repression has killed over 200 and led to intensified calls for Ortega to step down. Although nobody could have...

Transportation uses vast amounts of energy and has a major environmental impact. As a result, rigorous assessments of the sustainability of various modes of moving people and goods are critically important. Alternative fuels and electric vehicles are two major developments that can help transportation planners reduce the detrimental environmental impact...

From the U.S. travel ban to the rise of anti-immigrant populists in Europe, politicians often decry migration in times of moral and economic crisis. Controversies can easily preclude a balanced understanding of what migration means – not only for immigrants and their new societies, but also for the places migrants...

The Trump administration is working hard to roll back the nation’s environmental regulations on the grounds that they are an economic burden on business. But evidence from California tells a very different story. For the past half century, California has been the richest U.S. state – even as it has...

Few ties are as essential to the United States and Canada as the relationship they enjoy with one another. John F. Kennedy’s words to the Parliament in Ottawa on May 17, 1961 still ring true. “Geography has made us neighbors,” he said. “History has made us friends. Economics has made...