제26기 유엔 전문가 교육 결과보고서 - The 26th Training Program on the United Nations and the 2030 Agenda Final Rep by Hope to the Future Association

Special thanks to. Group Programmes Unit, United Nations Department of Global Communications

Produced by. Education Department, Hope to the Future Association

CSO Representative at the United Nations Department of Global Communications (UN DGC) Special Consultative Organization with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Member of the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) Korea Web www.hopetofuture.org | Address 4F., Dana Bldg., Bongeunsa-ro 176, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea 06125 Tel +82-2-6952-1616 | Email webmaster@hopetofuture.org

Editor-in-Chief Hyeonkyung Ha | Program Manager Assistant Editor Yuwhan Kim | Intern

Table of Contents 26th Training Program on the United Nations and the 2030 Agenda Program Overview Program Introduction -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Program Theme -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Participant List Speakers --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Youth Representatives --------------------------------------------------------------------------

SDGs Group Work Team 1 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team 2 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team 3 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SDGs Essay Climate Justice and Loss & Damage ---------------------------------------------------------

Artificial Intelligence and Global Governance ----------------------------------------------

100

The Future of Global Cooperation ------------------------------------------------------------

118

Institution Introduction -----------------------------------------------------------------------

136

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

Program Introduction The Training Program on the United Nations and the 2030 Agenda represents a crucial step in engaging and mobilizing youth to participate actively in global governance and international affairs. In today’s interconnected world, the involvement of young people in addressing global challenges is more important than ever. This program, delivered virtually, is designed to immerse participants in the complexities of global issues and the multifaceted strategies employed by the United Nations to tackle them. Aligned with the UN Youth Strategy, the program underscores the indispensable role that young people play in the realization of the SDGs and the advancement of the United Nations Agenda. Through their engagement, young individuals are empowered to contribute to sustainable development, foster inclusive decision-making, and drive transformative change at local, national, and global levels. Hosted by Hope to the Future Association, in collaboration with the United Nations Department of Global Communications, this online training program offers high school students an unparalleled opportunity to engage directly with experts and gain a comprehensive understanding of the UN's mission and operations. Despite the virtual format, the program maintains its commitment to delivering a robust educational experience. Participants are exposed to a wide array of topics, ranging from peace and security to sustainable development and human rights protection, through a series of expert-led lectures, interactive workshops, and virtual networking sessions. The program's focus on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provides participants with a deeper understanding of the UN’s global agenda and the critical importance of youth participation in its implementation. By familiarizing students with the SDGs, the program equips them with the critical thinking, leadership, and communication skills necessary to navigate and influence the future of international relations. The online format also allows for a diverse group of students from around the world to connect, collaborate, and share perspectives, enriching the overall learning experience. The 24th iteration of this training program continues to provide an in-depth exploration of the United Nations' efforts to achieve its objectives, particularly in the context of SDG implementation. By offering a global platform for young people to discuss and address these challenges, the program helps cultivate a new generation of leaders who are informed, skilled, and motivated to contribute to a more just, peaceful, and sustainable world. Through their participation in this online training program, students become part of a global network of changemakers committed to addressing the world’s most pressing challenges. The program not only educates but also inspires action, encouraging participants to apply their newfound knowledge and skills to make meaningful contributions within their communities and beyond. As they prepare to lead in an increasingly complex world, these young individuals are equipped to play a pivotal role in advancing the United Nations Agenda and achieving the SDGs, paving the way for a brighter future for all.

Program Theme 01 Sustainable Development Goals: Our Shared Challenges

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a shared framework for addressing the most pressing challenges facing humanity. Adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the 17 Goals represent a collective commitment to building a more peaceful, equitable, and sustainable world by 2030. The SDGs build upon the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which guided international development efforts from 2000 to 2015. While the MDGs contributed to meaningful progress in areas such as poverty reduction, access to education, and global health, they primarily focused on challenges facing developing countries. The SDGs introduced a broader and more universal agenda, recognizing that sustainable development is a responsibility shared by every country, regardless of its level of income or development. The 17 Goals and their 169 targets encompass the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. They address poverty, hunger, health, education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work, inequality, sustainable cities, responsible consumption and production, climate action, marine and terrestrial ecosystems, peace and justice, and global partnerships. Together, they reflect a comprehensive vision in which human well-being, environmental protection, economic development, and peaceful societies are understood as mutually dependent. One of the defining characteristics of the SDGs is their interconnected nature. Global challenges rarely exist in isolation, and progress toward one Goal often depends on progress in several others. Access to quality education, for example, can contribute to gender equality, economic opportunity, improved health, and stronger participation in public life. Climate change can affect food security, human health, migration, urban development, economic inequality, and international peace and security. Similarly, technological innovation may create new opportunities for education and sustainable development while also generating risks related to misinformation, discrimination, privacy, and security. Understanding these connections is essential because policies or actions directed at one issue may have consequences across many others. Sustainable development therefore requires integrated approaches that consider how different communities, sectors, and countries are affected. Governments play an important role in establishing policies and national frameworks, but

they cannot achieve the Goals alone. International organizations, civil society, educational institutions, businesses, local communities, and individuals must all participate in translating the global agenda into meaningful action. At the center of the 2030 Agenda is the principle of “leaving no one behind.” This principle calls for particular attention to people and communities who experience poverty, discrimination, exclusion, or limited access to opportunities. It also recognizes that the effects of global challenges are not distributed equally. Those who have contributed least to climate change, for instance, may face some of its most serious consequences, while conflicts, economic instability, and barriers to education often place disproportionate burdens on already vulnerable groups. Addressing these inequalities requires more than universal goals. It requires an understanding of how circumstances differ across regions and communities, whose voices are represented in decision-making, and who may be excluded from its benefits. The SDGs consequently encourage not only measurable progress but also more inclusive processes through which individuals and communities can participate in decisions that affect their lives. The challenges addressed by the SDGs have become increasingly complex and interconnected. Climate change extends beyond environmental protection to influence food systems, public health, migration, livelihoods, and security. Rapid urbanization raises questions about housing, transportation, energy, accessibility, and social inclusion. Advances in artificial intelligence and digital technology offer valuable tools for development but also require careful consideration of accountability, fairness, misinformation, and human rights. Armed conflict and forced displacement demonstrate how quickly instability in one region can produce humanitarian, economic, and political consequences across borders. These are not challenges that any one country, institution, or generation can resolve independently. They are our shared challenges, requiring cooperation across national borders, professional fields, cultures, and generations. The SDGs provide a common language through which diverse actors can identify priorities, understand their interdependence, and develop coordinated responses. For young people, learning about the SDGs is therefore not simply an exercise in memorizing 17 Goals. It is an opportunity to examine how global issues are connected, consider how decisions affect different groups, and explore what responsible action can look like at the individual, community, national, and international levels. It also invites young people to question existing systems, listen to perspectives beyond their immediate experience, and participate in developing more inclusive and sustainable solutions. The 26th Training Program on the United Nations and the 2030 Agenda approached the SDGs as this kind of living and interconnected framework. Through sessions addressing climate action, urban environments, gender equality, migration and borders, sustainable transportation, marine ecosystems, human rights, international security, and responsible technology, participants examined global challenges from a range of perspectives. Rather than treating these issues as separate subjects, the program encouraged participants to identify the relationships among them and consider how international cooperation can support practical solutions. Lectures, discussions, and collaborative projects allowed students to move from acquiring knowledge to asking questions, exchanging ideas, and proposing their own responses to global challenges.

In this sense, the SDGs serve not only as a blueprint for governments and international organizations but also as an invitation to participate. They remind us that sustainable development depends on choices made at every level of society and that meaningful progress begins with the ability to understand our shared challenges—and the willingness to address them together.

02 Youth as Partners for Change Young people are often described as the leaders of tomorrow. While this description acknowledges their future potential, it can overlook the role they already play in shaping societies today. Young people are not merely future beneficiaries of sustainable development. They are current stakeholders whose lives, opportunities, and rights are directly affected by decisions concerning education, climate change, technology, employment, inequality, conflict, and human rights. They are also active partners capable of contributing ideas, challenging assumptions, and mobilizing their communities toward change. Meaningful youth engagement therefore requires more than inviting young people to observe discussions led by adults. It means creating opportunities for them to develop informed perspectives, express their views, participate in decision-making, and collaborate in designing solutions. Their participation is especially important because many of today’s policy choices will produce consequences that extend far into their futures. The 26th Training Program on the United Nations and the 2030 Agenda was designed to support this transition from passive learning to active participation. Throughout the five-day program, participants engaged with experts and practitioners working across diverse areas of the international community. The sessions introduced not only the mandates and activities of the United Nations and other international organizations but also the difficult questions these institutions confront in practice. Participants explored climate action and the sustainability of urban environments, considering how environmental policies affect communities and how cities can respond to resource scarcity and climate-related risks. Sessions on gender equality invited them to examine the structural and cultural barriers that continue to limit equal participation and opportunity. Discussions concerning migration and borders encouraged them to consider the relationship between national policies, human mobility, security, and human dignity. The program also addressed sustainable transportation and the protection of marine ecosystems, demonstrating how everyday systems of movement, production, and consumption are connected to broader environmental goals. Sessions on the universality of human rights and corporate responsibility highlighted the responsibilities of institutions and businesses as well as governments. Discussions on international security and responsible technology further encouraged participants to examine emerging challenges such as artificial intelligence, deepfakes, and disinformation. These subjects do not have simple or predetermined answers. They require participants to evaluate evidence, recognize competing interests, consider the experiences of people in different circumstances, and communicate across differences. By engaging with these complexities, students were encouraged to move beyond understanding what a global issue is and begin

considering why it persists, who is most affected, and what forms of action may be possible. The participants further developed these skills through their group projects and final presentations. Working collaboratively, they selected global issues, conducted research, organized their findings, and proposed responses from their own perspectives. This process required them to negotiate different opinions, divide responsibilities, connect multiple areas of knowledge, and communicate their ideas clearly to an audience. Through questions and feedback, they also experienced the importance of defending, reconsidering, and refining their proposals. Youth participation is most meaningful when young people are trusted with the responsibility to think critically and contribute substantively. Their perspectives may challenge established approaches, identify issues overlooked by existing systems, or reveal new possibilities for cooperation. At the same time, meaningful participation requires the knowledge, skills, and ethical awareness necessary to understand the consequences of proposed actions. The program therefore aimed to strengthen not only the participants’ knowledge of the United Nations and the SDGs but also their capacity to listen, question, collaborate, and communicate responsibly. These competencies are essential for young people who wish to participate in public life, whether through their schools, local communities, professional fields, civil society, or international institutions. By recognizing youth as partners for change, the international community acknowledges that sustainable development cannot be achieved on behalf of young people without their participation. Their ideas, experiences, and decisions are already part of the present. Supporting them as informed and responsible global citizens is therefore not simply an investment in the future—it is an essential part of responding to the challenges the world faces today.

03 Solidarity in Practice International solidarity is often expressed through broad commitments to peace, cooperation, and shared prosperity. Yet solidarity becomes meaningful only when it is reflected in the ways individuals understand others, assume responsibility, make decisions, and act within their own communities. Solidarity begins with a willingness to understand realities beyond one’s immediate experience. Global challenges affect people in different ways depending on their location, identity, economic circumstances, and access to resources. Listening to these different experiences allows individuals to recognize that the same crisis may create unequal burdens and that effective solutions must take those differences into account. Solidarity also means recognizing shared responsibility across borders and generations. Climate change, inequality, conflict, displacement, public health emergencies, and technological risks cannot be contained within a single country. Decisions made today may also shape the lives and opportunities of generations to come. International solidarity therefore asks individuals and institutions to consider not only their immediate interests but also the wider and longer-term consequences of their choices. In practice, solidarity requires cooperation among people who may not share the same 11

experiences, priorities, or opinions. It involves listening carefully, engaging respectfully with disagreement, and finding areas in which collective action remains possible. Cooperation does not require the absence of differences. Rather, it requires the ability to acknowledge those differences while working toward goals that serve the broader public good. Finally, solidarity must connect global learning with local and everyday action. The SDGs may be global in scope, but their progress depends on decisions made in schools, workplaces, households, and communities. Responsible consumption, inclusive communication, participation in community initiatives, thoughtful use of technology, and attention to the rights and experiences of others are among the many ways that global values can be translated into daily practice. Through the 26th Training Program on the United Nations and the 2030 Agenda, participants encountered diverse perspectives on the challenges facing the international community. The value of this experience will ultimately be determined not only by what they learned during the program but also by how that learning influences the choices they make afterward. We hope that the participants will continue to approach unfamiliar realities with curiosity and empathy, recognize their responsibilities to people beyond national and generational boundaries, and work constructively with those who hold different perspectives. Most importantly, we hope they will carry what they have learned into their schools, communities, and daily lives. Solidarity does not always begin with a large-scale initiative. It may begin with the decision to listen more carefully, question an unfair assumption, include someone whose voice has been overlooked, or work with others to address a problem close to home. When such choices are sustained and shared, they can become the foundation for wider social change. As participants move forward from this program, they are encouraged to regard global citizenship not simply as an identity, but as an ongoing practice. By connecting knowledge with empathy, responsibility, cooperation, and action, they can contribute to a more inclusive, peaceful, and sustainable world—and help transform international solidarity from an aspiration into a lived commitment.

PARTICIPANT LIST

Speakers

Joon Oh Save the Children

Utak Chung Kyung Hee University

Kadir Jun Ayhan James Madison University

Luis Angel Flores Universidad Iberoamericana (IBERO)

Junghyun Kim Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Bumcheul Park United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Seoul Policy Centre

Carine Valarche

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs of the United Kingdom

Kunhyui Kim The Catholic University of Korea

Sunbin Yoo Sungkyunkwan University

Yumi Son International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)

Sohee Kim Korea Development Institute (KDI)

Rachel Naddeo Tohoku University

Chiara Busiol UN Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific

Priscilla Kini Open Dove Children’s Foundation

Hyunseung Yu International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)

Jung Mun Park University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Indrami Goswami The GEG Global Foundation

Youth Representatives The Youth Representatives in this program are dynamic and passionate students from various schools and institutions worldwide. They bring fresh perspectives, innovative ideas, and a shared commitment to advancing the Sustainable Development Goals.

Akito Kim The Collegiate Academy

Ji Woo Suh Korea International School Pangyo Campus

Seoyun Lee Pusan Foreign Language High School

Minho Jun BC Collegiate

Hyunjung Jung Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies

Ethan Kim Chadwick International

Tae Young Kim Chadwick International

Gyeom Ryu Cheongshim International Academy

Hyunmin Ryu The Lawrenceville School

Isaac Shim Yongsan International School of Seoul

Jane Kim Hong Kong International School

Halynn Song Calvin Manitoba International School

William Ahn BC Collegiate

Euhyun Jahng Pomfret School

in support of Youth Staff members Soeun Oh Sogang University

Seungyeon Yoon Seoul National University

Jisoo Woo Chungang University

So Hyun Youn Korea University

SDGs GROUP WORK

Team 1

Mental Health as the Engine of Ukraine’s Recovery

1. Team Information 



Student Members -

Akito Kim, The Collegiate Academy

Hyunjung Jung, Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies

Ji Woo Suh, Korea International School Pangyo Campus

Minho Jun, BC Collegiate

Seoyun Lee, Pusan Foreign Language High School

Supporter -

Soeun Oh, Sogang University (International Commerce)

2. Project Question 

How can we contribute to solving mental health challenges among Ukrainian people in a way that aligns with SDG 3 and 16?

3. Understanding the Background 3-1. Global Background According to the World Health Organizations, about 1/5 people (22%) living in active warzones, or chaotic environments develop mental health conditions. In addition, pursuant to the world health organization (WHO), about 9.6million Ukrainians are in the need of mental support. Thus the global context of the current agenda can be summarized as: The vast impact of continuous warfare affects a dangerous amount of civilians in their mental health (conditions such as PTSD, anxiety, or depression). Mental Health became recognized as one of the core humanitarian issues alongside food, water, and medical care during conflicts. The reason for this is based on the worldwide issues regarding warfare. Fittingly, (Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza, etc.) have increased the demand for trauma counseling and PTSD treatment. Another report from WHO entails that displaced populations (populations that are serrated from their homes or loved ones) face greater psychological risk. “WHO estimates that approximately 9.6 million Ukrainians are at risk of or living with a mental health condition due to the war, with about 3.9 million experiencing moderate to severe symptoms.”

3-2. Regional or National Background The impact of the Russia Ukraine War extends beyond Ukraine, as some neighboring countries and even distant regions are facing mental health difficulties and humanitarian

concerns. Poland is a good example, as it took in a significant number of refugees coming from Ukraine. According to a survey by the World Health Organization and Statistics Poland, at least 10% of Ukrainian refugees noted that stress and emotional burdens prevented them from living normally. Out of these 10%, 56% reported that they could benefit from mental health support, although they faced barriers like language and a lack of childcare (World Health Organization, 2022). Through international humanitarian assistance, the issue links to South Korea. With the support of South Korea and Germany, UNDP provided group sessions and individual counseling and helped veterans and their families. More than 8,000 people in Ukraine benefited from psychological assistance either through direct contact or hotline services (United Nations Development Programme, 2023). This proves that an Asian country can play a direct role in the recovery of Ukrainians affected by war. Another example from Asia is Japan, as it also deals with ukrainians receiving asylum. Since May, the support program has assisted over 1,500 persons through more than 150 group sessions, effective art therapy, mental health surveys, Japanese language courses, and help with employment. Nevertheless, surveys indicate high levels of stress, meaning that simply moving to another country does not mean that people forget about the traumatic experiences related to the war (UNHCR, n.d.).

4. Problem Statement 4-1. Who Is Affected? Ukrainian soldiers and civilians affected by the war. Soldiers are especially vulnerable due to prolonged exposure to combat, loss of comrades, and difficulties returning to civilian life after military service. Civilians face psychological distress caused by displacement, destruction of homes, and the loss of daily stability. “Children and adolescents affected by war and displacement, whose education has been interrupted and whose future opportunities may be limited. Refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) who struggle with adaptation, access to healthcare, and rebuilding their lives. Families of soldiers and civilians, including spouses and caregivers, who experience emotional burdens and changes in family structures. Veterans coping with long-term trauma after military service and difficulties with social reintegration. Healthcare workers and first responders exposed to repeated traumatic events. Older adults and people with disabilities, who often face greater barriers to accessing mental health care and social support.” Based on how war leads to population displacement and mental health issues, the area where this problem is most likely to occur is where the war is happening. However, due to the narrow claim developed, this issue mainly occurs in Ukraine. In addition, its effects extend beyond Ukraine to neighboring countries where refugees and displaced people face challenges related to mental health, education disruption, and social adaptation.

4-2. Problem Statement

The war in Ukraine has caused severe mental health challenges among students and civilians, making it difficult for them to continue their education and maintain a proper economic life. Students are especially affected because psychological damages such as PTSD (occured after observing the horrific sights of Russian-Ukraine war), anxiety, depression, and chronic stress reduce their ability to concentrate, learn, and adapt to educational environments. Civilians also experience emotional trauma caused by displacement, loss of homes, and uncertainty about the future. This problem occurs in Ukraine, where the war has disrupted education systems and community stability. It requires action because mental health is a foundation for education and social recovery. Without proper support, psychological damage can prevent students and citizens from developing future opportunities and contributing to long-term economic recovery.

5. SDG Alignment 5-1. Relevant SDGs and Rationale Our project aligns with SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being) and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions). SDG 3 focuses on health and mental well-being, directly connecting to our research on Ukrainian soldiers and civilians suffering from stress, anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Physical safety alone cannot heal these lifelong wounds or restore human dignity. Our project also connects to SDG 4 and SDG 8. War-related mental health problems can prevent people from fully participating in education, vocational training, rehabilitation, and employment even when these opportunities are available. Therefore, SDG 3 is not an isolated goal, as improving mental health can also support educational recovery, economic independence, and social reintegration. PTSD, anxiety, and depression may reduce concentration, motivation, and regular attendance in language courses, vocational training, and cultural education that refugees need to adjust to heir host countries. SDG 16 aims to protect people from violence and establish peace, providing the necessary foundation for all development, as war directly causes the trauma we analyze. To support war-affected populations, NGOs actively put these SDGs into practice. For SDG 3, they provide Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) through mobile counseling units, 24/7 hotlines, PTSD therapy for soldiers, and child-friendly spaces. For SDG 4, NGOs can combine mental health care with language education, vocational training, and other learning programs. Emotional stability and a sense of safety can help children, adolescents, and refugees concentrate, attend programs regularly, communicate with others, and build social connections. For SDG 8, NGOs can connect psychological rehabilitation with skills development and job-placement support, helping refugees and returning soldiers find employment, earn a stable income, and become financially independent. For SDG 16, NGOs offer free legal aid to refugees, document human rights violations for accountability, and establish safe community centers ensuring victims receive the complete care needed to rebuild their lives.

5-2. Relevant SDG Target Our project aligns with SDG Target 3.4, target 3.8, target 4.4, target 4.5, target 8.5, and target 16.1 because these targets directly address the major challenges faced by people affected by war. In other words, target 3.4 aims to improve mental health and well-being,

target 3.8 seeks to ensure that everyone has access to quality healthcare, including mental health services, and target 16.1 focuses on reducing violence and promoting peaceful societies. Target 4.4 focuses on providing people with practical and vocational skills for employment, while target 4.5 aims to ensure equal access to education and training for vulnerable groups, including refugees and displaced people. Target 8.5 focuses on productive employment, decent work, and equal opportunities for everyone. Together, these targets aim to prevent the causes of psychological trauma while providing effective support for those affected by the Russian-Ukraine war. This project aims to examine the mental health challenges experienced by Ukrainian soldiers and civilians during the Russia–Ukraine War, including post-traumatic stress disorder, so-called PTSD, anxiety, depression, and long term persisting psychological trauma. These mental health problems are closely related to SDG Target 3.4, as they highlight the need for psychological care and emotional recovery. They are also connected to SDG 4 because PTSD, anxiety, and depression can prevent people from benefiting from education even when learning opportunities are available. Mental health support can restore emotional stability and a sense of safety, helping children, adolescents, and refugees concentrate, attend classes regularly, communicate with others, and build social connections. In the long term, this can support learning and human development. The destruction of healthcare systems and limited access to mental health services in conflict areas also demonstrate the importance of SDG Target 3.8. Mental health recovery also contributes to SDG target 8.5 emotional stability can help refugees and returning soldiers participate in rehabilitation and skills development, search for jobs, and remain employed. Employment can then provide a stable income, increase financial independence, and support long-term reintegration into the community. Our project therefore proposes combining mental health services with language education, vocational training, cultural orientation, and employment preparation. This approach can help refugees manage their psychological difficulties while developing the skills needed to adjust to life in their host countries. Furthermore, because these psychological problems are largely caused by war and violence, our project is closely connected to SDG Target 16.1, which emphasizes reducing violence and building peaceful societies. Therefore, our project proposes an integrated support system that combines traumainformed counseling, psychological rehabilitation, language and vocational education, jobplacement assistance, and continued family and community support. By analyzing both the causes and consequences of war-related mental health issues and proposing policy recommendations based on SDGs 3, 4, 8, and 16, our project contributes to promoting mental well-being, supporting educational recovery, improving access to employment, strengthening financial independence, and promoting long-term peace and social reintegration.

6. Case Studies 6-1. Case Study #1 The International Organization for Migration launched a livelihood and economic reintegration program in Ukraine designed to revitalize local markets and establish business stability among displaced populations and war-affected citizens. The program primarily functioned as a financial catalyst, distributing micro-grants for small business 23

startups, financing vocational retraining, and providing direct commercial coaching to recover local supply chains. To safeguard these financial investments, the project strategically integrated psychosocial support as a practical business component, ensuring that entrepreneurs possessed the cognitive clarity required for sound financial decisionmaking, budget management, and operational leadership under crisis conditions. This initiative succeeded because it recognized that capital injection alone cannot yield sustainable business growth if human productivity is impaired by trauma. By mitigating psychological stress, the program dramatically reduced business abandonment rates, allowing micro-enterprises to stabilize, generate revenue, and retain employees far more effectively than traditional cash-distribution models. Treating psychological stability as a risk-management tool directly protected the program’s financial capital, ultimately maximizing the economic return on investment and transforming vulnerable citizens into active market contributors. This case illustrates that in post-conflict economic restructuring, direct financial aid must be paired with productivity-protecting measures to achieve lasting market recovery. Human capital resilience serves as foundational economic infrastructure, proving that incorporating psychological support into financial programs is a highly effective, marketdriven strategy for rebuilding national economies.

6-2. Case Study #2 The Ukrainian Sunday School Dzherelce in Tokyo provides Ukrainian children with opportunities to study, communicate in their native language, and meet other Ukrainian children. The school works with about 60 Ukrainian children, around half of whom were displaced by the war. It supports both their education and emotional recovery by creating a familiar cultural and social environment. The program was partly successful because communication with Ukrainian peers helped children feel safe, relaxed, and socially connected. Parents reported that children were happy to attend the school and communicate in their native language. In one case, a child named Mark was able to relieve stress, make Ukrainian friends, and significantly improve his mental well-being. However, the program has limitations because it is mainly available in Tokyo, and some children already experience stress from attending both Japanese and Ukrainian schools. This case shows that education can support mental health when it provides not only academic learning but also cultural connection, emotional safety, and peer support. However, programs should avoid giving children an excessive workload. Similar community-based programs should be expanded outside Tokyo and combined with professional mental health support.

6-3. Case Study #3 WHO worked along with Ukraine’s Ministry of Health and their department to aid people with Mental Health and Psychological Support, also known as MHPSS by training different jobs in medical factors such as nurses, doctors, and having advanced healthcare employees to treat mental health conditions. Doctors provided immediate psychological aid to people with psychological conditions and aided people with counseling as well.

This succeeded as the war continued, mental health and psychological aid services became even more available through having more facilities and specialists. Mental health and psychological conditions are crucial in war and it requires immediate care and recovery as in some cases it may be hard to recover from it depending on the severity of the conditions and not a lot of people are used to these scenes and sudden exposure to such gory experience will absolutely traumatize people and will need immediate aid.

7. Solution Development 7-1. Our Proposed Solution #1 Name of the Solution

Mental Health Recovery & Economic Reintegration Program

Target Group

Ukrainian civilians, internally displaced persons, refugees returning to Ukraine, veterans, and unemployed individuals affected by the RussiaUkraine War, especially those experiencing PTSD, anxiety, or depression

Geographic or Community Scope

War-affected regions of Ukraine, beginning with areas that have been liberated or are undergoing reconstruction, with the possibility of expanding nationwide.

Lead Organization or Stakeholder

UNDP - responsible for economic recovery and overall program coordination

Supporting Stakeholders

WHO, ILO, World Bank, local governments, private companies

Main Activities

1. Provide free mental health screening and trauma treatment. 2. Offer vocational training and reskilling programs based on local labor demand. 3. Connect participants with employment opportunities through partnerships with private companies. 4. Provide wage subsidies to employers who hire program participants. 5. Support entrepreneurship through business plan mentoring, microgrants, and low-interest loans. 6. Monitor participants’ mental health and employment status for 6~12 months to ensure long term recovery.

7-2. Our Proposed Solution #2

Name of the Solution

MindBridge Online: Mental Health Education and Mentoring Platform

Target Group

Ukrainian refugees students aged 10-18 who experience war-related stress, anxiety, depression, concentration difficulties, or social isolation. A separate section would also support parents and mentors.

Geographic or Community Scope

An online platform available to Ukrainian refugee students living in Ukraine or different host countries. Students could access the platform through computers or mobile phones.

Lead Organization or Stakeholder

A student-led project team working under the supervision of a teacher and a qualified mental health professional. Ukrainian refugee-support organizations and schools Mental health professionals Ukrainian translators Volunteer student mentors Diia Education and the “How Are You?” Mental Health Program WHO and UNICEF

Supporting Stakeholders

• • • • • •

Main Activities

1. Provide four reliable mental health education resources a. Being There for You: An 11-episode course for parents, teachers, and mentors about trauma, PTSD, changes in children’s behavior, and ways to provide safe psychological support. https://osvita.diia.gov.ua/en/courses/buty-poruch-kurs-z-osnovpsykholohichnoi-pidtrymky b. Learning Together: An eight-episode Ukrainian course explaining stress reactions, emotional stabilization, resilience, and basic self-regulation skills for children. https://osvita.diia.gov.ua/en/courses/learning-together c. “How Are You?” Mental Health Courses: Free Ukrainian online courses about anxiety, emotions, traumainformed support, and healthy coping. Its excessive-anxiety course is also designed for adolescents who experience anxiety. https://howareu.com/mainpage_course d. WHO-UNICEF EASE: An evidence-based program for adolescents aged 10-15 that teaches emotional and stressmanagement skills through seven youth sessions and three caregiver sessions. Because it is a structured psychological intervention, it would only be adapted with trained and supervised helpers. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240082755 2. Contact the course providers to request permission to organize, embed, subtitle, translate, or adapt their materials. 3. Provide Ukrainian subtitles, simple summaries, worksheets, and age recommendations when needed.

4. Divide the platform into a Student Section and a Parent and Mentor Section so students do not receive materials that were originally designed for adults. 5. Offer short, optional, mobile-friendly learning modules without grades, examinations, or heavy assignments. 6. Match learners with trained student mentors who help them select courses, understand the materials, balance study and rest, and attend short online check-ins. 7. Refer learners to qualified adults or professional mental health services when serious problems are identified. Student mentors would not provide therapy, diagnosis, or crisis counseling. 8. Use anonymous surveys to collect feedback about course usefulness, stress, understanding, and willingness to seek professional help. Cases Project SOLVE Project SOLVE tested a 30-minute Ukrainian-language digital mental health intervention with 709 displaced Ukrainian students aged 10-18 in five Polish schools. It taught practical problem-solving skills for school stress and interpersonal conflict. Participants showed lower anxiety and depression symptoms one and four months later, and the program caused minimal disruption to regular classes. This supports our decision to use short, mobile-friendly, Ukrainian-language lessons. Paper Airplanes Paper Airplanes provides refugees with online education through trained volunteer instructors and mentors. It combines one-to-one or smallgroup meetings with flexible online materials and trauma-informed peer mentorship. This shows that trained volunteers can realistically support refugee learners online without acting as professional therapists.

7-3. Our Proposed Solution #3 Name of the Youth / Peer Support and Aiding Program Solution Target Group

Civilians who struggle with displacements and mental health issues

Geographic or Ukrainian public buildings such as schools or any local community Community center (Could be a temporary base somewhere built by volunteers with Scope tents and temporary materials) Lead Organization School Staff / Student & Peers volunteers or Stakeholder Supporting Stakeholders

Teachers, medical doctors, parents, and community members within the area

Main Activities

Provide, create a safe place where it is supervised by the school authorities and lead organization where they can discuss and talk about their mental health struggles and their displacement issues. People will relate and try to reassure vocally where it would actually psychologically aid people who need it. They will be able to rely and learn or even teach how to overcome and how to cope with certain situations. This would cost less finance problems and would significantly help them recover.

7-4. Solution Analysis Step

Action

Responsible Stakeholder

Required Resources

Expected Output

Prepare the Mental Health Education Platform. Collect the four selected mental health courses/videos, obtain permission to use or translate them, and provide Ukrainian subtitles or translated materials.

Student project team, course providers, translators, mental health professionals

Existing courses, website, translation/subtitl e tools, professional review

A reliable and accessible Ukrainianlanguage mental health education platform

Provide Mental Health Education to all participants. Teach basic knowledge about trauma, PTSD, anxiety, depression, coping skills, and when to seek professional help.

Mental health professionals, trained mentors, teachers

Online courses, educational materials, screening/checkin tools

Participants better understand their mental health and learn safe coping and helpseeking methods

Student Track: Mentoring and Peer Support. Students receive mentoring after the courses and can join supervised peersupport groups to discuss school stress, displacement, and adjustment difficulties.

Student mentors, teachers, school counselors, peer volunteers

Online meeting tools, mentor training, safe community spaces, supervision guidelines

Reduced social isolation, stronger peer connection, and better emotional and educational adjustment

Adult & Older Adolescent Track: Recovery Support and Readiness Assessment. Participants continue professional mental health support when needed. Qualified professionals assess when they are stable enough to begin job training.

Mental health professionals, community organizations, healthcare providers

Counseling services, mental health assessments, referral system

Participants who are ready for employmentrelated training are safely identified

Provide Job Training, Reskilling, and Business Support. Offer vocational skills, career preparation, entrepreneurship education, business mentoring, and connections with employers.

UNDP, ILO, local governments, companies, business mentors

Training programs, mentors, employers, funding, career resources

Participants gain employable skills, job opportunities, or support to start a business

Support Long-Term Social and Economic Reintegration. Monitor mental health, education or employment progress, and provide additional support when needed.

Mental health professionals, mentors employers, community organizations

Follow-up surveys, counseling referrals, employment data, mentoring

Improved mental well-being, employment stability, economic independence, and social reintegration

7-5. Feasibility Assessment Area

Rating Explanation (High/Medium/Low)

Financial Feasibility

Medium

Although it uses an already existing program regarding mental health courses which will reduce financial problems. However, training with development and supervision will require some funds.

Technical Feasibility

Medium

It is realistic to have an online platform with courses along with different language subtitles which includes its activities.

Stakeholder Participation

Medium

As it requires cooperations and a lot of effort from different fields, it will not be easy to have all the people in a specific field involved.

Time Required

Medium

Developing or utilizing online platforms will be somewhat time consuming. Furthermore translating course materials and making/uploading a course would require us at least a medium amount of time. However, using existing materials or platforms would help reduce time consuming and prevent future delays and stalling that could possibly happen

Accessibility

High

Online access with different convenient features such as different courses with subtitles, it is is extremely accessible to a lot of students

Long-term Medium Sustainability

Having long-term sustainability will not be a major concern if staff and other volunteers keep providing its resources. However, having to maintain this will require some funds as voluntary activity doesn't guarantee long-term services from the volunteers.

8. Expected Impact 8-1. Short-term Impact In the short term, this initiative is likely to raise awareness of mental health isues such as PTSD, anxiety, depression, and war-related stress. Ukrainians would have better access to reliable mental health information through available online courses with Ukrainian subtitles. They would also have access to mentoring and peer support, which could help them feel less isolated and more comfortable seeking assistance when needed. Participants would better understand their mental state and recognize when it is necessary to seek professional help. Furthermore, anonymous surveys and participation data would be collected to determine which parts of the program are most beneficial for participants.

8-2. Long-term Impact In the future, the program might assist Ukrainian participants in improving their mental well-being and becoming more confident in seeking help when needed. Participants in the program could receive mentoring and peer support, which may improve students’ social connections, school participation, and ability to cope with stress. Adults and older teenagers who have recovered enough to take part in job training could develop their skills and gain new opportunities. This could facilitate economic independence and social reintegration over time. If the program is effective, the existing platform and mentoring system could be expanded to reach more war-affected Ukrainians in different countries.

8-3. Expected Challenges

The anticipated obstacles of the project include obtaining adequate funding, professional assistance, and cooperation from various organizations. The use of existing mental health courses may require permission for their use, translation, and subtitling, and professional review of the course content would be necessary to ensure its accuracy and safety. Maintaining the participation of students and peer-support volunteers may also be challenging due to school workloads and psychological stress related to the ongoing war. Moreover, supporting adults and older teenagers may involve challenges in providing sufficient job training and employment opportunities.

9. References All-Ukrainian Mental Health Programme “How Are You?”. (n.d.). Educational platform “How Are You?”. https://howareu.com/mainpage_course Diia.Education. (n.d.). Being there for you: Basics of providing psychological support to kids. https://osvita.diia.gov.ua/en/courses/buty-poruch-kurs-z-osnov-psykholohichnoipidtrymky Diia.Education. (n.d.). Learning together. https://osvita.diia.gov.ua/en/courses/learningtogether Kalaitzaki, A., Goodwin, R., Kurapov, A., Vintila, M., Lazarescu, G., Lytvyn, S., ... & Zhamuldinov, V. N. (2024). The mental health toll of the Russian-Ukraine war across 11 countries: Cross-sectional data on war-related stressors, PTSD and CPTSD symptoms. Psychiatry research, 342, 116248. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2024.116248 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea. (2022, June 21). Korea to provide additional humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. https://www.mofa.go.kr/eng/brd/m_5676/view.do?seq=322061 Plan International Japan. (2024). Research of the current situation with the education of Ukrainian children and their mental health. https://www.planinternational.jp/about/pdf/Research_on_education_and_mental_health_of_Ukrainian_c hildren_final_eng.pdf The Nippon Foundation. (2023, February 20). 1 year after Russian invasion, evacuees from Ukraine discuss their state of mind. https://en.nipponfoundation.or.jp/news/articles/2023/20230220-85687.html UNESCO. (2026). Education in emergencies. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. https://www.unesco.org/en/emergencies/education UNICEF. (2024, July 15). Peer power: UNICEF study on Ukrainian adolescents' attitudes towards mental health support in Poland. https://www.unicef.org/eca/pressreleases/peer-power-unicef-study-ukrainian-adolescents-attitudes-towards-mentalhealth United Nations Children’s Fund. (n.d.). Ukraine: Projects supported by the Government of the Republic of Korea. Retrieved August 5, 2026, from https://www.unicef.org/gok/contributions-and-impact/ukraine

United Nations Children’s Fund. (2024, May 30). Korea pledges further US$8 million to help UNICEF support children and families in Ukraine. https://www.unicef.org/ukraine/en/press-releases/korea-pledges-further-to-help-unicef United Nations Children’s Fund. (2024, June 26). The Republic of Korea and UNICEF announce partnership to support inclusion of Ukrainian children. https://www.unicef.org/eca/press-releases/republic-korea-and-unicef-announcepartnership-support-inclusion-ukrainian-children United Nations Development Programme. (2023, October 10). Mental health in wartime: How UNDP-supported NGOs are providing psychological aid to Ukrainians. https://www.undp.org/ukraine/news/mental-health-wartime-how-undp-supported-ngosare-providing-psychological-aid-ukrainians United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (n.d.). Mental health and community support for Ukrainians. The Global Compact on Refugees. Retrieved August 5, 2026, from https://globalcompactrefugees.org/good-practices/mental-health-and-communitysupport-ukrainians United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (2026). Ukraine emergency. UNHCR. https://www.unhcr.org/emergencies/ukraine-emergency World Food Programme. (2022, March 28). The Government of the Republic of Korea provides US$1.5 million to the United Nations World Food Programme’s Ukraine emergency relief efforts. https://www.wfp.org/news/government-republic-koreaprovides-us-15-million-united-nations-world-food-programmes-ukraine World Health Organization, & United Nations Children’s Fund. (2023). Early Adolescent Skills for Emotions (EASE). https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240082755 World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe. (2022, November 10). WHO promotes action on urgent mental health needs of Ukrainian refugees. https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/10-11-2022-who-promotes-action-on-urgentmental-health-needs-of-ukrainian-refugees World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe. (2022, December 19). New research reveals how war-related distress affects mental health of Ukrainian refugees in Poland. https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/19-12-2022-new-research-reveals-how-warrelated-distress-affects-mental-health-of-ukrainian-refugees-in-poland

Team 2

Same Rising Tide, Shared Global Goals

1. Team Information 



Student Members -

Ethan Kim, Chadwick International

Gyeom Ryu, Cheongshim International Academy

Hyunmin Ryu, The Lawrenceville School

Isaac Shim, Yongsan International School of Seoul

Tae Young Kim, Chadwick International

Supporter -

Seungyeon Yoon, Seoul National University (Political Science and International Relations)

2. Project Question 

How can international climate finance be improved to help vulnerable Pacific Island nations adapt to rising sea levels?



Sub-question #1: To what extent does climate finance availability differ between high-income coastal nations and vulnerable Pacific Island nations?



Sub-question #2: What factors shape the effectiveness of the current international climate finance system in supporting sea-level-rise adaptation for vulnerable nations?

3. Understanding the Background 3-1. Global Background The threat of climate change is distributed unequally on a global scale. The less economically developed countries are heavily burdened despite contributing the least emissions. Rising sea levels continuously present profound challenges to national survival, climate injustice, and collective responsibility. According to data from NASA, the Pacific nation of Tuvalu will experience an unavoidable sea level rise of nearly 6 inches by the year 2050. This ecosystem shift will accelerate flooding drastically to an extent that regions experiencing five days of flood annually are projected to face 25 flood days annually. This rapid shift in climate allows seawater to infiltrate underground freshwater supplies essential for drinking water access and sustainability in agriculture. Combating these effects requires shared, international policy and equitable climate finance. Initiatives such as the United Nations Development Programme outline the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project (TCAP), an essential infrastructure program designed to protect coastal lands. In the second phase of TCAP, the governments of New Zealand allocated US$17.5 million through respective foreign affairs ministries. While there are efforts from

wealthier nations to fund long-term adaptation infrastructure, global inequality factors persist. Funding for these critical resilience depends on a limited pool of donors, underscoring the urgent need for a systematic approach to climate finance.

3-2. Regional or National Background Our chosen region is the Pacific, viewed through the two countries in our presentation title, “Tuvalu and New Zealand”. The regional picture is one of shared hazard but unequal capacity—a 2025 assessment in Scientific Reports estimates that coastal flooding already costs the developing economies of Asia and the Pacific US$26.8 billion each year, a striking data particularly coinciding that its damages are projected to multiply 4.4 to 6.4 times by 2050 from sea level rise alone. The Pacific islands contribute the smallest slice of those absolute losses yet suffer the highest losses relative to GDP of any subregion around the world. Even worse, Tuvalu shows what that ratio means on the ground; its 11,000 citizens occupy about 26km² of land, mostly under two metres of elevation, and the nation’s main physical defense, that is the UNDP-implemented Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project raising new land in Funafuti above the highest tides, is financed in its second phase entirely by Australia and New Zealand. It is a problematic phenomenon to observe, as: 1.

With such history, Tuvalu gets to set a record as one of the very few nations whose its ground troops are entirely funded by third-party nations;

Even the exit route runs through the donor, where the Falepili Union treaty caps migration to Australia at 280 per year. a.

New Zealand, here, carries greater absolute exposure, with two of every three residents living in areas exposed to flooding and rising seas, yet it manages that risk through its own institutions (namely, a National Adaptation Plan and a Climate Adaptation Act in development to settle who pays for managed retreat).

Our research question, thus aims to investigate the difference between how one nation budgets for its adaptation and the other petitions for it.

4. Problem Statement 4-1. Who Is Affected? 

Primary target group:





The population directly affected includes the citizens of Tuvalu, alongside regional partner nations such as Australia and New Zealand that are actively involved in response and funding.

Other affected groups:



Other affected group is the residents and coastal communities in Tuvalu, who face immediate threats to their living environment and national survival



Where does the problem occur?

 

The crisis occurs across the low-lying island nation of Tuvalu, particularly along its coastal areas underground freshwater supplies

How are they affected?



Tuvaluans suffer from escalating annual flood days and saltwater intrusion into drinking water and agriculture, while international partners are affected by the need to allocate continuous adaptation funding.

4-2. Problem Statement Rising sea levels caused by climate change are creating a serious crisis in Tuvalu, especially in its low-lying coastal communities. Tuvaluans are directly affected because flooding, coastal erosion, and saltwater intrusion threaten their homes, farmland, drinking water, and essential infrastructure. Increasing annual flood days may eventually make large parts of the country uninhabitable, forcing residents to move inland or migrate to countries such as New Zealand. Regional partners, including Australia and New Zealand, are also affected because they must provide ongoing adaptation funding and support displaced communities. The problem is caused mainly by melting ice and glaciers, while tides, waves, and seasonal winds can worsen flooding. Immediate action is necessary because around half of Tuvalu’s capital could be submerged within the coming decades, and almost the entire island nation may be threatened by 2100.

5. SDG Alignment 5-1. Relevant SDGs and Rationale SDG 13 aims to address the global climate crisis driven by human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. It focuses on combating rising global temperatures and the resulting environmental disruptions, such as severe weather events, melting glaciers, and accelerating sea level rise that threaten global ecosystems and human societies. Our topic directly connects to SDG 13's targets on strengthening climate resilience, enhancing adaptation capacity, and mobilizing equitable international climate finance. Specifically, it addresses how vulnerable Pacific Island nations like Tuvalu, which face unavoidable sea level rise and freshwater contamination, require sustained financial and infrastructural support through global partnerships which is SDG 17. Additionally, SDG 17 Partnerships for the Goals is essential because vulnerable nations like Tuvalu cannot face climate threats alone. Through international cooperation global partners must provide financial aid technology transfer and capacity building to help low lying island states adapt to sea level rise. Ultimately strong global partnerships ensure climate justice and turn SDG 13 Goals into real support for affected communities. It is essential because the impacts of climate change are fundamentally unequal. Low emitting, low lying island nations bear the most severe consequences. Such as, land loss and potential displacement and making climate action not merely an environmental concern but an urgent matter of climate justice, national survival, and shared global responsibility. 38

5-2. Relevant SDG Target The Sustainable Development Target that best aligns with this initiative is SDG Target 13.1, which focuses on building climate resilience. The target is that governments and communities upgrade their infrastructure, systems, and local policy planning to mitigate and withstand unavoidable climate disasters and environmental shifts. The change in the target is to shift the focus from reactive emergency relief to long-term survival infrastructure that secures the vulnerable coastal zones from environmental erosion. The empowerment of local citizens and standardization of international policies should be actively executed, specifically climate defense plans. Our project contributes to these changes in target, as we optimize the funding through direct international finance into physical defenses rather than short-term aid. The scalable and interoperable administrative framework further minimizes climate change and ensures long-term maintenance. The adaptive infrastructure will prevent seawater from ruining underground drinking water and local crops.

6. Case Studies 6-1. Case Study #1 

What the project/program did Phase 1 (TCAP-I)

Phase 2 (TCAP 1A)

Years

2017 – early 2024

Sept 2024 – Oct 2025

Money

US$36M Green Climate Fund + Australia (DFAT) + Tuvalu cofinancing

US$17.5M This vast amount of money came from Australia, New Zealand, United States

Delivered 7.3 ha raised land, Funafuti + outerisland defenses

1. 8 ha raised land 2. Fongafale Southern Region

Design Standard

Above sea level rise and storm-wave reach beyond 2100

Above projected sea levels beyond 2100

Who Did it?

Government of Tuvalu + UNDP (+ Pacific Community)

Same



Overview



Funafuti's average elevation is 0.5 m above normal spring high tides, and 46% of the central built area of Fongafale (the capital's largest islet) is already below sea level. 

By 2050 half of Fongafale's land is projected to flood under daily tides 

By 2100, 95% floods under routine high tide



Thus, beginning in December 2022, sand dredged from the lagoon was built into a platform on Fongafale roughly 780 m long and 100 m wide, engineered to stay dry past 2100 



= The first sovereign-scale raised-land project completed by any atoll nation.

And the plan it all feeds: at COP27, Tuvalu unveiled Te Lafiga o Tuvalu ("Tuvalu's Refuge"), the Long-Term Adaptation Plan 

3.6 km² of raised



Safe land with staged relocation of people and infrastructure



Water and food and energy security, and space for government



Schools



Hospitals 

→ ALL of them which were designed to accommodate the entire national population safely beyond worst-case 2100 sea level rise

 

The IMF prices it around A$2.0 billion (~US$1.3B) 



This is essential as the envisioned first phase relocates the airport runway that dominates Fogafale, freeing it to double as rainwater catchment for a capital with chronic freshwater shortage

Why it succeeded or failed



Delivered to specification, twice, in one of the most remote construction environments on earth.



It was also successful in terms of its learning curve as well 

Phase 1 took about six years from launch to land, through COVID



Phase 2 took thirteen months from announcement to handover 

 

= The first technically feasible national adaptation plan consistent with known sea level science

→ This means that the delivery machine got faster over time

Two phases produced ~15.3 ha for ~$53.5M, about $3.5M per hectare; L-TAP's $1.3B for 360 ha implies ~$3.6M per hectare

What you learn from it



Execution is solved, so the binding constraint is upstream 



In other words, when money arrived, land appeared, on spec, faster each time

The plan is bankable 40



Demonstrated per-hectare costs match the plan's estimate, meaning L-TAP can be financed against milestones the way infrastructure normally is, rather than treated as charity of uncertain worth

6-2. Case Study #2 

What the project/program did Phase 1 (TCAP-I)

Phase 2 (TCAP 1A)

Years

Future Now Project (Te Kete) [2021-2026]

Digital Twin & Cloud Sovereignty Migration [2023-present]

Money

US $2.5M initial state innovation budget + technical partnerships with Tuvalu Telecom, Cloud Vendors

US $12.6M directly into Tuvalu’s national budget prioritizing investments in digital transformation programs

Delivered Changed to 15,000 Digital national Completed three-dimensional LiDAR archives, 450 cultural artifacts, and 80 mapping of all 9 islands of Tuvalu to years of historical records build the foundation of a digital cloud of 26 km² of land mass Design Standard

ISO 14641 compliant electronic/digital document preservation standards – transparency, access, legibility

Full digital recovery that can compensate for physical territory through a replicated cloud model

Who Did it?

Ministry of Justice, Communication & Foreign Affairs (Tuvalu) + Tuvalu Telecom

Government of Tuvalu + Global Tech/Mapping Advisors



Overview



International law states that a national state requires a defined physical territory to maintain sovereignty, maritime boundaries (EEZ), and voting rights at the UN. 

Tuvalu launched a project parallel to physical form – a digital replica of Tuvalu’s physical geography, land registries, cultural heritage → sovereign-scale digital relocation strategy





The initiative maintains digital governance systems, online election tools, securing cloud data networks – maritime boundaries still present (rights of +11,000 citizens)

Reliance on digital and Tuvalu’s primary diplomatic plan 

Despite physical territory loss due to climate change, Tuvalu’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) at the 2030 baseline permanently

 



International recognition and statehood rights even if physical islands submerge in the future (95% submerged capital by 2100)

Why it succeeded or failed



The rise of digital campaigns went viral across social media platforms/news reports, and pressured key global stakeholders/authorities, thus establishing the UN Loss and Damage Fund.



National amendment to declare Tuvalu’s statehood permanent regardless of future physical land loss



Successful in reaching consensus/bilateral agreements within 9 islands recognizing cloud-hosted digital statehood

What you learn from it



Digitization of archives/records would lead international donors to think that Tuvalu is no longer worth funding and frame it as “physical surrender” (“substance without architecture” – Alexander Aleinikoff 2007)



The diplomatic leverage is possible without physical formation when incorporating advanced technology effectively maintains statehood 

Legal rights are still questionable in an international framework, while there is Tuvalu’s cultural continuity in the short term

6-3. Case Study #3 

What the project/program did Phase 1 (TCAP-I)

Phase 2 (TCAP 1A)

Years

Vocational Training Framework [20072016]

Sovereign Land Purchase [20142021]

Money

$US4.0M funded via AusAID, NZAID, and International Labour Organization (ILO) partnerships

$US8.77M paid in full from the Kiribati Revenue Equalization Reserve Fund (RERF)

Delivered Enhanced local maritime housing and nursing – selective (only 79 citizens qualified for Australia’s Seasonal Worker Program over a 4-year program)

Acquired 2,210 hectare underdeveloped Natoavatu Estate on Vanua Levu Island, Fiji

Design Standard

Aligning Kiribati local trades with AQF (Australian Qualifications Framework) to bypass refugee status

Recognized internationally for its title/state rights to establish emergency physical fallback zones

Who Did it?

Ministry of Labor (Kiribati) + Governments of Australia and New Zealand

President of Kiribati + Private Anglican Church Land Sellers in Fiji



Overview



Continuous implementation/real-life application of concept ‘Migration with Dignity’ 

Over a billion dollars of seawalls were impossible to self-finance by Kiribati’s small and nationally concentrated economy with a GDP of $151M in 2014



The strategy shifted from passive refugee status to investing in 113,000 citizens to clear regular, merit-based international labor and contribution for technical aspects

The extended scale of impact through acquiring land 

The immediate structural plan was transforming the destroyed, unused state into crop and livestock farms to feed the population despite local water being salinized



→ The first time in modern history an atoll nation purchased real estate to counter climate-driven degradation



Why it succeeded or failed



Failed to achieve its objective within the presidential term due to the country’s political instability (authority shift)



The strict immigration policies limited the candidates in training programmes lacking advanced academic degrees that are recognized internationally



The acquired land mass was not regulated/reviewed by parliamentary laws and was four times the average market prices 



Contributing to fiscal burden and usability issues with massive agriculture impossible in 50% of mountainous regions

What you learn from it



The simple purchase of foreign land cannot buy foreign authority 



Legally binding, long-term immigration treaties of experts, and land purchase is for commercial interest (not exceeding tipping point of economic downfall)

The poorly defined policies cannot cater to the demands of intellectuals/professionals qualified internationally in Kiribati, which would lead to migrating to neighboring countries permanently – leading to local brain drain (while other domestic trainees cannot be trained solely)

7. Solution Development 43

7-1. Our Proposed Solution #1 Name of the Solution

Vulnerability-First Allocation Standard

Target Group

Allocation decision-makers • GCF board • MDB boards • bilateral agencies

Geographic or Community Scope

Global standard (Pacific-piloted)

Supporting Stakeholders

Research Watchdogs, including: • As mentioned in the case study, just how the CGD audit has shown that the World Bank adaptation finance is failing to reach the most vulnerable countries, this solution serves as the prototype of the accountability o → AOSIS pas demandeur.

Main Activities

Three main activities: 1. Adopt a published allocation formula weighted by expected annual damage as a share of GDP a. Specifically → the metric where Tuvalu ranks first on earth, at 38–58% by 2100 2. Share of population below 2 m elevation, and projected permanent land loss 3. Require every major fund to disclose annually what share of adaptation finance was pledged vs delivered to SIDS and LDCs, per country Potential rebuttal to this idea is that it is perhaps unfair and it poses disproportionate financial pressure on individual nations → • The formula is universal (Tuvalu is not privileged by it, Tuvalu simply qualifies the threshold) • Any country that becomes more exposed rises in the same ranking, and becomes available for funds • The structure of pool funds has been the standard structure for most of the global contribution-based finances — namely, IMF and World Bank

7-2. Our Proposed Solution #2 Name of the Solution Target Group

Adaptive Floating Settlement Network (AFSN) Tuvaluan citizens and other low-lying atoll populations facing permanent land loss, with particular priority given to coastal communities whose

homes are already experiencing regular high-tide flooding, and to future generations who would otherwise face full displacement. •

Geographic or Community Scope

•

• • •

Supporting Stakeholders

•

• •

•

Main Activities • •

Initially piloted in the lagoon waters surrounding Funafuti, Tuvalu's capital atoll, where population density and flooding risk are highest Designed to scale outward to other outer islands and, as a model, to comparable atoll nations such as Kiribati and the Marshall Islands. The Government of Tuvalu as lead coordinator International climate finance bodies such as the Green Climate Fund and Global Environment Facility for funding UNDP and the Pacific Community (SPC) for technical and adaptation planning expertise, given their existing role in the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project Marine engineering firms and universities specializing in floating architecture (drawing on existing floating-city pilots elsewhere, such as those in the Netherlands and South Korea) Regional development banks Local community and cultural leaders to guide design so the settlements reflect Tuvaluan life rather than an imported model. Conducting marine engineering and seabed surveys to identify stable anchoring zones in the lagoon Designing and piloting a small cluster of modular, storm-rated floating platforms with integrated solar power, rainwater harvesting, and waste treatment Relocating a first cohort of volunteer households and essential services (a clinic, a school) to test livability and resilience through storm seasons Establishing a maintenance and expansion fund so the settlement can grow incrementally rather than all at once Running a public engagement and cultural-integration process so residents help shape the settlement's design, governance, and connection to Tuvaluan identity before wider rollout.

7-3. Solution Analysis Step

Action

Responsible Stakeholder

Required Resources

Expected Output

1. Assess Climate Vulnerability

Develop a standardized vulnerability assessment framework that evaluates

UNFCCC, IPCC, UNEP

Climate data, vulnerability indicators, technical experts,

An internationally recognised vulnerability index that objectively

countries based on sea-level rise exposure, adaptive capacity, and socio-economic resilience. 2. Allocate Climate Finance

scientific assessments

identifies countries with great adaptation needs.

Allocate adaptation finance according to vulnerability scores instead of political influence or economic power.

Green Climate Fund, donor governments, multilateral development banks

Climate finance commitments, transparent allocation guidelines, funding mechanisms

More equitable access to adaptation finance for highly vulnerable countries such as Tuvalu and Kiribati.

3. Implement invest in locally Adaptation led adaptation Projects projects, including coastal protection, freshwater security, and climate resilient infrastructure

National governments, local communities, NGOs

Financial resources, engineering expertise, local workforce, adaptation technologies

More equitable access to adaptation finance for highly vulnerable countries such as Tuvalu and Kiribati.

4. Monitor and Evaluate

National governments, local communities, NGOs

Monitoring systems, evaluation reports, performance indicators, independent audits.

Greater accountability, improved funding efficiency, and a more effective international climate finance system.

Regularly evaluate project outcomes and revise funding priorities based on adaptation effectiveness.

7-5. Feasibility Assessment Area

Rating Explanation (High/Medium/Low)

Financial Feasibility

Medium

The solution does not require the formation of an entirely new global climate fund. Rather, it changes how existing adaptation finance from established funds like the Global Climate Fund is distributed. This makes the proposal less costly to establish.

However, as the change could create potential political conflict, a good addition to this solution itself would be an expansion of the size of the adaptationfinance pool when introducing the formula. Technical Feasibility

High

The allocation formula can be created through measurable indicators that are clearly quantifiable and can be updated accurately and up to date. As financial institutions already collect data about the economic and climate-risk data of countries, the standard would simply be combining this data into a transparent, comprehensive system. With the help of research groups, this formula could become more accurate and free of errors.

Stakeholder Participation

Medium

Smaller developing island states, like Tuvalu, would likely support the proposal strongly because it would be allocating the adaptation finance towards countries that face greater danger and need it more. However, major donors and countries that could receive less funding as a result of this notion may resist the change in the system of donation. Therefore, the participation of the stakeholders hinges on the ability to demonstrate that this solution is universally beneficial and is not aiding to only countries like Tuvalu.

Time Required

High

Adopting a binding, standardized allocation formula across multiple major funders requires years of diplomatic negotiation and consensus-building, not a fixed construction timeline.

Accessibility

Medium

The formula itself is cheap to design and implement, but getting it adopted depends on political leverage over institutions Tuvalu doesn't control, requiring sustained coalition-building via AOSIS.

Long-term High Sustainability

Because the formula is universal and thresholdbased, it stays relevant automatically as vulnerability shifts, and the annual disclosure requirement keeps accountability pressure ongoing after adoption.

8. Expected Impact 8-1. Short-term Impact The premise of the short-term impact, before anything, is that the two solutions mentioned above produce different immediate goods: (1) the Standard (first solution) produces information, and (2) the Settlement Pilot (second solution) produces evidence. These are

important assumptions, as both are prerequisites for money moving correctly, and neither waits on anyone changing their minds first. a.

Expected Short-Term Impacts for Proposed Solution #1 

Data Collected



The first annual, per-country ledger of adaptation finance pledged versus delivered to SIDS and LDCs 

1) Prerequisite → routing cannot be corrected while it cannot be seen; the CGD audit that exposed World Bank misallocation was a one-off academic effort that the system was free to ignore



2) The Standard converts that one-off into an automatic yearly publication → misallocation becomes visible in the same season it occurs, at near-zero cost 



Allocators begin adjusting before any rule compels them



Because rankings are published with names attached, funds anticipate scrutiny → portfolios start shifting toward high-vulnerability recipients ahead of formal adoption.



Even in the worst case where no board adopts the formula in year one, publication alone moves the public question from "is there enough money" toward "where does the existing money go" 

 b.

This also leaves spare amount of money that can be pooled into different funds

This reframe (mentioned in the assumptions above) is still meaningful, in so far as there is a visible contribution made that is tangible

Most importantly, Tuvalu's position compresses into one communicable fact: first on earth in projected flood damage relative to GDP, at 38–58% by 2100

Expected Short-Term Impacts for Proposed Solution #2 

The lagoon surveys pay for themselves regardless of the pilot's outcome.





Seabed mapping, wave and current modeling, and anchoring-zone identification are the same datasets the next L-TAP reclamation phases require

A small volunteer cluster (first households, one clinic, one school) living through real storm seasons converts speculation into a go/no-go record



The pilot is designed to be falsifiable 

Performance criteria are fixed before habitation, and a negative result still counts as a success of the design, precisely BECAUSE it redirects finance toward raised land before large sums are misplaced.

8-2. Long-term Impact 



Establishment of a public accountability record



The first annual, per-country ledger ogf adaptation finance pledged versus delivered to SIDS and LDC’s becomes a standing dataset, not a one-off audit



Misallocation is seen in nearly the same season it occurs, as it replaces the CGD audit’s one-time exposure with a recurring and citable record

Early behavioral shift among funders



Because rankings are published with country and fund names attached, allocators begin adjusting portfolios in anticipation of scrutiny, before any board formally adopts the formula



Even partial, informal reallocation toward high-vulnerability states like Tuvalu and Kiribati would count as measurable progress within the year

Political leverage for AOSIS



The published ledger and vulnerability rankings give AOSIS a concrete, evidence-based tool to bring into GCF and MDB board negotiations, rather than relying on appeals or advocacy alone



Tuvalu's position compresses into one communicable, citable fact (38– 58% of GDP in projected flood damage by 2100), strengthening the case in each negotiation cycle

Movement toward formal adoption



Even if no board fully adopts the formula in year one, the terms of debate shift from "is there enough money" to "where is existing money going"



Partial or pilot adoption by one major fund (e.g., GCF) would create a replicable precedent other MDBs and bilateral agencies could be pressured to follow

Reduced cost of future reform



Because the formula relies on data institutions already collect, the first year of publication builds the infrastructure and habit of disclosure at near-zero marginal cost, making continued or expanded adoption easier in year two and beyond

8-3. Expected Challenges a.

Expected Challenges for Proposed Solution #1 & Response 

Formula contestation



Any vulnerability metric produces relative losers among current

recipients → resistance inside fund boards is certain 

The design answer is openness 



Weights are published and contestable in the open, rather than negotiated in closed rooms

The formula is universal 

Tuvalu is not privileged by it; Tuvalu is simply where the metric points



Any country that becomes more exposed rises in the same ranking → the unfair to others objection turns into the ranking updates



Precedent 

Precedent → contribution-weighted pooled structures are already the standard architecture of global finance (IMF and World Bank quota systems), so the Standard asks for a familiar shape but not a completely new invention



Metric manipulation and model uncertainty



Damage-to-GDP estimates depend on modeling choices → our own headline figure is a range (38–58%) for exactly this reason, and hiding that would be dishonest as well 

The Standard therefore uses peer-reviewed published ranges, never single-point claims



Plus three independent indicators: 

Damage/GDP



Share of population below 2 m elevation



Projected permanent land loss

Expected Challenges for Proposed Solution #2 & Response 

Technical risk in a methodological sense



No storm-rated floating settlement has operated in an open-Pacific cyclone regime (for example, Funafuti's lagoon during an event like Cyclone Pam is categorically harsher than the sheltered waters of existing pilots in the Netherlands or Korea) 



This is precisely why the design sequences surveys first, volunteers only, and go/no-go criteria fixed before habitation

Maintenance and donor volatility



Floating infrastructure carries continuous upkeep → and Pacific strategic attention is simultaneously why donor money appears and why it wobbles

9. References Asian Development Bank. (2024). Economic costs of rising sea levels in Asia and the Pacific. https://www.adb.org/features/economic-costs-rising-sea-levels-asia-and-pacific Climate Adaptation Platform. (2023, February 22). How New Zealand is preparing for sealevel rise. https://climateadaptationplatform.com/how-new-zealand-is-preparing-for-sealevel-rise/ Ellsmoor, J., & Rosen, Z. (2016, January 11). Kiribati's land purchase in Fiji: Does it make sense? Devpolicy Blog. Development Policy Centre, Australian National University. https://devpolicy.org/kitibatis-land-purchase-in-fiji-does-it-make-sense-20160111/ Government of Kiribati. (2015). Kiribati National Labour Migration Policy. United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). https://www.unescap.org/sites/default/files/Kiribati%20National%20Labour%20Migration %20Policy.pdf Government of Tuvalu. (2023). Constitution of Tuvalu Bill 2023. Tuvalu Legislation Portal. https://tuvalu-legislation.tv/cms/images/LEGISLATION/PRINCIPAL/1986/19860001/1986-0001_2.pdf Lee, N., Matthews, S., & Reid, J. (2025). Does World Bank climate adaptation finance go to the most vulnerable countries? (CGD Policy Paper 355). Center for Global Development. https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/does-world-bank-climateadaptation-finance-go-most-vulnerable-countries.pdf Managed or chaotic retreat. (2026, April 27). Climate Change & Nature: New Zealand. https://climateandnature.org.nz/climate-wiki/response/managed-or-chaotic-retreat/ Monioudi, I. N., Vousdoukas, M. I., Giardino, A., Stocchino, A., Mentaschi, L., & Feyen, L. (2025). Impacts of sea level rise and adaptation across Asia and the Pacific. Scientific Reports, 15, Article 35742. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-11517-6 NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (2024, September 25). NASA analysis shows irreversible sea level rise for Pacific Islands. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-analysis-showsirreversible-sea-level-rise-for-pacific-islands/ Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (n.d.). Climate finance and the USD 100 billion goal. OECD. Retrieved August 4, 2026, from https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/climate-finance-and-the-usd-100-billion-goal.html Seeking a pragmatic and creative solution to the challenge of sea-level rise: The case of Tuvalu. (2025, June 13). Questions of International Law (QIL) Zoom-in,QDI. https://www.qil-qdi.org/seeking-a-pragmatic-and-creative-solution-to-the-challenge-ofsea-level-rise-the-case-of-tuvalu/

United Nations Development Program. (2024, September 18). Australia and New Zealand back a second phase of the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project to beat sea level rise. https://www.undp.org/pacific/press-releases/australia-and-new-zealand-back-secondphase-tuvalu-coastal-adaptation-project-beat-sea-level-rise United Nations Environment Programme. (2025). Adaptation gap report 2025: Running on empty. UNEP WeDocs. https://wedocs.unep.org/items/b547996e-14ee-4f1c-a6d4b811dd373ae9 Vision of Humanity. (2026, February 2). Rising seas & relocation: Climate struggles of small island nations. Institute for Economics & Peace. https://www.visionofhumanity.org/small-island-nations-climate-threat-and-relocation/

Team 3

The Blind Spot of Development

1. Team Information 



Student Members -

Euhyun Jahng, Pomfret School

Halynn Song, Calvin Manitoba International School

Jane Kim, Hong Kong International School

William Ahn, BC Collegiate

Supporter -

Jisoo Woo, Chungang University (Political Science and International Relations)

So Hyun Youn, Korea University (Health and Environmental Science)

2. Project Question 

To what extent does contemporary media coverage frame foreign investment and resource extraction as “development,” and how is economic inequality represented within these narratives?

3. Understanding the Background 3-1. Global Background Natural resources are becoming increasingly important to the global economy as the demand for minerals used in manufacturing, clean energy, and digital technologies. The International Energy Agency projects that demand for certain minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper will increase substantially as countries advance technologically. Additionally, resource extraction is a major source of export earnings for many developing countries. According to UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), 95 of 143 developing economies were commodity-dependent between 2021 and 2023, with commodities accounting for more than 60% of their merchandise exports. This dependence is primarily evident in resource-rich economies in Africa. The Democratic Republic of Congo supplies more than 60% of the world’s cobalt. Similarly, Mali’s economy is also dependent on its exports of gold, which account for approximately 80% of its exports. Many media narratives from multinational corporations and developed countries argue that mining brings mass foreign capital and increases employment rates. Such global trends indicate the growing importance of resource extraction to developing countries and the wider international economy. However, the growing critical demand raises questions about proper distribution of resource-derived wealth

3-2. Regional or National Background 

Gold mining is Mali’s largest export industry and one of the country’s most important sources of foreign income.



Foreign mining companies, including Barrick Gold, have invested billions of dollars in large-scale mining projects.



Mining contributes significantly to Mali’s GDP, export earnings, and government tax revenue



Despite this, many communities near mining sites continue to experience:



High poverty rates



Limited access to healthcare



Poor infrastructure



Environmental concerns from mining activities



According to the World Bank, around 45% of Mali’s population lives below the national poverty line, showing that national mining wealth has not been shared equally



The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative revenues remains a major challenge



NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Oxfam argue that stronger resource governance and greater community participation are needed to ensure mining benefits local people

4. Problem Statement 4-1. Who Is Affected? 

Primary target group:





Local communities in resource-rich and economically marginalized countries, particularly located near large-scale extraction projects (e.g. Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo, etc.)

Other affected groups:



Mining workers and their families



Local businesses and households dependent on resource-based economies



National and local governments



Mining companies and investors



Civil society organizations representing affected communities

Where does the problem occur?



Oftentimes resource-rich developing countries



How are they affected?



Local communities: may receive unequal share of the economic benefits generated by extraction but suffer from localized economic, social, or environmental costs. Their perspectives may also receive less attention than governments and corporations during discussions of resource development.



Mining workers:may benefit from employment created by mining companies. The conditions they’re exposed to may vary (e.g., differences in wages, working conditions, and access to broader economic opportunities).



National/local governments: may gain tax revenue, foreign investment, and export earnings, but may face challenges in ensuring that these benefits are distributed equitably across regional communities. May also face legal and/or economic challenges with multinational corporations.



Mining companies and investors: their investments and economic contributions are very important to the narratives portraying the developmental projects. May face public scrutiny and backlash about concerns about proper distribution of profits and the socioeconomic consequences of extraction.

4-2. Problem Statement The growing global demand for minerals and other natural resources is increasing investment in resource extraction across developing and resource-rich economies. Although the extraction of natural resources may generate government revenue and stimulate “economic growth,” these benefits are often not distributed equitably among its stakeholders. Factors such as unequal bargaining power and difficulties in technical management hinder the extent to which extraction creates inclusive local development. Simultaneously, information about contracts, revenues, environmental and social impacts, and distributional outcomes is often complex for non-specialists to understand and thus is difficult for affected communities and the wider public to assess. This complexity creates an environment where economic development is technically visible in aggregate statistics, with its unequal local outcomes remaining less visible to the mainstream media. Therefore, resource extraction requires stronger institutional systems that promote equitable local development and public access to information—especially for the underrepresented voices—to hold key actors that perpetuate distributive inequality accountable.

5. SDG Alignment 5-1. Relevant SDGs and Rationale a.

SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities 

SDG 10 aims to reduce inequalities within and among countries. The inequalities include:



Unequal income growth



Unequal economic and political inclusion



Unequal outcomes



Targets specifically address income growth for the bottom 40%



Connection: economic development from resource extraction does not necessarily mean that the benefits of extraction are distributed equally



If resource extraction is presented primarily as economic development, audiences may focus on GDP, investment, employment, and government revenue but do not question who receives those benefits



This makes representation important, because public understanding of resource development can influence how people evaluate mining policies and corporate activities



Specific targets: 10.3 and 10.4

SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth 

SDG 8 aims to achieve a sustainable and inclusive economic growth and productive employment



When the media portrays foreign investment and resource extraction as “development”, it may justify such actions through claims about economic growth, employment, etc.



Specific targets: target 8.4

SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions 

SDG 16 aims to promote peaceful and inclusive societies, access to justice, and effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions



Less directly connected with our topic than the other two, but could support the media-related aspect



Specific target: 16.10

5-2. Relevant SDG Target a.

SDG 10, Target 10.3: “Ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome” 

Resource extraction can generate economic revenues through foreign investment but does not ensure that the benefits are distributed equally among governments, corporations, and the local communities. Our project aims to examine whether media coverage of resource extraction emphasizes “development” while giving insufficient attention to the disparities in who receives the benefits and who bears the burden.



Rewrite the target in your own words.





Ensure that all people and stakeholders have equal economic opportunities and that economic and social outcomes are not determined by unequal treatment or systemic disadvantages.

Identify what change the target is aiming for.



“Ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and action in this regard”



The target aims to reduce inequalities and unequal socioeconomic outcomes by addressing the structural conditions that produce inequalities, particularly for marginalized or underrepresented groups.

Describe how your project contributes to that change.



Our project will be investigating how contemporary media coverage frames foreign investment and resource extraction as “development” and how economic inequality is represented within these narratives. We will be identifying whether certain stakeholders (especially local communities) are underrepresented in resource-derived economic benefits. The project will emphasize how this underrepresentation creates “blind spots” in available information to the global audiences, thus contributing to the incomplete public understanding of structural inequality. Such findings can inform and create recommendations for more comprehensive media coverage. We aim to make distribution consequences more visible to the public eye and promote more informed public discourse, ultimately strengthening the scrutiny of whether resource development is producing equitable outcomes.

6. Case Studies 6-1. Case Study #1: Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) 

What the project/program did



The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) established a global framework through which governments, extractive companies, and civil society work together to disclose and discuss information about natural resource governance and implement reforms in extractive sectors (Independent evaluation, 2022). Its exemplar has expanded beyond revenue disclosure and now includes contracts, beneficial ownership, environmental and social considerations, and the governance of the extractive value chain (EITI Reporting, n.d.).



EITI’s major strength is its multi-stakeholder structure. It does not leave transparency entirely to governments or companies that already hold major institutional power and brings civil society into the governance

process. The finding of an independent evaluation of the EITI suggests that its model developed strong national stakeholder ownership and increased access to information about the extractive sector to create more public discussion in implementing countries (Evaluating the EITI, 2023). 



Why it succeeded or failed



EITI has been relatively successful at the institutional and operational level, establishing transparency as an international norm and creating reporting through its multi-stakeholder approach (EITI Reporting, n.d.).



However, its success is less distinct when measured against broader development outcomes. It lacks the evidence of effects on wider social development with no statistically significant improvement in controlling corruption (Corrigan, 2017).



Similarly, EITI’s effects on broader extractive governance were also not consistent across different countries, and subnational participation was often limited due to lack of resource and participation constraints (Evaluating the EITI, 2023).

What you learn from it



Transparency is necessary, but it alone is not sufficient. EITI demonstrates the strong value of a standardized multi-stakeholder approach in information systems, but its shortcomings suggest that we should not be creating another disclosure standard. Our solutions should connect the disclosure to measurable criteria that could then be transformed into consequences or incentives for performance.

6-2. Case Study #2: International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) 

What the project/program did



Asia Investigative Reporting (AIR) Network of ICFJ supports investigative journalists across Southeast Asia through training, networking, and financial support (AIR Network, n.d.). Its stated objective is to enable journalists to investigate abuses of power and corruption and produce reporting serving public interest.



The network has also supported reporting on natural resource extraction and its local consequences (AIR Network, n.d.). Some of its published investigations cover resource exploitation in Myanmar and an investigation of working conditions and environmental risks associated with Indonesia’s nickel industry.



The Knight Fellowships—ICFJ’s flagship global program—have a recurring system that combines skills training and mentorship/networking (Knight Fellowships, n.d.). Another initiative of ICFJ was its training program for Guinea journalists in 2024, which

consolidated dedicated mentorship reporting grants for the journalists to produce evidence-based reporting on vulnerable communities (Building Unity, n.d.). 



Why it succeeded or failed



ICFJ reports that supported journalists have used the training and networks to conduct investigations into environmental harm and abuses of power (Investigative Journalism, n.d.). The AIR Network’s model specifically targeted building journalists’ capacity by providing them with adequate resources to produce high-impact journalism (AIR Network, n.d.).



However, it is important not to overclaim policy impact. Conducting and publishing an in-depth investigation does not guarantee policy reforms or that the affected communities experience measurable improvements. ICFJ’s system is strongest at increasing the quality and reach of journalism, but its subsequent effects on policy depend on the broader media and political environment.

What you learn from it



Training journalists works better if they receive the resources and networks needed to actually produce and distribute studies. ICFJ’s case suggests that training programs should not stop at funding training but instead fund the entire pathway until public reach: training, mentorship, resources, and publication networks.

6-3. Case Study #3: Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara (AMAN) + UNESCO IPDC Partnership Translation: Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago 



What the project/program did



In 2026, the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), in collaboration with Tempo Witness and supported by UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC), organized two capacity-building trainings for 30 Indigenous women journalists in Indonesia (Indigenous Women, 2026). The training focused on strengthening reporting skills, journalist safety, and amplifying Indigenous perspectives that are often overlooked in mainstream media.



The initiative is intended to continue beyond initial training. Some of the planned follow-up activities include safety standard operating procedures for Indigenous women journalists and a national journalist safety campaign for in-depth reporting, as it recognizes journalism capacity to be inseparable from journalist safety.

Why it succeeded or failed





The program's strongest feature is its community-based design and how it executes official partnerships. Because AMAN already has deep connections with Indigenous communities, Tempo Witness simply provides journalism-training expertise (Indigenous Women, 2026). The initiative also receives UNESCO’s institutional support under their IPDC program. UNESCO specifically states this collaboration as important to the implementation of the initiative.



The program surpasses generic journalism training by addressing a specific problem: representation. It qualifies Indigenous women to report on their own communities rather than relying on external media outlets to tell those stories.

What you learn from it



However, because the training only occurred in May and June 2026, there is not yet enough evidence to determine its impacts. Hence, we referenced AMAN as a promising approach to our problem rather than a proven success.

7. Solution Development 7-1. Our Proposed Solution #1 Name of the Solution Target Group

Fair Extraction Certification (FEC) •

•

Geographic or Community Scope

•

Lead Organization or Stakeholder

•

Primary target group: extractive companies operating in resource-producing countries, particularly mining companies whose projects have significant economic, social, or environmental impacts on surrounding regions. Secondary target group: government and local authorities responsible for regulating extraction projects, since their participation is necessary for the certification to complement existing laws and regulations. FEC should initially be implemented in pilot projects in selected regions, as immediate global adaptation is unlikely. The certification should prioritize extractive projects located near communities that are highly dependent or are particularly affected by the extraction. The pilot project allows FEC to be tested under varying economic and regulatory conditions before expansion. Recommended scope: project-level certification FEC should be led by an independent multi-stakeholder representative body. The body should include representatives from the government, civil societies, local/community

representatives, extractive companies, and technical experts. The representative body should have the final responsibility for determining whether a project meets a standard or not to reduce conflicts of interest. Supporting Stakeholders

• •

• • •

Main Activities

•

National/local governments: provide and coordinate with existing regulations. Local communities and civil society organizations: provide community-level insight and participate in decision-making processes. Independent auditors/technical experts: verify documents and provide advisory services to other supporting stakeholders. Extractive companies: provide documentation and implement required standards. International organizations: provide technical and institutional assistance and help establish comparable standards across different nations/states. Develop a standardized certification framework: establish measurable criteria regarding local economic contribution, fair labor, local economic value creation, environmental and social responsibilities, transparency, etc. Conduct independent project assessments: review and synthesize company records, government data, project information, and community feedback. Establish a Direct Local Development Dividend: Require participating projects to make a defined financial contribution fund or community trust. Award certificate: Projects that are meeting the criteria receive FEC status, and the assessment results are published and made publicly visible. Require periodic reassessment: The certification should not be permanent. All certified projects must undergo periodic reassessments to ensure continued adherence. Create corrective-action methodologies: Projects that fall below the standard should receive distinct improvement requirements and deadlines instead of only retaining the certification. Grant incentives for participation: governments, investors, procurement systems, or international partners give preferential consideration to certified projects.

7-2. Our Proposed Solution #2 Name of the Solution

Resource Equity Journalism Fellowships (REJF)

Target Group

•

Primary target group: early-career and mid-career journalists who want to report on resource governance and economic development in affected communities. Priorities are given to journalists based in resource-producing regions, from underrepresented communities, or with relevant diplomas.

Geographic or Community Scope

•

REJF should initially be run as a pilot year in selected resourceproducing countries/regions, with most of its fellows recruited locally from the communities that are the most affected or the most underrepresented instead of national capitals. The fellowship could eventually become a regional or international network that allows journalists from different resource-producing countries to share their methodology, data, experiences, and their voices. The reporting scope includes mining and extraction, resource contracts and revenues in simple terms, local economic benefits, environmental and social impacts, and distribution of resource-related benefits and costs.

•

Lead Organization or Stakeholder

•

Supporting Stakeholders

• • • •

• • •

Main Activities

• •

A nonprofit journalism organization or NGOs focusing on journalism should be independently established and lead the fellowship program, ideally in partnership with an established international journalism organization. The lead organization should manage both its internal and external affairs, such as fellow selection, curriculum editing, editorial support, safety protocols, grants for journalists, and partnership with media outlets. International/local media organizations: publish and distribute fellows’ reports. Universities: provide training programs and sessions. Experienced journalists: provide mentorship and editorial guidance. Local communities and civil society organizations: help fellows identify local issues and stakeholders and ensure their reporting reflects local perspectives. Research organizations: provide relevant data and training in data analytics and resource-sector research. International journalism organizations: provide expertise, networks, and potential mentorship partnerships. Journalist Safety organizations: provide safety support for the journalists. Recruit and select fellows: select fellows based on their local knowledge and commitment to resource equity issues. Provide specialized training: fellows receive a 6-month training that covers extractive sector economics, mining contract and regulations, corporate ownership, investigative techniques, etc.

•

Provide resources and reporting grants: fellows receive resources and funding to conduct investigations apart from the training workshops. Pair fellows with experienced mentors: mentors provide guidance—either virtually or in-person—throughout the investigation. Support publication and distribution: establish viable partnerships with local and international media outlets for the fellows’ portfolios to reach a wider range of audience. Fellows’ works may be simplified or edited during its distributive process for the public to better understand the issue. Create a journalist network: allow fellows to share data, sources, investigative methods, and cross-border expertise after completing the program. Provide safety and ethical support: establish thorough riskassessment procedures and safety protocols, particularly for journalists reporting on powerful companies, government actors, sensitive community issues, or any other topics that may make the journalist prone to harassment. Track outcomes for KPIs: measure the total number of journalists trained, investigative portfolios published, audience reached, official partnerships or collaborations. Additionally, analyze instances where the reportings’ triggered public discourse or institutional responses.

7-3. Solution Analysis a.

Proposed Solution #1 - Fair Extraction Certificate (FEC)

Step

Action

Responsible Stakeholder

Required Resources

Expected Output

Develop measurable criteria covering Direct Local Development Dividends and contract/revenue transparency.

Independent FEC representative body including representatives from multiple stakeholder groups

Technical experts

FEC standard and assessment criteria

Invite eligible extractive projects to apply for certification and explain the benefits and requirements of participation

FEC representative body

Outreach staff

Participating companies

Stakeholder consultations Legal and economic research

Application system

Participating projects and completed applications

Communication materials 3

Assess the project’s performance (e.g., including the amount and use of its DDLC) against the FEC criteria

Independent auditors and assessors

Auditors/assess ors

Independently verify company-reported payments against available data (e.g., community evidence)

Independent Technical verification team experts

Grant FEC status to projects that meet the required threshold and publish a summary of their performance

FEC representative body

Certification registry

FEC-certified projects

Publication platform

Public assessment results

Require projects that fall short to implement specific improvement recommendations within a defined period before certification can be granted or renewed

FEC representative body

Distinct Documented corrective action progress and plans compliance records Technical support

Project data Community consultants

Data access agreements

Participating companies

A report of the assessment results for the particular project

Verified findings of the assessment

Monitoring systems

Reassess certified Independent projects at regular auditors and intervals to ensure the assessors standards are continued to be met

Audit funding

Make FEC a reputable credential and encourage governments, investors, development partners, or procurement systems to recognize and incentivise the companies with FEC when making relevant decisions

Partnership agreements

FEC representative body Local and national governments Investors

Monitoring systems

Renewed, suspended, or withdrawn certification

Updated data

Incentives for certified companies

Greater incentive for certified companies to maintain their certification

Development partners b.

Proposed Solution #2 - Resource Equity Journalism Fellowship (REJF)

Step

Action

Responsible Stakeholder

Required Resources

Expected Output

Define internal structures such as eligibility, reporting scope/themes, selection criteria, safety protocols, ethical standards, fellowship expectations

Independently established leading journalism nonprofit or NGO

Program staff

Framework for REJF program and application process

Experienced journalists/expe rts Funding Legal advisors

Recruit journalists with local knowledge or community connections and assess their previous experience, proposed investigation, and commitment

REJF committee

Train and educate fellows in across multiple topics, such as extractive sector economics, data analysis, investigative journalism, ethical guidelines, etc.

REJF committee

Outreach budget

Selected fellows (20–30 expected)

Selection panel

Experienced journalists/expe rts Universities

Application platform

Each fellow creates a reporting project or a portfolio focused on a specific resourcegovernance issue affecting their community or region

Fellows

Experienced journalists review research, sources,

Professional mentors

Trainers Curriculum Training facilities and/or platform Reporting grants Research databases

Trained fellows with specialized skills and resources

Investigative reporting projects/ portfolios

Funds for resources (e.g., travel fee, equipment)

Mentor network

Stronger, factchecked

evidence, and drafts throughout the entire process in (5)

Communication tools/platforms Editorial standards

Publish completed projects/portfolios through partnered local or international media outlets and make them accessible to the affected communities and a wider range of audience

Fellows

Conduct assessment for identifying potential risks and provide guidance on safety protocols

REJF committee

Legal support

Connect alumni networks for the fellows to exchange information, collaborate across different regions, and continue reporting even after the fellowship

REJF committee

Network platform

Alumnus

Coordination staff

Track the impacts of the publications, such as the number of completed projects/portfolios, audience reached, etc. Collect evidence of public or institutional responses without claiming that journalism automatically caused legal change.

REJF committee

Partnered media outlets External media outlets interested in fellows’ work

Publication partnerships Translation and editing Distributional costs

Communication Journalist safety tools/platforms organizations

Officially published projects/ portfolios and wider public reach

Safer journalism practices

Sustained journalist network and potential future partnerships

Small collaboration gifts of appreciation Key progress indicators Evaluation criteria Publication analytics Participant feedback

7-5. Feasibility Assessment a.

reporting projects/ portfolios

Proposed Solution #1 - Fair Extraction Certificate (FEC)

Impact report and modifications for future fellows

Area

Rating Explanation (High/Medium/Low)

Financial Feasibility

Medium

Requires significant upfront costs for independent audits, technical experts, and certification administration. However, the DDLC is a benefit paid by participating projects.

Technical Feasibility

Medium–High

The necessary expertise exists, but assessing a broader set of criteria (e.g., local development contributions, fair labor) into one credible certification system requires efficient coordination.

Stakeholder Participation

Medium

Local communities and civil societies are likely to strongly support the system, but companies may be reluctant to accept additional financial commitments. Governments may be concerned about overlap with existing policies and regulations.

Time Required

Low (Long)

All the necessary processes such as establishing standards, consulting stakeholders, piloting the system, and building credibility would require considerable time.

Accessibility

Medium

Its technical requirements may exclude smaller companies, but they are not the system’s main target (big corporations).

Long-term Medium–High Sustainability

Once recognized by governments, investors, or procurement systems, certification will create continuing incentives for participation. However, its sustainability will also depend on sufficient participation and funding.

Overall feasibility: Medium b.

Proposed Solution #2 - Resource Equity Journalism Fellowship (REJF)

Area

Rating Explanation (High/Medium/Low)

Financial Feasibility

Medium–high

A small initial cohort can operate with relatively lower starting costs, although it still requires moderate financial support for resources (e.g., grants, mentorship).

Technical Feasibility

High

Most of its programs (e.g., journalism training, data analysis) are already established practices. Existing organizations like ICFJ also provide precedents that can be adapted.

Stakeholder Participation

High

Most of its stakeholders such as aspiring journalists, civil society organizations, and universities have clear incentives to participate. Partnerships can also build on existing networks.

Time Required

Medium

The fellowship can be established relatively quickly, but fellows need several months to years to receive adequate training, research, investigate, and verify their works.

Accessibility

Medium–High

The program can deliberately recruit journalists from affected communities and provide financial support. However, geographic, technological, and language barriers may limit further outreach and participation.

Long-term Medium Sustainability

The program can build alumni networks and partnerships with reputable media outlets, but its continuity requires sustained and diversified funding.

Overall feasibility: Medium-High

8. Expected Impact 8-1. Short-term Impact a.

Proposed Solution #1 - Fair Extraction Certificate (FEC) 

Establishment of measurable criteria to address distributional inequalities of the revenue generated by resource extraction, primarily through its Direct Local Development Dividend



Collection and verification of project-level data on local economic conditions, labor conditions, community benefits, and relevant company commitments



Increased transparency in how extraction projects contribute to affected groups



Greater awareness among participating companies, governments, and communities of what constitutes measurable and verifiable equitable extraction.



Identification of shortcomings in company performance and the development of distinct corrective-action plans for projects that do not initially meet the standard

Proposed Solution #2 - Resource Equity Journalism Fellowship (REJF) 

Increased journalist capacity to investigate the problem-specific issue



Production and publication of locally grounded investigative reporting on resource equity issues



Greater public access to information about how resource extraction affects communities



Development of connections and networks among fellows, experienced journalists, media organizations, and community organizations



Increased representation of affected and underrepresented perspectives in reporting on resource extraction and related issues without tokenism

8-2. Long-term Impact a.

Proposed Solution #1 - Fair Extraction Certificate (FEC) 

Improved local economic benefits from extraction



Better labor conditions and increased access to skilled employment and economic opportunities for people in affected communities



Stronger local community participation resource governance



Greater accountability of extractive companies through third-party verification and periodic reassessment



Wider recognition of equitable extraction as a measurable standard, potentially influencing corporate practices, investment decisions, and public policy

Proposed Solution #2 - Resource Equity Journalism Fellowship (REJF) 

A stronger network of journalists capable of producing sustained, evidencebased reporting on this specific problem: resource governance



Greater public understanding and scrutiny of how benefits and costs are distributed after resource extraction



More consistent representation of affected communities in national and international discussions regarding resource development



Continued collaboration between journalists, affected communities, and civil society organizations and potential to set a precedent for the future generation



Potential institutional or legal responses addressing the core issues

8-3. Expected Challenges a.

Proposed Solution #1 - Fair Extraction Certificate (FEC) 

Company participation: companies may be reluctant to participate because the certification requires additional reporting and financial commitment.



Defining the dividend: establishing a fair contribution formula is difficult because projects vary greatly in size, profitability, community needs, etc.



Governance of local development funds: direct financial contributions could create new accountability problems if community funds are managed poorly or

captured by local elites. Hence, clear disclosures and auditing from local and national governments will be necessary.



Maintaining independence: the FEC representative body awarding FEC must remain independent from companies and governments while still securing their cooperation and information.



Consistency across different contexts: different labor, economic, environmental, and developmental standards may need to be adapted to different regions without making the certification criteria too flexible.



Recognition and incentives: voluntary certification may have limited impact if companies do not receive adequate benefits for participating. Therefore, FEC requires sustained partnerships for the certification to be recognized globally.

Proposed Solution #2 - Resource Equity Journalism Fellowship (REJF) 

Journalist safety: reporting on powerful companies, government actors, or controversial topics that oftentimes goes directly against the mainstream narrative could expose journalists and sources to safety risks.



Editorial independence: funding organizations or governments should not determine what fellows publish.



Sustained funding: training program alone is relatively manageable, but other areas such as reporting grants and mentorship require recurring funds.



Publication and reach: publishing the findings does not guarantee that a major media outlet will publish it or that affected communities will see it. Hence, partnerships with reputable media outlets and accessible distribution is necessary.



Measuring impact: it can be difficult to attribute changes in public opinion or policy directly to individual investigations. Therefore, evaluation of the program’s impact should clearly distinguish between outputs (e.g., amount of published work, accreditation rate) and outcomes (e.g., audience engagement, policy reforms)

9. References 포스코그룹 뉴스룸. (2023, May 3). 포스코홀딩스, 국내 기업 최초로 이차전지용 니켈 해외에서 생산한다 [POSCO Holdings to produce battery-grade nickel overseas for the first time by a Korean company]. https://newsroom.posco.com/kr/포스코홀딩스-국내기업-최초로-이차전지용-니켈-해/ Capmad. (2025, December 3). Mali: Mining negotiations conclude and record revenue collection. https://www.capmad.com/post/mali-mining-negotiations-conclude-andrecord-revenue-collection

Corrigan, C. C. (2017). The effects of increased revenue transparency in the extractives sector: The case of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. The Extractive Industries and Society, 4(4), 779–787. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2017.03.004 Davies, W., Wright, S., & Van Alstine, J. (2017). Framing a “climate change frontier”: International news media coverage surrounding natural resource development in Greenland. Environmental Values, 26(5), 637–660. https://doi.org/10.3197/096327117X14976900137368 Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. (2026, February). From resources to revenues: Mobilising extractive revenues through the EITI. https://eiti.org/from-resources-torevenues Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. (n.d.). EITI reporting. https://eiti.org/eitireporting Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. (n.d.). Evaluating the EITI. https://eiti.org/blogpost/evaluating-eiti Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. (n.d.). Independent evaluation of the EITI. https://eiti.org/documents/independent-evaluation-eiti Global Governance Forum. (n.d.). Extremes of wealth and poverty. https://globalgovernanceforum.org/global-issues/extremes-of-wealth-poverty/ International Center for Journalists. (n.d.). AIR Network: Stories. https://www.icfj.org/airnetwork-stories International Center for Journalists. (n.d.). Building unity and transparency: A training program for Guinean journalists. https://www.icfj.org/our-work/building-unity-andtransparency-training-program-guinean-journalists International Center for Journalists. (n.d.). ICFJ Knight Fellowships. https://www.icfj.org/our-work/knight/icfj-knight-fellowships International Center for Journalists. (n.d.). Investigative journalism. https://www.icfj.org/our-work/investigative-journalism International Energy Agency. (2025, May 21). Global critical minerals outlook 2025. https://www.iea.org/reports/global-critical-minerals-outlook-2025 International Labour Organization. (2014). Safety and health in the mining industry. International Labour Office. https://www.ilo.org/sites/default/files/wcmsp5/groups/public/%40ed_dialogue/%40sector /documents/publication/wcms_437199.pdf Jus Mundi. (2025, June 16). Société des Mines de Loulo S.A. and Société des Mines de Gounkoto S.A. v. Republic of Mali: Press release of Barrick Mining Corporation on Malian court ruling. https://jusmundi.com/en/document/other/en-societe-des-mines-de-loulo-s-a-andsociete-des-mines-de-gounkoto-s-a-v-republic-of-mali-press-release-of-barrick-miningcorporation-on-malian-court-ruling-monday-16th-june-2025 Natural Resource Governance Institute. (2024, November 25). Six keys to unlocking equitable value addition in mining.

https://resourcegovernance.org/publications/six-keys-unlocking-equitable-valueaddition-mining Nyamushanya, T. (2026, May 17). How global media frames Africa and the politics of Chinese investment in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe Independent. https://newsday.co.zw/theindependent/opinion/article/200055546/how-global-mediaframes-africa-and-the-politics-of-chinese-investment-in-zimbabwe POSCO Group Newsroom. (2025, November 14). POSCO Holdings invests KRW 1.1 trillion to secure global lithium resources… continuing future growth investments for “materials patriotism”. https://newsroom.posco.com/en/posco-holdings-invests-krw-1-1-trillion-tosecure-global-lithium-resources-continuing-future-growth-investments-for-materialspatriotism/ Provenzano, S., & Bull, H. (2021, November 10). The local economic impact of mineral mining in Africa: Evidence from four decades of satellite imagery [Preprint]. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.05783 Reuters. (2025, November 24). Barrick resolves dispute with Mali government over LouloGounkoto mining complex. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/sustainable-financereporting/barrick-resolves-dispute-with-mali-government-over-loulo-gounkoto-miningcomplex-2025-11-24/ Sabillo, K. (2025, June 30). 104 companies linked to 20% of global environmental conflicts, study finds. Mongabay. https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/06/104companies-linked-to-20-of-global-environmental-conflicts-study-finds/ Shahzad, A. (2026). The global governance crisis in the twenty-first century: An appraisal. Policy Perspectives, 23(1), 41–62. https://doi.org/10.13169/polipers.23.1.ra3 Tossa, M. (2026, February 9). Barrick Mining Corporation v. Republic of Mali: The Loulo– Gounkoto Mining Complex ICSID dispute settled. Afronomicslaw. https://www.afronomicslaw.org/category/analysis/barrick-mining-corporation-v-republicmali-loulo-gounkoto-mining-complex-icsid United Nations. (2026, April 22). UN-backed roadmap provides blueprint for eradicating poverty beyond growth: UN expert. https://www.ohchr.org/en/pressreleases/2026/04/un-backed-roadmap-provides-blueprint-eradicating-poverty-beyondgrowth-un United Nations Development Programme. (2018, June 8). A guide for governments and partners to integrate environment and human rights into the governance of the mining sector. https://www.undp.org/publications/guide-governments-and-partners-integrateenvironment-and-human-rights-governance-mining-sector United Nations Development Programme. (2019, June 28). Assessing the rule of law in public administration: The mining sector. https://www.undp.org/publications/assessing-rule-law-public-administration-miningsector United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (2026, July 7). Indigenous women journalists reclaim narratives and strengthen safety across Indonesia. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/indigenous-women-journalists-reclaim-narrativesand-strengthen-safety-across-indonesia

Vatican News. (2023, May 22). E-vehicle supply lines leave trail of abuse in Southeast Asia. https://www.vaticannews.va/en/world/news/2023-05/vehicle-supply-lines-leave-trailabuse-southeast-asia.html World Bank. (2015, June 18). Extractives Governance Incubator. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/governance/brief/extractives-governance-incubatorglobal-solutions-groups World Bank. (2018, June 26–27). Gender and oil, gas and mining: New frontiers of progress, challenges and solutions. https://www.worldbank.org/en/events/2018/03/07/gender-and-oil-gas-and-mining-newfrontiers-of-progress-challenges-and-solutions World Bank. (2018, April 25). Leveraging extractive industries to benefit local communities. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2018/04/25/leveraging-extractive-industriesto-benefit-local-communities

SDGs ESSAY

Climate Justice and Loss & Damage Who Should Pay for the Climate Crisis? SDGs Connection:

Global Background Climate change is no longer a future challenge—it is a present reality affecting communities around the world. Extreme heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires, and rising sea levels are causing economic losses and threatening livelihoods across both developed and developing countries. While climate change affects everyone, its impacts are not distributed equally. Many developing countries argue that they are suffering the most severe consequences despite contributing the least to historical greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, developed countries emphasize that future emissions are increasingly coming from emerging economies and that all countries must participate in climate action. This debate has become one of the most important issues in global climate negotiations, particularly regarding climate finance, adaptation, and the Loss and Damage Fund established through UN climate processes.

Should countries who “pay” for climate change “pay” for the climate emissions? Seoyun Lee

Pusan Foreign Language High School

Climate change used to feel like a problem for the future. That is not true anymore. Right now, heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires, and rising seas are already destroying homes, wrecking harvests, and putting lives in danger, in rich and poor countries alike. But even though climate change touches everyone, it does not touch everyone the same way. A lot of developing countries say they are dealing with the worst damage even though they barely contributed to the greenhouse gases already built up in the atmosphere. Developed countries push back a bit, saying emerging economies are emitting more each year, so everyone has to act now, not just the countries that industrialized first. This disagreement is basically at the heart of every big UN climate negotiation, especially around climate finance, adaptation, and the Loss and Damage Fund. So, who should actually pay for all of this? In this essay I'll argue that countries that released the most greenhouse gases historically should take on more financial responsibility for climate action and loss and damage. Not because they are "bad," but because responsibility should follow whoever actually caused the problem, and that can be measured. This ties into a few UN Sustainable Development Goals too.since none of this works without countries cooperating and funding each other fairly. Climate justice basically means dealing with climate change fairly, where the countries that caused most of the damage take on most of the responsibility to fix it, and the most vulnerable people, who usually did the least to cause any of this, actually get protected. It's not only an environmental issue, it's a moral question and kind of an economic one too, since it asks who benefited from burning coal and oil for the last two hundred years, and who is stuck paying for it now. That's also why cumulative emissions matter so much more than what a country emits in just one year. CO2 does not disappear, it stays in the atmosphere for centuries, so emissions from a factory in England in the 1870s are technically still warming the planet today. According to Our World in Data, the United States alone has put out roughly a quarter of all historical CO2 emissions since 1751, more than double what China has emitted, and China is the second biggest historical contributor. The EU adds around another fifth on top of that, while most African countries combined have added less than one percent, even though they face some of the worst droughts and floods right now. Honestly, that makes it hard to say "everyone move forward equally from here" without admitting who built this mess. It's kind of like splitting a restaurant bill evenly when one person ordered basically everything and everyone else just got a drink. "Loss and damage" is the term for harm from climate change that can no longer be fixed through mitigation or adaptation, like a village abandoned because the sea is rising, or farmland that stops being usable after enough droughts. Adaptation is about preparing for what's coming; loss and damage is about damage that already happened and can't be undone. The Loss and Damage Fund came out of COP27 in 2022, mostly because developing countries had been asking for something like this for decades and kept getting told to wait. Even after the fund was created, vulnerable countries, especially small island nations, have run into problems: pledges take forever

to turn into real money, the total promised is way smaller than what's needed, and accessing the funds is full of paperwork. My personal opinion is that compensation for climate damage should eventually become legally binding instead of voluntary. Voluntary promises sound nice at conferences, but history keeps showing that without a legal requirement, money either shows up late or doesn't show up at all. Making it binding isn't about punishing anyone, it's just holding countries to commitments they already agreed to. Climate finance is basically the money, from governments, international banks, or private companies, that goes toward cutting emissions and helping countries adapt to what's already happening. Developing countries keep asking for more of this funding because switching to clean energy, which is what SDG 7 is about, and preparing for extreme weather both cost money that many lower-income countries just don't have, especially while dealing with poverty and debt too. But real cooperation still runs into roadblocks. Wealthier countries worry about whether the money will be used properly, governments face pressure at home about sending money overseas, and there's an ongoing argument about which countries still count as "developed" since some economies have gotten rich and started emitting a lot since the 1990s UN framework was written. This is where SDG 17 comes in: without real partnership and trust, climate finance talks just turn into blame games instead of solutions. One of the clearest examples of loss and damage happening right now is the climate migration situation in Tuvalu, a small Pacific island nation. Tuvalu is at extreme risk from rising sea levels, and NASA-based estimates say that by 2050 about half of its main atoll could flood at high tide. Because of this, Australia and Tuvalu signed the Falepili Union treaty, creating the world's first bilateral climate mobility visa. When applications opened in mid-2025, more than half of Tuvalu's population signed up within a few weeks, which says a lot about how urgent this feels to people living there. By late 2025, the first Tuvaluan migrants had arrived in Australia with permanent residency. This case shows both what's promising and what's still lacking about the international response. It's a rare example of a wealthier country creating a real legal pathway for people displaced by climate change, something that still doesn't exist under the 1951 Refugee Convention. But only 280 visas go out per year, small compared to Tuvalu's whole population, and critics worry this could drain the country of workers instead of solving the actual problem of a sinking homeland. I think the Falepili Union is a good first step, but it also shows voluntary, oneon-one deals between two countries aren't enough by themselves. They need to be backed up by bigger, coordinated adaptation funding, so people aren't eventually forced to choose between a disappearing home and leaving it behind completely. Climate change is something the whole world is dealing with, but it was not caused equally, and it's not felt equally either. Looking at the historical emissions data, and at real situations like Tuvalu, I think countries responsible for the largest share of historical greenhouse gas emissions should carry the greater share of financial responsibility for climate action, adaptation, and loss and damage. That doesn't mean developing and emerging economies get to sit back, since future emissions matter too. But responsibility should be based on what a country has actually contributed, not just its category. Getting anywhere close to sdgs will require exactly this kind of fairness, because without trust and shared responsibility between countries, the global partnership we need to get through this crisis is never really going to come together.

Funding Climate Change: Who Should Pay? Minho Jun

BC Collegiate

Climate change affects every country, but in varied ways. Developed countries achieved most of their wealth by burning fossil fuels for more than a century. Developing countries were much less responsible for climate change, but they are suffering the negative consequences. These countries are not only unable to prevent natural disasters, but they also do not have the necessary funds to prepare for or recover from them. Countries with the largest historical carbon footprints should pay more for the climate crisis. Climate justice goes beyond the notion of climate change as a global issue; it emphasizes responsibility. Industrialization contributed to global warming, and the countries that enjoyed great economic benefits became the biggest polluters on the planet. Carbon dioxide remains present in the atmosphere for many years, and thus it still affects the climate. Therefore, the responsibility of different countries for the climate crisis can be evaluated through cumulative emissions data. The Global Carbon Budget indicates that the United States emitted about 434.9 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and industrial activity since 1850. The European Union is next on the list, with emissions of around 300.9 billion metric tons. China, with around 285.1 billion metric tons of emissions, is third. Even though India has a large population and its annual emissions are increasing, its cumulative emissions are only around 66.1 billion metric tons (Global Carbon Project, 2025). The numbers indicate that both the United States and the countries in Europe have made a disproportionately high contribution to total cumulative emissions. The principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC) signifies this unequal responsibility. This principle means that all countries need to deal with climate change, but the responsibilities of countries are not equal. Such obligations must be determined according to factors such as the history of emissions, the specific conditions of countries, and their ability to mobilize resources (United Nations, 1992). Hence, it is unjust to ask for the same amount of money from a poor country as from a rich country. Most countries in the developing world still need access to electricity, healthcare, education, transportation, and jobs. Climate disasters might require governments to redirect their limited resources to cope with emergencies. It means that countries that contributed little to climate change would need to cut back on their development in order to cope with the consequences caused by the emissions of wealthier states. Thus, climate justice implies that wealthier countries should pay more, as they are responsible for the majority of historical climate problems. Loss and damage is also important in this debate. Mitigation helps to limit greenhouse gas emissions, while adaptation refers to activities aimed at preparing communities for threats caused by climate change. Unfortunately, some damage cannot be prevented by means of mitigation and adaptation. For example, flood barriers can prevent some water from reaching communities but cannot protect them from floods completely. Adaptation cannot solve the problem of permanently flooded land, destroyed heritage, loss of life, or displaced communities.

Loss and damage include both economic and non-economic dimensions. Economic losses include homes, farms, companies, roads, and other public facilities. There are several types of identity, and mental suffering. These consequences are especially dangerous for developing states that lack proper insurance systems, response mechanisms, and budgetary support from the state. At COP27 in 2022, countries agreed to introduce financing mechanisms, including a dedicated fund for developing nations that suffer from climate-related loss and damage, COP28 in 2023 resulted in a decision tha allowed the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage to be utilized (UNFCCC, 2023). This means that vulnerable countries should receive assistance not only while reducing emissions and adapting, but also while recovering from damage already inflicted. Nevertheless, establishing a fund does not guarantee proper financial aid. The funding should be predictable, available, and sufficient in relation to the damage caused. Developing countries also want to rely on grants rather than loans. Making a country borrow money for its recovery would lead to an increase in that country’s debt, despite the fact that it did not contribute much to the situation. At the same time, loss and damage funding should be additional to already existing financing. Otherwise, money may be redirected from educational, healthcare, and povertyreduction needs. Developed countries have several counterarguments. First, current and future emissions should be considered. At the moment, China is the largest annual emitter in the world, while other developing countries are at the stage of industrialization. If only traditional Western developed nations are held accountable, global emission levels are not likely to change significantly. Furthermore, those nations worry that legally enforced compensation could place them under an indefinite financial burden. It is also hard to determine the extent of climate change’s impact on each particular disaster and, if climate change is the cause, to what extent. These points are developed nations. Instead, they provide a justification for a more equitable system of contributions. Each nation must be assessed based on three criteria: historical cumulative emissions, current emissions, and economic capacity. Developed countries’ contributions will be the largest due to their historical emissions and wealth. Important emerging economies with considerable current emissions and investment capabilities will be required to contribute as well. Poorer nations are not expected to contribute equally and will receive assistance instead. The South Sudan floods of 2025 serve as evidence of the necessity of the proposed approach. Although the country emits only a tiny share of the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, South Sudan is one of the most vulnerable countries when it comes to climate change. Repeated high water levels in the Nile and heavy rains throughout the country caused flooding that affected hundreds of thousands of people during the year. The highest estimates report that over one million people were affected. Over 87 percent of the affected population was concentrated in the states of Jonglei and Unity (United Nations in South Sudan, 2025). Homes, fields, schools, healthcare facilities, roads, and other infrastructure were damaged. The number of people affected by the floods by October 13, 2025, was close to 890,000, with one-third being displaced. Accommodation, food supplies, medical care, clean water, sanitation, cash aid, sandbags, and flood-relief materials were provided by the UN and humanitarian organizations, but there was not enough funding for this response. The total amount o funding required for the 2025 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan was US$1.7 billion, but only US$504 million, or 30 percent of the required amoun, had been raised by October 13, 2025 (United Nations, 2025).

The shortage of funds made it impossible for humanitarian organizations to expand emergency aid, organize flood-relief supplies, and function properly. The previous example demonstrates that international aid is often insufficient when the population has been displaced and infrastructure has been damaged. It also shows the necessity of long-term investment in flood prevention, early-warning systems, sustainable agriculture, healthcare services, road construction, and relocation programs. To sum up, historically major polluters must take responsibility for their share of climate adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage funding. The aforementioned countries became rich thanks to fossil-fuel-based industrialization and have the resources required to help vulnerable nations. However, responsibility must not depend solely on historical emissions data. It must take into account current emissions and economic capacity. The solution must therefore combine historical responsibility, current emissions, and the ability to pay.

References Global Carbon Project. (2025). Global carbon budget 2025. Earth System Science Data. https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-3211-2026 United Nations. (1992). United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf United Nations. (2025, October 13). Noon briefing of 13 October 2025: South Sudan. Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General. https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/highlight/2025-10-13.html United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (2023). Operationalization of the new funding arrangements, including a fund, for responding to loss and damage referred to in paragraphs 2–3 of decisions 2/CP.27 and 2/CMA.4 (Decision 1/CP.28). https://unfccc.int/documents/637067 United Nations in South Sudan. (2025, December 15). Rising from the waters of crisis in Unity. https://southsudan.un.org/en/307122-rising-waters-crisis-unity

Historical Responsibility and Climate Justice: Why Developed Nations Must Lead Climate Finance Hyunjung Jung

Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies

Climate change is no longer a distant problem for future generations; it is an urgent global reality affecting millions of lives today. Around the world, extreme weather events such as intense heat waves, catastrophic floods, prolonged droughts, severe wildfires, and rising sea levels are threatening human survival and economic stability. While every nation faces the destructive consequences of climate change, the impacts are not distributed equally, nor are the responsibilities for causing them. Most developed countries achieved high levels of wealth, industrial capacity, and economic dominance through more than a century of unrestrained fossil fuel consumption. In contrast, many developing countries contributed minimally to global greenhouse gas emissions yet are currently bearing the brunt of severe climate disasters. This stark inequality raises a crucial ethical and political question: should countries that contributed the most to historical greenhouse gas emissions bear greater responsibility for financing climate action and climate-related loss and damage? Developed countries should provide significantly greater financial support due to their historical responsibility, accumulated wealth, and structural capacity to assist vulnerable nations. At the heart of this debate is the concept of climate justice, which grounds environmental responsibility in fairness and equity. While the impacts of climate change are felt globally, the historical causes are deeply disproportionate. To address this imbalance, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC). This principle acknowledges that while all nations must take action to reduce emissions, countries that generated greater historical emissions must shoulder a larger share of the responsibility. From a scientific standpoint, cumulative emissions are the primary driver of global warming because carbon dioxide remains in the Earth's atmosphere for centuries. Emissions produced during the 19th and 20th century Industrial Revolutions by nations such as the United States and European countries continue to heat the planet today. Expecting developing nations, which industrialized much later and under far stricter constraints, to bear equal financial burdens ignores this historical reality. Therefore, nations that built their economic prosperity on carbon-heavy growth must take the lead in funding global solutions. Climate finance serves as a critical mechanism to bridge the gap between developed and developing nations by supporting mitigation, adaptation, and recovery efforts. It funds essential projects including flood barriers, renewable energy transitions, and disaster risk reduction infrastructure. A vital milestone in global climate negotiations was the creation of the Loss and Damage Fund, designed to help vulnerable countries recover from permanent or irreversible climate impacts that cannot be adapted to. However, despite these institutional commitments, financial support from developed nations has consistently fallen short of promise and need. Critics in developed countries often argue that the traditional classification of historical responsibilities is outdated, pointing out that rapidly emerging economies such as China and India now account for a significant portion of current annual global emissions. While current emissions cannot be ignored,

this counterargument should not overshadow historical debt. Developed nations have accumulated decades of wealth through fossil fuels and possess far greater financial resources. Consequently, they must fulfill their existing climate finance pledges while encouraging major emerging economies to contribute proportionally. The human dimension of this crisis is most vividly illustrated by climate migration, one of the most pressing socio-economic challenges driven by environmental degradation. Devastating floods, severe droughts, and rising sea levels are systematically destroying agricultural land and infrastructure, forcing millions of people to abandon their ancestral homes. A prime example is Bangladesh, where accelerating coastal flooding, sea-level rise, and riverbank erosion continue to displace thousands of families every year. Many of these displaced individuals migrate to overcrowded urban centers like Dhaka, where they face severe economic hardship, lack of stable housing, and inadequate access to healthcare and education. Climate migration clearly demonstrates that climate change is not merely an environmental issue, but a profound human rights and socio-economic crisis. Robust financial support from developed nations would allow vulnerable countries like Bangladesh to reinforce climate-resilient infrastructure, develop early warning systems, and build sustainable local economies. Preventing displacement before disaster strikes is far more humanely and economically effective than attempting to manage displacement after communities are destroyed. Furthermore, international cooperation relies heavily on mutual trust between the Global North and the Global South. When developed countries fail to deliver adequate climate finance, it erodes trust in international climate treaties and slows down global progress. Developing nations are often forced to choose between spending their limited national budgets on urgent economic development or investing in expensive climate adaptation measures. Without adequate financial assistance and technology transfers from developed nations, vulnerable countries will struggle to transition away from cheap fossil fuels and protect their populations from worsening climate hazards. By honoring their financial obligations and expanding support for the Loss and Damage Fund, developed nations can demonstrate genuine leadership and build a cooperative global framework necessary to achieve meaningful climate action. In conclusion, climate change is a global crisis rooted in deep historical inequalities. Developed nations have produced the overwhelming majority of historical greenhouse gas emissions and reaped the economic rewards of industrialization, while developing countries face catastrophic risks despite contributing the least to atmospheric warming. Therefore, countries with greater historical emissions must bear a greater responsibility for financing global climate action and supporting climate-related loss and damage. While every nation must commit to reducing its emissions moving forward, true climate justice requires that those with historical responsibility and superior financial strength lead the way. By fulfilling their climate finance commitments and helping vulnerable communities respond to climate migration, developed nations can help construct a fairer, more resilient, and sustainable world for all.

Who Should Pay for the Climate Crisis? Isaac Shim

Yongsan International School of Seoul

Climate change affects every country, but its causes and impacts are not shared equally. Floods, droughts, wildfires, rising seas, and stronger storms threaten lives and economies. Yet, many vulnerable countries have contributed little to the emissions that caused this crisis. This unfairness lies at the heart of the climate justice debate. Developed countries often argue that all major emitters should participate because future emissions are increasingly coming from emerging economies. While that argument holds some truth, it does not erase historical responsibility. Countries that have contributed most to greenhouse gas emissions over time should bear greater responsibility for funding climate action and addressing climate-related damage. This is backed by the principles of climate justice and Common But Differentiated Responsibilities, along with the cumulative emissions from different nations. Nevertheless, this should involve predictable, grantbased international funding, not open-ended legal compensation. Wealthy emerging economies should also contribute based on their current capacity. Climate justice means that how we respond to climate change should reflect both responsibility and ability. It involves not only cutting future emissions but also helping countries cope with ongoing harm and recover from damage that cannot be avoided. This idea is already part of the international climate framework. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change states that countries should protect the climate system based on equity and according to respective responsibilities and capabilities, with developed countries taking the lead in tackling climate change (UNFCCC, 1992). This principle does not free developing countries from acting on climate issues. Instead, it acknowledges that treating unequal countries the same can be unfair. A nation that gained wealth through centuries of fossil-fuel use is not in the same situation as one still working to build electricity, infrastructure, healthcare, and food security. Historical responsibility is significant because climate change results not only from current emissions but also from emissions accumulated over time. Carbon dioxide lingers in the climate system for a long time, so today's warming reflects emissions released over generations. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change explains that total warming is primarily determined by cumulative carbon dioxide emissions from both the past and future (IPCC, 2023). Therefore, focusing only on current emissions gives an incomplete view of responsibility. Historical data shows that the United States is the largest cumulative emitter, accounting for about 20 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions since 1850, while many countries currently facing severe climate impacts contributed much less (Carbon Brief, 2021). This does not mean that current emissions from countries like China and India are unimportant. It means that any fair system needs to consider both current and historical emissions that caused much of today's warming. The perspective of developed countries is still important. They argue that climate change cannot be addressed unless all major emitters are involved. They may also worry that framing loss and damage as endless compensation could create political pushback and hinder international cooperation. Additionally, developed countries have provided climate finance; the OECD reported that they surpassed the long-promised $100 billion annual climate finance goal for several years

after reaching it in 2022 (OECD, 2026). However, this progress does not mean their responsibility is fully met. Much of the climate finance has focused more on mitigation than adaptation, and vulnerable countries still face a significant gap between what they need and what they receive. The existence of climate finance reinforces the idea that developed countries have greater responsibility; the challenge is that the scale and accessibility remain inadequate. From the viewpoint of developing countries, climate finance is not charity; it is about justice and trust. Many developing nations contributed the least to historical emissions but bear the most severe impacts and have fewer resources to respond. If climate support primarily comes in the form of loans, these countries can fall deeper into debt following disasters they did not mainly cause. The Paris Agreement addresses this concern by stating that developed countries shall provide financial resources to help developing countries with mitigation and adaptation, while other nations are encouraged to contribute voluntarily (UNFCCC, 2015). The gap is especially evident in adaptation. UNEP estimated that developing countries will require about $310 to $365 billion per year for adaptation by 2035, while international public adaptation finance only reached $26 billion in 2023 (UNEP, 2025). This shows that current support is far below the level needed to protect communities, infrastructure, agriculture, and water systems. The issue of loss and damage strengthens the case for greater responsibility from developed countries because some climate-related harm cannot be completely adapted to. While adaptation can minimize risks, it cannot restore land permanently lost to rising seas, replace cultural heritage, or bring back lives lost in extreme weather events. Loss and damage includes economic consequences, such as destroyed roads, homes, crops, and tourism, as well as non-economic impacts, like displacement, identity, and community loss. The establishment of the Loss and Damage Fund through UN climate negotiations indicates that the international community acknowledges this category of harm. However, the fund remains far smaller than what is needed. WRI reported that pledges of about $768 million fall well short of the potential need, which could reach up to $580 billion for vulnerable countries by 2030 (WRI, 2025). A fund that exists symbolically but lacks sufficient resources cannot deliver real climate justice. Small Island Developing States illustrate the urgency of this issue. SIDS contribute less than one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet they are very vulnerable to cyclones, storm surges, droughts, and rising seas. From 1970 to 2020, they lost $153 billion from weather-, climate-, and water-related hazards (Global Center on Adaptation, 2025). For small island economies, this is a significant cost that can threaten development, debt sustainability, housing, freshwater, tourism, and even national survival. The 2025 International Court of Justice advisory opinion also acknowledged that human-caused climate change has led to extensive losses and damages, disproportionately affecting vulnerable communities that contributed the least to climate change (ICJ, 2025). SIDS highlight the central injustice: those least responsible for the crisis often bear the heaviest burdens. A fair solution should not require developed countries to shoulder all costs or overlook the role of emerging economies. Major current emitters must cut emissions, and wealthy emerging nations should contribute according to their ability. However, fairness still demands that developed countries pay more, sooner, and more reliably because they have contributed most historically and possess greater financial and technological resources. The COP29 climate finance agreement established a goal of $300 billion annually by 2035 and called for ramping up financing to $1.3 trillion per year; this reflects a global recognition of the need for much larger funding (UNFCCC, 2024). The next step should involve making that finance predictable, accessible, and grant-based, particularly for SIDS and the least developed countries. Climate justice is not about revenge or

guilt. It is about recognizing that equal treatment is not always fair treatment. Countries that gained the most from the fossil-fuel era should now take the lead in funding the transition and addressing unavoidable climate harms. Without this change, global climate cooperation will remain politically fragile and morally incomplete.

References Evans, Simon. “Analysis: Which Countries Are Historically Responsible for Climate Change?” Carbon Brief, 5 Oct. 2021, www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-which-countries-are-historically-responsible-for-climatechange/ Global Center on Adaptation. State and Trends in Adaptation Report 2025: Small Island Developing States. Global Center on Adaptation, 2025, gca.org/reports/sta25/ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC, 2023, www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_SYR_LongerReport.pdf. International Court of Justice. Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change: Advisory Opinion of 23 July 2025. International Court of Justice, 23 July 2025, icj-web.leman.un-icc.cloud/sites/default/files/case-related/187/187-20250723-adv-0100-en.pdf Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. “Developed Countries Exceed USD 100 Billion Climate Finance Goal for Third Consecutive Year.” OECD, 21 May 2026, www.oecd.org/en/about/news/press-releases/2026/05/developed-countries-exceedusd-100-billion-climate-finance-goal-for-third-consecutive-year.html United Nations Environment Programme. Adaptation Gap Report 2025. UNEP, 2025, www.unep.org/resources/adaptation-gap-report-2025 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. “COP29 UN Climate Conference Agrees to Triple Finance to Developing Countries, Protecting Lives and Livelihoods.” UNFCCC, 24 Nov. 2024, unfccc.int/news/cop29-un-climate-conference-agrees-to-triple-finance-to-developingcountries-protecting-lives-and ---. Paris Agreement. United Nations, 2015, unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/parisagreement_publication.pdf ---. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. United Nations, 1992, unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf World Resources Institute. “What Is ‘Loss and Damage’ from Climate Change? 8 Key Questions, Answered.” World Resources Institute, 5 May 2025, www.wri.org/insights/loss-damage-climate-change 92

The Price of Historical Emissions: Why High-Emitting Nations Must Lead Climate Finance and Loss & Damage Compensation Euhyun Jahng Pomfret School

Introduction

As global temperatures continue to break historical records, climate change has transitioned from a theoretical future warning to an immediate, existential crisis. Wildfires burn across vast swathes of North America and Southern Europe, severe droughts threaten food security across sub-Saharan Africa, and catastrophic floods displace millions in South Asia. While these disasters affect communities worldwide, their impacts are starkly unequal. Developing nations, despite contributing the least to the atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases, disproportionately bear the brunt of severe climate impacts. At the heart of international climate negotiations lies a fundamental question of equity: Should countries that contributed most to historical greenhouse gas emissions bear greater financial responsibility for climate action, adaptation, and climate-related loss and damage? The principle of climate justice, grounded in international law and moral philosophy, dictates that historical high emitters must bear the primary financial burden. While modern climate action ultimately requires global participation, primary financial obligations must rest on historical responsibility to achieve an equitable, effective response to the global climate crisis.

Historical Responsibility and the Ethical Foundation of Climate Justice

To understand who should pay for the climate crisis, one must examine the atmosphere as a shared global commons that has been systematically overused. Greenhouse gases— primarily carbon dioxide—remain in the atmosphere for centuries. Consequently, current global warming is not merely the result of today’s emissions, but the cumulative total of industrial activity since the mid-nineteenth century. High-income, industrialized nations built their modern economies, infrastructure, and national wealth largely through the uninhibited combustion of fossil fuels. According to historical emissions data, the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom are responsible for over half of all cumulative carbon dioxide emissions released since 1850. In contrast, the entire continent of Africa has contributed under 4% of global historical emissions. This disparity forms the basis of the Polluter Pays Principle, a foundational concept in environmental law stating that those who produce pollution should bear the costs of managing or remedying its damage.

Furthermore, this moral obligation is formally recognized in international treaty law. The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC). This framework explicitly acknowledges that while all nations share a duty to address climate change, developed countries must take the lead due to their historical responsibility and financial capacity. Demanding equal financial burdens from nations that did not cause the problem ignores centuries of unequal resource extraction and economic development.

Loss and Damage: The Frontlines of Climate Injustice

The debate over climate finance extends beyond mitigation (reducing emissions) and adaptation (preparing for impacts). It critically encompasses Loss and Damage—the unavoidable, irreversible impacts of climate change that occur even after adaptation measures are taken. For Small Island Developing States (SIDS) facing total submersion from rising sea levels, or countries like Pakistan, where catastrophic flooding in recent years caused over $30 billion in damages and economic losses, adaptation alone is insufficient. These nations require direct financial support to rebuild infrastructure, compensate displaced populations, and maintain fiscal stability. For decades, vulnerable nations fought for a dedicated mechanism to address these severe losses. The establishment of the Loss and Damage Fund at COP27, and its operationalization at COP28 and subsequent climate summits, marked a significant diplomatic victory. However, funding remains severely inadequate relative to actual costs. Developing countries require hundreds of billions of dollars annually to cover loss and damage alone, yet financial pledges from high-emitting nations remain largely voluntary and underfunded. When developed nations fail to fulfill climate finance commitments—such as the longstanding pledge to mobilize $100 billion annually for developing nations—the financial burden falls onto vulnerable economies. Many of these countries are forced to take on highinterest loans to rebuild after climate disasters, driving them deeper into sovereign debt crises. Forcing climate-vulnerable nations to pay for damages caused by external industrialization creates a cycle of compounding economic injustice.

Counter-Perspective: Emerging Economies and Shared Future Responsibility

Opponents of prioritizing historical responsibility—primarily policy representatives and negotiators from developed nations—raise practical and forward-looking arguments. They contend that focusing exclusively on historical emissions is politically outdated and ecologically insufficient. In the twenty-first century, the locus of global emissions has shifted dramatically. Rapidly industrializing emerging economies, most notably China and India, now account for a substantial percentage of annual global greenhouse gas emissions. From this perspective, addressing climate change requires massive forward-looking investments from all major emitters, regardless of their historical background. Developed

nations argue that categorizing countries based on 1990 development tiers fails to reflect contemporary economic realities, as several non-Annex I nations have developed substantial wealth, advanced industries, and high annual emission profiles. Furthermore, critics argue that legally binding compensation mechanisms create endless legal liability concerns, making politically sustained climate cooperation difficult to achieve in domestic legislatures. While these arguments rightly emphasize the need for rising emitters to curb future output, they mischaracterize the core request of climate justice. Expecting developing or emerging economies to finance climate recovery on the same scale as historically wealthy nations conflates annual emissions rates with cumulative atmospheric impact and capacity to pay. China and other major developing economies have begun contributing to regional climate initiatives and voluntary funding mechanisms. However, the foundational wealth that enables climate resilience today was built on historical emissions. Therefore, expecting high-income, historically high-emitting nations to lead financial commitments remains both equitable and necessary.

Conclusion: Balancing Equity with Pragmatic Global Cooperation

The climate crisis is fundamentally an issue of global equity. Countries that accumulated wealth through two centuries of unmitigated fossil fuel consumption hold a clear moral and legal responsibility to finance global climate action, adaptation, and loss and damage compensation. Denying historical liability undermines trust between the Global North and Global South, stalling progress in multilateral climate negotiations. Moving forward, an effective global climate framework must balance historical accountability with modern realities. Historically major emitters must fulfill their climate finance promises through grant-based, predictable, and non-debt-creating funding for loss and damage. Concurrently, emerging economies must commit to rapid decarbonization pathways, supported by international technology transfer and green investment. True climate justice does not mean exempting developing nations from future action; it means ensuring that those who profited most from polluting the global commons lead the effort to restore and protect it.

Who Should Pay for the Climate Crisis? William Ahn BC Collegiate

Introduction In 2025 alone, floods displaced millions of people in South Asia, wildfires burned across the Mediterranean and North America, and small island nations in the Pacific watched rising seas swallow more of their coastlines. These events are not isolated accidents. They are the accumulated result of more than two centuries of industrial greenhouse gas emissions, most of which came from a small group of wealthy, early industrializing nations. Today, those same nations argue that responsibility should be shared equally among all countries, since emerging economies now produce a growing share of annual emissions. Developing countries respond that annual figures obscure a deeper truth: the atmosphere does not forget. Carbon dioxide released in Britain during the Industrial Revolution is still warming the planet today. This essay argues that countries that contributed most to historical greenhouse gas emissions should bear greater responsibility for financing climate action and climate related loss and damage, because responsibility for a problem must be measured by contribution to its cause, because vulnerable nations lack the resources to adapt on their own, and because international agreements already recognize this principle in law and practice, even if implementation remains weak.

Historical Responsibility and Climate Justice Climate justice is the idea that the burdens and benefits of climate change should be distributed fairly, taking into account who caused the problem and who is least able to cope with it. A central pillar of this framework is the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities, first formalized in the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. CBDR recognizes that while all countries share a common duty to address climate change, their responsibilities differ according to their historical contribution and current capacity. This distinction matters because greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, remain in the atmosphere for centuries. A ton of carbon emitted in 1850 continues to trap heat today, meaning cumulative emissions, not just annual snapshots, determine a country's true contribution to warming. By this measure, the United States and the countries of the European Union together account for roughly half of all cumulative carbon dioxide emissions since the mid nineteenth century, despite representing a much smaller share of the world's current population. China's annual emissions are now the largest in the world, which developed countries frequently cite as evidence that responsibility has shifted. Yet China's cumulative historical contribution remains far smaller, and its emissions are driven partly by manufacturing goods consumed in wealthy countries. Judging responsibility solely by present output ignores more than a century of industrial growth that already occurred before many developing nations had the chance to industrialize at all.

Loss and Damage and the Struggle for Support

"Loss and Damage" refers to the harms from climate change that go beyond what adaptation can prevent, permanently lost farmland, destroyed homes, vanished coastlines, and lives disrupted beyond repair. After three decades of advocacy by vulnerable nations, COP27 in 2022 established a dedicated Loss and Damage Fund, which became operational at COP28. Early pledges reached about seven hundred million dollars, a moment celebrated as historic. Yet climate related economic losses in developing countries are estimated at roughly four hundred billion dollars every year, meaning early pledges covered less than half of one percent of annual need. Progress since then has been slow. At COP30 in Belem in November 2025, the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage opened its first call for proposals, backed by around two hundred fifty million dollars under an interim arrangement known as the Barbados Implementation Modalities, with half reserved for small island states and least developed countries. Approvals were not expected until mid 2026, more than three years after the fund's creation. Advocacy groups have criticized the process as slow and bureaucratic, arguing it is poorly matched to the urgency faced by communities hit by disasters. This gap between promise and delivery illustrates why voluntary pledges are not enough. Developed countries frequently resist making loss and damage payments legally binding, fearing open ended liability. Developing countries counter that without binding commitments, funding will always depend on political will rather than obligation, leaving the most vulnerable exposed to the same uncertainty that has defined climate finance for decades.

Climate Finance and the Case Study of Small Island Developing States Climate finance refers to funding, from public, private, and alternative sources, that supports mitigation and adaptation efforts, particularly in developing countries. At the 2009 Copenhagen summit, developed countries pledged one hundred billion dollars annually in climate finance, a target only reached years late and still criticized for counting loans rather than grants. At COP29 in 2024, a new goal was set to mobilize three hundred billion dollars annually by 2035, though many developing countries called the figure inadequate given rising needs. Small Island Developing States illustrate why this funding gap is not an abstract policy debate. Nations such as Tuvalu, Kiribati, and the Maldives face existential threats from sea level rise despite having contributed almost nothing to global emissions. Some Pacific nations have begun formal planning for the possibility that their territory could become uninhabitable within decades, raising unprecedented questions about statehood and displacement. These countries lack the financial capacity to build sea walls, relocate infrastructure, or resettle populations without external support. The international response has included the designation of half the Loss and Damage Fund's initial resources for SIDS and least developed countries, along with the Santiago Network's technical assistance program. Yet SIDS leaders have repeatedly emphasized at COP30 and prior summits that pledged amounts remain a fraction of what survival requires, and that slow disbursement processes delay help that is needed immediately, not years from now.

The Counterargument and Its Limits Developed countries raise legitimate points. Emerging economies now produce most of the world's annual emissions growth, and some, including major oil producing states, have accumulated significant wealth. A framework based purely on historical guilt, they argue, risks excusing large current emitters from responsibility and could slow the rapid emissions cuts the world urgently needs. These concerns deserve consideration in designing future obligations.

However, they do not erase the basic fact that the climate crisis was set in motion long before most developing nations had any meaningful role in the global economy, and that current capacity to pay still overwhelmingly favors wealthy, historically high emitting nations.

Conclusion The question of who should pay for the climate crisis is ultimately a question of fairness. Cumulative historical emissions, still warming the planet today, came disproportionately from a small number of industrialized nations that built their prosperity on fossil fuels before the consequences were understood. Developing countries, including the small island nations now facing existential threats, contributed the least to this crisis yet bear its heaviest costs. The Loss and Damage Fund and broader climate finance commitments represent important recognition of this imbalance, but their slow, underfunded implementation shows that recognition alone is not justice. Countries with the greatest historical responsibility and the greatest financial capacity must lead in funding both climate mitigation and the loss and damage already occurring, not as charity, but as an obligation rooted in the same principle underlying any system of justice: those who cause harm bear responsibility for repairing it.

Artificial Intelligence and Global Governance Can Innovation and Human Rights Coexist? SDGs Connection:

Global Background Artificial Intelligence is transforming nearly every aspect of modern life. From healthcare and education to national security and economic development, AI offers enormous opportunities. However, it also raises serious concerns about privacy, misinformation, surveillance, algorithmic bias, intellectual property, and job displacement. Governments, international organizations, and technology companies are currently debating how AI should be governed. Some argue that strict regulation is necessary to protect human rights. Others warn that excessive regulation may slow innovation and reduce economic competitiveness. The challenge for policymakers is finding the right balance between innovation and responsibility.

Can AI Grow Without Losing Human Rights? Seoyun Lee

Pusan Foreign Language High School

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is developing faster than ever before. Today, AI can answer questions, create images, write essays, translate languages, and even help doctors find diseases. Because of these abilities, many people believe AI will bring major changes to society in the future. Governments and companies around the world are investing billions of dollars in AI because they see it as an important source of economic growth and innovation. However, AI is not only bringing benefits. It also raises serious concerns about privacy, misinformation, bias, and the future of jobs. As AI becomes more powerful, many people are asking whether governments should regulate it more aggressively, even if stronger regulations slow innovation and economic growth. Some argue that too many rules will stop technological progress, while others believe regulations are necessary to protect society. In my opinion, governments should regulate AI more aggressively. Although regulations may slow innovation to some extent, they are necessary to protect people's rights, reduce risks, and ensure that AI develops in a safe and responsible way. One of the biggest reasons for stronger AI regulation is privacy protection. Modern AI systems collect and analyze enormous amounts of data. This data often comes from websites, social media platforms, online searches, and smartphone applications. Many people do not fully understand how much of their personal information is being collected and used. For example, some AI systems can recognize faces, voices, and even patterns of behavior. While these technologies can be useful for security and convenience, they can also be misused. If companies or governments collect personal information without clear limits, individuals may lose control over their privacy. In extreme cases, AI could be used for large-scale surveillance. Because of this possibility, governments should establish clear rules about how personal data can be collected, stored, and used. Another important issue is fairness. AI systems learn from data created by humans. Unfortunately, human society is not always fair. If the data used to train AI contains bias, the AI system may also make biased decisions. This can affect hiring, education, healthcare, and even law enforcement. Imagine a company using AI to select job applicants. If the AI learns from old hiring records that contain hidden biases, it may unfairly reject qualified candidates from certain groups. People could lose opportunities because of a machine's decision rather than their actual abilities. This is why governments should require companies to regularly test AI systems for bias and explain how important decisions are made. Another reason for regulation is the spread of misinformation. Generative AI can now create realistic photos, videos, and audio recordings in just a few seconds. These creations are often called "deepfakes." While deepfake technology can be used for entertainment or education, it can also be used to deceive people. For example, someone could create a fake video of a politician saying something that never happened. If the video spreads online, many people might believe it is real. This could influence elections, damage reputations, and create social conflict. In recent

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years, concerns about AI-generated misinformation have increased in many countries. Governments should require AI-generated content to be clearly labeled so that people know whether information is real or artificially created. A recent real-world example is the European Union's AI Act. The EU introduced this law to create rules for AI systems based on their level of risk. High-risk AI systems, such as those used in healthcare or law enforcement, must meet stricter requirements. The goal is not to stop AI development but to make sure it is used safely and responsibly. This example shows that governments can support innovation while still protecting citizens. Despite these concerns, many people oppose stronger regulations. They argue that AI is one of the most important technologies of the future and that excessive government control could slow progress. AI helps companies work more efficiently, reduce costs, and increase productivity. It can automate repetitive tasks, improve customer service, and help researchers solve difficult problems. Supporters of innovation also point out that AI contributes to economic growth. Countries such as the United States and China are competing to become leaders in AI technology. If one country creates too many restrictions, companies may move to countries with fewer regulations. As a result, jobs and investment could be lost. This concern is understandable. Innovation often requires freedom to experiment and take risks. Many successful technologies developed because inventors were allowed to test new ideas without excessive government interference. Some technology companies worry that strict regulations could make it harder for small startups to compete with larger corporations because following regulations can be expensive. However, I do not believe that regulation and innovation are opposites. In fact, many industries already operate under regulations while continuing to innovate. Cars, airplanes, and medicines are all heavily regulated because mistakes in these fields can cost lives. Even with these rules, companies continue to improve their products every year. AI should follow a similar model. Governments do not need to control every AI application. Instead, they should focus on areas where mistakes could have serious consequences. For example, AI used in healthcare, finance, education, and national security should face stronger oversight than AI used for entertainment. Another current example involves AI in education. Since the release of tools such as ChatGPT, students around the world have started using AI to help with homework and studying. AI can explain difficult concepts, suggest ideas for essays, and provide personalized learning support. Many teachers also use AI to create lesson materials and quizzes. At the same time, schools have faced new challenges. Some students rely too heavily on AI and submit AI-generated work as their own. Others stop practicing important skills such as writing and critical thinking because AI can do the work for them. As a result, many schools have introduced guidelines about when and how students should use AI. I think this example shows why regulation is important. Completely banning AI would prevent students from benefiting from useful technology. However, allowing unlimited use without rules could harm education. A balanced approach helps students use AI responsibly while still developing their own abilities. Another recent issue is the debate over copyright and AI training data. Several writers, artists, and media companies have argued that AI companies used copyrighted materials without permission to train their models. One well-known example is the lawsuit filed by The New York Times against OpenAI. The newspaper claimed that its articles were used without proper authorization. Cases like this show that governments need clearer laws about who owns information and how AI companies can use it. Without clear rules, conflicts between creators and technology companies may become more common. Artists and writers deserve protection for their work, while AI developers need guidelines they can follow. Strong regulations can help create 101

fairness for both sides. International cooperation is also necessary because AI is a global technology. An AI model developed in one country can be used by millions of people around the world. If every country creates completely different rules, it may become difficult to manage AI effectively. Organizations such as the United Nations and UNESCO have already discussed ethical guidelines for AI. Although countries may disagree on some details, international cooperation can help establish common standards for safety, transparency, and accountability. Governments and technology companies should work together instead of treating each other as enemies. Governments have a responsibility to protect citizens, while companies have the expertise needed to develop advanced technology. By cooperating, they can create regulations that encourage innovation while reducing risks. In conclusion, governments should regulate artificial intelligence more aggressively, even if doing so slows innovation and economic growth to some degree. AI offers many benefits, including increased productivity, economic opportunities, and new solutions to global problems. However, it also creates serious risks related to privacy, fairness, misinformation, education, and copyright. Ignoring these problems could cause long-term harm to society. The goal should not be to stop AI development but to guide it in a responsible direction. If governments, companies, and citizens work together, AI can continue to grow while respecting human rights and protecting the public. Finding this balance may be difficult, but it is necessary for a better future..

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Regulating AI Technology: Is Combining Innovation with Human Rights Possible? Minho Jun

BC Collegiate

Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing medicine, education, business, national security, and several other sectors of modern life. AI can help doctors diagnose diseases, enable students to participate in personalized education, and advance business productivity. At the same time, it can also invade privacy, disseminate misinformation, produce biased actions, and replace human jobs. As a result, governments face the question of how to regulate AI technology. Although excessive regulation may limit some technological progress, it is still necessary for governments to implement stricter laws in areas that impact human rights. Nevertheless, regulations should depend on the level of risk rather than applying equal rules to every AI system. The notion of AI governance suggests a set of laws, standards, institutions, and policies regulating the process of developing and utilizing artificial intelligence. The necessity of creating regulations on AI usage comes from the fact that firms in the private sector may not always want to protect society when security measures are costly and slow down the launch of products. The role of international organizations is also critical because AI systems may cross national borders. According to the UN Global Digital Compact, balanced and risk-based requirements for AI governance should be followed, and human rights, transparency, responsibility, privacy, and supervision over AI have to be taken into consideration (United Nations, 2024). According to the OECD AI Principles, artificial intelligence has to be safe, trustworthy, and transparent and respect human rights and democratic values (OECD, 2024). A main risk of computer science technologies is algorithmic bias. AI systems analyze information from large datasets and learn trends and patterns. The data may reflect discrimination that exists in society and may reinforce such discrimination through AI. For instance, the use of an AI system for hiring might lead to the wrongful rejection of applicants based on their identities. Similar problems may arise when utilizing AI for loans, healthcare, insurance, or criminal justice. Since it is often difficult to understand how such algorithms work, many people may not be able to challenge incorrect results. Therefore, governments should create regulatory measures that require businesses to assess AI systems for bias. Privacy issues and surveillance represent another negative aspect of AI technologies. Many AI systems operate with a great deal of data, such as individuals’ locations, medical histories, online activities, and conversations. While this information is used to improve the performance of AI systems, it may be exploited by companies and governments. For instance, even though facial recognition technology is helpful for the police in seeking and identifying criminals, it may allow authorities to spy on innocent citizens. Companies may also gather private information to learn about consumer preferences in order to influence people. Deepfakes and AI-generated false information pose another danger. Generative AI can create realistic videos, images, voice recordings, and written content in a matter of seconds. Yet, these may be abused to develop fake audiovisual content related to political figures, mimic a person’s

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voice, disseminate propaganda, or commit fraud. Misinformation can spread quickly on social media, outpacing the reactions of fact-checkers or authorities. In an election, even a deepfake that turns out to be false may still influence voters or undermine their trust in democracy. Governments must mandate clear markers for realistic AI-generated content and punish those who use deepfakes to commit fraud, harass others, or interfere in elections. Some experts argue that strong regulation might cause serious problems. Developing advanced AI requires huge investments, and firms might stop developing new technologies if the legal requirements are too expensive or confusing. Big technology companies might have lawyers and compliance departments that ensure compliance with regulations, while small firms and startups might struggle in the process. This means that unequal regulation might give bigger companies a competitive advantage over others. Countries are in a race to secure their positions as leaders in AI. A government with stricter regulations than its competitors may be afraid of losing investments, its workforce, and technological influence. These concerns are valid since AI may bring significant economic and social advantages. AI may automate monotonous tasks, help scientists analyze large amounts of data, and help businesses produce goods and services more effectively. In medicine, AI may take part in medical imaging, disease detection, patient monitoring, and drug design. Nevertheless, the WHO believes that ethics and human rights should be part of the design and use of healthcare AI (World Health Organization, 2021). The evolution of AI technology in the healthcare sector in 2025 gives us good insight into the advantages, as well as the disadvantages, of the process. In January 2025, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration published preliminary recommendations for technology companies producing AI-based medical equipment. At that point, the FDA had already authorized over 1,000 AI-based medical devices through existing review systems. The recommendations issued by the FDA addressed the entire life cycle of an AI medical device, including its design, testing, documentation, usage, updating, and monitoring after its launch into the market (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025). AI medical machines can assist medical practitioners in analyzing scans, spotting trends, making quicker decisions, and monitoring patients. This should lighten the burden on doctors and enhance treatment quality, especially in regions that lack enough medical professionals. It is important to note that AI can be regularly updated with the latest medical information. All of the above explains the desire of technology companies to introduce flexible regulations that will allow faster improvement of equipment. Nonetheless, the use of AI in the medical industry may be extremely dangerous when the technology is inaccurate or biased. A technology based on information about one particular population group, including people of the same race, age, or financial status, may not function well with information about other populations. Medical data is highly confidential, and many users do not know how their data is being used to train AI. For instance, some AI solutions may change after being put into use because these systems learn from new data. This means that a device that was safe when it was granted a license might work differently after several updates. Thus, the FDA guidance of 2025 underlines that monitoring the device and its compliance is essential for making AI devices safe. The most adequate solution is a system that is based on risk analysis. For example, low-risk AI, such as an application that offers music or corrects spelling, should be regulated less strictly than AI applications used in areas such as healthcare and employment. Moreover, developers 104

must be required to test their products, protect users’ data, and explain their decisions in detail. International collaboration is required, as differences between the laws of different countries can prevent companies from acting in the required manner and create opportunities to use the most dangerous AI systems in countries with less strict regulations. For example, the UN calls for international collaboration and the adoption of compatible AI governance systems, while at the same time stressing the importance of involving developing countries in global decisionmaking (United Nations, 2024). To sum up, it is necessary for governments to apply stricter control over the development of AI technologies when such systems threaten people. Regulation can slow down the development of some technologies and make it more expensive for companies; however, innovation should not prevail over human lives. Nevertheless, it is also essential for governments to avoid treating every application of AI in the same way.

References Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2024). OECD AI principles. https://oecd.ai/en/principles United Nations. (2024). Global Digital Compact. https://www.un.org/global-digital-compact/en/media/17 U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2025, January 6). FDA issues comprehensive draft guidance for developers of artificial intelligence-enabled medical devices. https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-issues-comprehensivedraft-guidance-developers-artificial-intelligence-enabled-medical-devices World Health Organization. (2021). Ethics and governance of artificial intelligence for health: WHO guidance. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240029200

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Regulating Artificial Intelligence: Protecting Human Rights in the Era of Unchecked Innovation Hyunjung Jung

Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has rapidly shifted from a futuristic concept into an indispensable infrastructure of modern society. From revolutionizing healthcare diagnostics and optimizing energy grids to powering global financial markets, AI tools offer unprecedented opportunities for efficiency and economic expansion. However, as the deployment of automated systems accelerates across the globe, it has introduced profound societal risks—including algorithmic bias, pervasive digital surveillance, AI-generated misinformation, and deep threats to individual privacy. This dynamic has sparked a fierce debate among policymakers, technology executives, and human rights advocates: Should governments regulate Artificial Intelligence more aggressively, even if doing so slows the pace of technological innovation and economic growth? Although excessive bureaucracy can present hurdles for technical development, governments must prioritize comprehensive regulation. Protecting fundamental human rights, democratic stability, and ethical accountability is a prerequisite for ensuring that AI serves humanity rather than jeopardizing its future. At the core of AI governance is the delicate balance between rapid technological progress and ethical responsibility. Governments and international regulatory bodies argue that aggressive oversight is necessary because the market alone cannot prevent systemic harm. Unlike previous industrial revolutions, AI operates with a degree of speed, scale, and opacity that makes retroactive correction nearly impossible. Algorithmic bias, for instance, has already led to documented discrimination in hiring processes, loan applications, and criminal justice risk assessments. When machine learning models are trained on historical data containing structural inequalities, they do not merely reflect those biases—they automate and amplify them on a massive scale. Furthermore, the proliferation of state-level digital surveillance and data harvesting poses a direct challenge to the right to privacy. From the perspective of regulators and human rights organizations, clear legal frameworks—such as risk-based categorization of AI applications—are essential to protect citizens from predatory data practices and automated discrimination. In contrast, technology companies, venture capitalists, and market-oriented innovators often argue that heavy-handed government intervention will stifle technological advancement and undermine global economic competitiveness. Proponents of this view contend that overly strict regulatory regimes create prohibitive compliance costs for smaller startups, effectively entrenching the dominance of existing tech monopolies that possess the capital to navigate complex legal landscapes. Additionally, in an era defined by intense geopolitical competition, many argue that restrictive domestic rules risk leaving nations behind in the global race for AI supremacy, particularly against autocratic states that prioritize strategic power over democratic norms. While these economic and geopolitical concerns are not entirely without merit, prioritizing short-term market speed over long-term social stability creates an unsustainable model of growth. Innovation that dismantles social trust and infringes upon fundamental freedoms cannot be considered true progress.

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The urgent necessity of regulatory oversight is vividly illustrated by the real-world impact of deepfakes and AI-generated misinformation on democratic processes. As generative AI models become increasingly sophisticated, creating hyper-realistic audio and video fabrications has become accessible to virtually anyone. The weaponization of deepfakes during major electoral cycles poses an existential threat to democratic governance. Automated disinformation campaigns can manipulate public opinion, fabricate political scandals, and erode institutional trust within hours, far faster than traditional fact-checkers can respond. Beyond political manipulation, malicious actors use generative AI for financial fraud, non-consensual imagery, and targeted harassment. This crisis demonstrates that without mandatory provenance standards, algorithmic transparency, and strict accountability for platform developers, generative AI can destabilize public discourse and subvert free societies. Furthermore, aggressive governance is essential to establish a predictable environment for long-term innovation. History demonstrates that well-designed regulation does not kill industry; rather, it establishes necessary boundaries that foster public trust and long-term investment. Just as safety standards in civil aviation, pharmaceuticals, and automotive engineering did not destroy those sectors but enabled their global adoption, robust AI governance can guide developers toward responsible creation. When consumers and enterprises know that AI tools adhere to strict standards of transparency, security, and data protection, adoption becomes safer and more sustainable. Conversely, an unregulated environment flooded with unreliable, biased, or malicious AI models will inevitably face severe public backlash, legal liabilities, and institutional rejection, ultimately harming the tech ecosystem itself. International cooperation and ethical alignment are critical to overcoming the challenge of global regulatory arbitrage. Because digital technologies transcend national borders, localized rules alone may allow unethical practices to relocate to jurisdictions with weaker standards. International organizations, including the United Nations, the OECD, and the European Union, are working to create unified ethical AI frameworks centered on human dignity, accountability, and safety. Developing shared international standards ensures that countries choosing to enforce ethical safeguards are not unfairly disadvantaged in global trade. By establishing universal baselines for high-risk AI deployments, the international community can ensure that innovation adheres to global ethical norms regardless of where the code is written. In conclusion, the rise of Artificial Intelligence represents one of the most consequential technological shifts in human history. While the desire to maintain economic momentum and technological dominance is understandable, it must not take precedence over human rights, democratic integrity, and social justice. Unchecked innovation that relies on algorithmic discrimination, privacy erosion, and democratic destabilization threatens the very foundations of open societies. Therefore, governments must enact proactive, enforceable, and comprehensive regulatory frameworks for Artificial Intelligence. By enforcing mandatory safety assessments, protecting individual privacy, and holding technology developers accountable, global society can foster an environment where technological innovation and human rights meaningfully coexist.

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Regulating Risk, Not Progress: A Balanced Approach to Artificial Intelligence Governance Isaac Shim

Yongsan International School of Seoul

Artificial Intelligence poses one of the toughest policy challenges of the twenty-first century. How can governments protect human rights without hindering technologies that may enhance people's lives? AI is already influencing healthcare, education, business, national security, scientific research, and everyday communication. It can boost productivity and widen access to services, but it can also endanger privacy, increase discrimination, spread false information, and disrupt jobs. Given these risks, AI needs oversight. However, governments should not regulate AI too aggressively if that means broadly stalling innovation and economic growth. Instead, they should take a risk-based approach to AI governance. This means implementing strict oversight for high-risk systems, ensuring transparency for general-purpose AI, and fostering international cooperation that safeguards human rights while encouraging responsible innovation. AI governance involves creating rules, standards, and institutions to make AI safe, accountable, and beneficial. This includes laws, ethical guidelines, technical standards, audits, data protection, safety tests, and company accountability. International organizations have emphasized that AI policy should balance innovation with human rights. The OECD AI Principles advocate for AI that is “innovative and trustworthy,” while respecting human rights and democratic values. UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence offers a global ethical framework addressing areas such as data governance, education, health, gender, and social wellbeing. These frameworks indicate that the aim of AI governance should not be to stall AI for its own sake. Rather, the goal should be to make AI reliable enough for societies to benefit safely from it. Tight regulation can be risky since AI is becoming a key driver of economic growth, scientific advancement, and international competition. Countries are investing heavily in AI because leadership in this field can shape future productivity, military power, medical research, and technological independence. Stanford’s 2026 AI Index shows that global corporate AI investment more than doubled in 2025, while funding for generative AI grew over 200 percent and accounted for nearly half of all private AI funding. McKinsey estimates that generative AI could add between $2.6 trillion and $4.4 trillion annually across various applications. These figures do not suggest that AI should go unregulated, but they highlight the need for caution. If regulation is too broad or premature, it may deter investment, harm startups, push innovation overseas, and stall beneficial technologies. However, caution regarding aggressive regulation does not mean AI risks are insignificant. AI can perpetuate algorithmic bias when systems are trained on flawed or incomplete data. Algorithms used for hiring, lending, policing, or healthcare can discriminate if they reflect past biases. AI also poses privacy risks since many systems rely on large datasets that might contain sensitive personal information. Furthermore, generative AI risks creating deepfakes and misinformation, which can harm reputations, sway voters, and erode public trust. The World Economic Forum has identified misinformation and disinformation as a pressing global risk, partly

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because AI can enable bad actors to inundate information systems with false content. AI might also disrupt labor markets. The IMF estimates that nearly 40 percent of global jobs are at risk from AI, meaning many workers may need new skills or job security measures. These risks are real and require targeted solutions, not blanket restrictions. Governments and regulators have a valid role to play. They cannot rely solely on tech companies to self-regulate since companies may prioritize speed, market share, and profit. Governments must protect citizens from discrimination, unsafe systems, privacy breaches, manipulation in elections, and threats to national security. However, the most effective regulatory models may not be the most aggressive ones. The European Union’s AI Act, for example, adopts a risk-based strategy rather than treating all AI systems uniformly. This is important because a spam filter, a chatbot, a medical diagnostic tool, and an AI system used in law enforcement present different levels of risk. High-risk systems should face strict requirements, but low-risk systems should not be burdened with rules meant for the most dangerous applications. Tech companies and innovators also have genuine concerns. Excessive regulation can slow responsible innovation and increase costs. Startups, universities, and smaller research teams may find heavy compliance burdens especially challenging compared to larger tech firms. This could unintentionally strengthen the largest companies by creating barriers for new competitors. Innovators argue that experimentation is vital since many AI systems develop through testing, feedback, and real-world use. Their concerns should not excuse companies from responsibility. Companies need to test their systems, protect data, explain high-risk applications, and accept liability for harm. However, governments should also recognize that overregulation can be harmful, especially if it delays technologies that could enhance healthcare, education, accessibility, and scientific exploration. AI in healthcare emphasizes the need for balance. Healthcare AI is high-stakes because errors can endanger patients, but innovation can also save lives. AI can assist doctors in detecting diseases earlier, analyzing medical images, supporting drug discovery, reducing administrative workloads, and providing care in areas with fewer healthcare providers. The World Health Organization has issued guidance on ethics and governance for AI in health, including large multimodal models, because these systems may be applied in healthcare, scientific research, public health, and drug development. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration encourages the development of innovative, safe, and effective AI-enhanced medical devices. This case shows that the real choice is not between regulation and innovation. The better choice is thoughtful governance: clinical validation, bias testing, privacy safeguards, human oversight, and monitoring after deployment. Harsh blanket regulation could stall useful medical tools, while weak regulation could put patients at risk. Proponents of strict regulation may claim that AI is advancing too rapidly and that waiting for harm to happen is dangerous. This concern has some merit. Certain AI systems should face heavy restrictions, especially those involving illegal surveillance, manipulation, critical infrastructure, elections, policing, and medical treatment. But urgency should not equate to aggression. Since AI is too broad to be regulated as a single category, governments should apply regulations based on risk and impact. NIST’s AI Risk Management Framework endorses this type of approach by helping organizations handle risks to individuals, organizations, and society while encouraging trustworthy and responsible AI. International cooperation is also essential, as AI transcends borders. The United Nations Global Digital Compact offers a global framework for digital collaboration and AI governance, showing that countries need shared guidelines instead of isolated national responses. Governments should not regulate AI aggressively if that results in slowing down the entire 109

field. AI risks are genuine, and human rights need protection, but harsh blanket regulations could hinder valuable innovation while failing to address the most dangerous applications. A better approach would involve banning obvious harmful practices, applying strict oversight on high-risk AI, demanding transparency for general-purpose systems, protecting workers through retraining, and coordinating international rules. The issue is not whether governments should oversee AI, but whether they can do so wisely. Innovation and human rights can coexist, but only if governments focus on regulating risk instead of progress itself.

References European Commission. “AI Act Enters into Force.” European Commission, 1 Aug. 2024, https://commission.europa.eu/news-and-media/news/ai-act-enters-force-2024-08-01_en Georgieva, Kristalina. “AI Will Transform the Global Economy. Let’s Make Sure It Benefits Humanity.” IMF Blog, International Monetary Fund, 14 Jan. 2024, www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2024/01/14/ai-will-transform-the-global-economy-letsmake-sure-it-benefits-humanity McKinsey & Company. “The Economic Potential of Generative AI: The Next Productivity Frontier.” McKinsey & Company, 14 June 2023, www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/techand-ai/our-insights/the-economic-potential-of-generative-ai-the-next-productivity-frontier National Institute of Standards and Technology. Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0). NIST, 26 Jan. 2023, doi.org/10.6028/NIST.AI.100-1 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. “AI Principles.” OECD, www.oecd.org/en/topics/sub-issues/ai-principles.html. Stanford Institute for HumanCentered Artificial Intelligence. “Economy.” The 2026 AI Index Report, Stanford University, 2026, hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report/economy UNESCO. Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. UNESCO, 2021, www.unesco.org/en/artificial-intelligence/recommendation-ethics United Nations. “Global Digital Compact.” United Nations, www.un.org/global-digitalcompact/en United States, Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration. “Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Medical Devices.” U.S. Food and Drug Administration, www.fda.gov/medical-devices/software-medical-device-samd/artificial-intelligenceenabled-medical-devices World Economic Forum. “The World Is Changing and So Are the Challenges It Faces.” World Economic Forum, 10 Jan. 2024, www.weforum.org/stories/2024/01/aidisinformation-global-risks/ World Health Organization. Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence for Health: Guidance on Large Multi-Modal Models. WHO, 25 Mar. 2025, www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240084759

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Guarding the Horizon: Why Proactive AI Governance Must Precede Unchecked Innovation Euhyun Jahng Pomfret School

Introduction Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as the defining technology of the twenty-first century. From generative models that produce human-like text and media to sophisticated algorithms transforming clinical diagnostics and logistics, AI offers unprecedented opportunities for economic productivity and human capability. However, this rapid advancement carries severe societal risks, including algorithmic discrimination, mass surveillance, deepfake-driven political disinformation, privacy breaches, and significant labor market displacement. As nation-states and global institutions attempt to govern this rapid technological shift, a central debate has emerged: Should governments regulate Artificial Intelligence more aggressively, even if doing so risks slowing innovation and short-term economic growth? Technology developers often argue that stringent rules stifle creativity, delay critical breakthroughs, and compromise geopolitical competitiveness. Conversely, human rights advocates and regulators argue that unchecked technological expansion poses existential threats to democratic institutions and civil liberties. Governments must prioritize aggressive, risk-based AI regulation over unconstrained technological speed. Proactive regulatory frameworks are essential to protect human rights, ensure systemic economic stability, and establish public trust, without which true, long-term innovation cannot endure.

The Human Rights Imperative: Protecting Fundamental Freedoms The primary argument for assertive AI regulation is grounded in the duty of governments to safeguard human rights and democratic integrity. Left unregulated, advanced AI systems can exacerbate systemic inequality and strip individuals of basic rights without adequate transparency or legal recourse. A major threat stems from algorithmic bias and opaque decision-making. AI models deployed in credit scoring, predictive policing, hiring, and judicial sentencing are trained on historical data that frequently reflects societal prejudices. Without mandatory algorithmic audits and explainability standards, these tools risk institutionalizing discrimination at scale, disproportionately impacting marginalized communities. Furthermore, invasive surveillance technologies powered by facial recognition and automated monitoring present immediate threats to civil liberties. In the absence of strict statutory limits, state and private entities can deploy pervasive surveillance systems that erode the right to privacy and curtail freedom of assembly. When algorithms dictate access to basic services or target individuals 111

without transparency, basic constitutional protections.

Reframing the Debate: Safety Guardrails as Drivers of Sustainable Innovation Opponents of aggressive regulation often present a false dichotomy, claiming that society must choose between rapid technological innovation or restrictive governance. In reality, clear regulatory guardrails do not destroy innovation—they steer it toward safety, reliability, and social utility. Historically, major industries have grown under robust regulatory oversight without sacrificing progress: 

Automotive Industry: Seatbelt mandates, crash testing, and emission standards initially faced pushback from manufacturers but ultimately made road transit safe enough for mass global adoption.

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Pharmaceutical Sector: Stringent clinical trial protocols slow time-to-market, yet they are essential to protect public safety and maintain trust in modern medicine.

A similar framework applies to artificial intelligence. When technology companies operate in an unregulated environment, consumer trust degrades following high-profile failures, security breaches, or algorithmic harms. Clear, predictable legal frameworks provide developers with consistent compliance standards, preventing costly liability issues and encouraging responsible long-term investment. Furthermore, aggressive oversight prevents market consolidation by tech monopolies. Large technology conglomerates possess vast computing infrastructure and proprietary datasets, creating high barriers to entry for smaller startups. Standardized open-data directives, interoperability requirements, and algorithmic transparency mandates can level the playing field, fostering a more competitive and diversified innovation ecosystem.

Counter-Perspective: The Geopolitical and Economic Challenge While the arguments for regulation are strong, the perspective of technology companies and market-oriented innovators warrants careful evaluation. Industry leaders contend that overly strict regulatory regimes create excessive administrative burdens, favoring well-capitalized tech giants while suppressing early-stage startups that lack extensive legal teams. More critically, critics raise the issue of global economic competition. AI development is a global race. If democratic nations impose stringent regulatory constraints on domestic developers, non-democratic states or jurisdictions with lax oversight could race ahead, dominating the global technological landscape. Proponents of this view warn of regulatory arbitrage, where capital, talent, and computational resources migrate to countries offering permissive environments, leaving heavily regulated economies behind. While geopolitical competition is a valid consideration, compromising human rights and societal stability for short-term competitive advantage creates severe long-term liabilities. Developing high-risk AI without adequate safety testing exposes societies to catastrophic 112

vulnerabilities, including automated cyberattacks, deepfake-driven public destabilization, and critical infrastructure failures. True technological leadership requires setting global benchmarks for safe, resilient, and human-centric engineering.

Current Case Study: Generative AI, Deepfakes, and Democratic Integrity The tension between rapid innovation and regulatory oversight is clearly illustrated by the surge in generative AI and synthetic media. Generative tools allow users to create photorealistic images, voice clones, and hyper-realistic videos at negligible cost. While this technology yields creative possibilities in entertainment, education, and design, its proliferation poses severe threats to election security and public trust. In major election cycles, deepfakes have been weaponized to impersonate political candidates, fabricate statements, and spread automated disinformaion to suppress voter turnout. Voluntary self-regulation by tech platforms has repeatedly proven inadequate in stopping the viral spread of malicious synthetic content. To address these vulnerabilities, comprehensive regulatory initiatives—such as the landmark European Union AI Act—have established binding legal obligations: 1.

Mandatory Content Watermarking: AI developers must embed cryptographic metadata and visible watermarks into synthetic output.

Explicit Prohibition of High-Risk Applications: Strict bans are placed on manipulative behavioral AI systems, social scoring, and targeted non-consensual deepfakes.

Proactive Risk Management: Developers of general-purpose AI models featuring systemic risk must conduct rigorous red-teaming, safety evaluations, and incident reporting.

permanent

These enforcement mechanisms demonstrate that regulation need not halt generative AI development. Instead, it forces companies to build infrastructure that verifies content provenance, protecting public discourse while permitting beneficial commercial applications.

Conclusion: Balancing Progress with Human Dignity The rapid expansion of Artificial Intelligence presents humanity with a pivotal governance choice. Allowing market forces and competitive pressure to dictate the pace of AI deployment without adequate safety controls puts fundamental civil liberties, democratic processes, and social stability at risk. Governments must adopt proactive, risk-based AI governance frameworks. While aggressive regulation may introduce temporary compliance friction or moderate the speed of initial deployment, it ensures that technological progress aligns with human dignity and ethical standards. By establishing mandatory safety audits, enforcing transparency rules, and upholding human rights, policymakers can foster a sustainable innovation ecosystem—one where technological power serves humanity rather than jeopardizes its future.

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Can Innovation and Human Rights Coexist William Ahn BC Collegiate

Introduction In October 2025, a fabricated broadcast in Ireland falsely claimed a presidential election had been canceled, and it spread across social media before anyone could stop it. Months later, researchers studying the 2025 Canadian election found that thousands of AI generated images had circulated during the campaign, some designed to deceive rather than entertain. These are not distant, hypothetical dangers. They are early signs of a technology advancing faster than the institutions meant to govern it. Artificial intelligence now writes essays, diagnoses illnesses, screens job applicants, and generates video so realistic that experts struggle to tell it apart from reality. Technology companies argue that heavy regulation will slow this progress and hand economic advantage to less cautious rivals. Governments and civil society counter that unregulated AI already causes measurable harm through bias, misinformation, and lost jobs, and that waiting for perfect proof of danger before acting is itself a form of negligence. This essay argues that governments should regulate artificial intelligence more aggressively, even at some cost to innovation and growth, because fundamental rights should not depend on market incentives, because early evidence already shows real and growing harm, and because regulation and innovation are not actually the opposites companies claim them to be.

What AI Governance Means and Why It Is Needed AI governance refers to the laws, institutions, and standards that shape how artificial intelligence is developed and used, covering issues from data privacy to safety testing to accountability when systems cause harm. Governments are building these frameworks because AI decisions increasingly affect people's lives directly, who gets a loan, who gets interviewed for a job, whose face is flagged by surveillance software, often without any meaningful human review. International organizations such as the United Nations and the OECD have published ethical principles emphasizing transparency, fairness, accountability, and human oversight, but principles alone carry no enforcement power. The European Union has taken the furthest step toward binding law with its Artificial Intelligence Act, which entered into force in 2024 and reached full applicability in August 2026, banning certain unacceptable uses such as social scoring while imposing strict obligations on high risk systems. Even this landmark law has faced pressure to slow down, with a 2026 amendment package extending some high risk compliance deadlines into 2027 and 2028 after industry lobbying. That governments building the world's most comprehensive AI law have already softened it under economic pressure shows how difficult, and how necessary, sustained regulatory commitment truly is.

The Risks That Regulation Must Address

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Three risks illustrate why voluntary industry standards are not enough. First, algorithmic bias occurs when AI systems trained on unrepresentative or historically biased data reproduce and even amplify discrimination, in hiring tools, lending decisions, and criminal risk assessments, often invisibly to the people affected. Second, deepfakes, AI generated video, audio, and images that convincingly depict events that never happened, have moved from a novelty to a genuine threat to democratic trust. Research tracking the 2025 election cycle found deepfake driven scams caused more than two hundred million dollars in financial losses in a single quarter, and newer generative video tools have made synthetic content dramatically harder to detect than the AI outputs of just two years earlier. Third, AI generated misinformation compounds both problems, since realistic fake content can now be produced instantly and cheaply, at a scale no human fact checking system can match. In the United States, a California law banning deceptive election deepfakes was struck down in federal court as a free speech violation, showing that even willing regulators face serious legal and constitutional obstacles. This is precisely the argument for more deliberate, carefully constructed regulation rather than less, since ad hoc state laws passed in a panic are more likely to fail court challenges than a coherent national or international framework built with rights protections in mind from the start.

Case Study: Deepfakes and Elections The 2025 to 2026 election cycle offers a clear test of how AI intersects with democratic governance. Deepfakes of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney circulated widely before the 2025 election, and AI generated content resurrecting the imagery of past eras was used by a far right party in Germany's campaign. Analysis of the Canadian election found that nearly six percent of election related images shared online were AI generated, and polling shows a majority of American adults now expect synthetic political content to worsen before the next major election. So far, researchers have found no confirmed case of a deepfake single handedly changing an election outcome, and technology companies point to this as evidence that fears are overstated and that regulation would be a costly overreaction to a problem that mostly resolves itself. Yet the absence of a single dramatic case is not the same as safety. Every study cited above documents the same underlying trend, rising volume, rising realism, and eroding public trust in what is real at all, which is precisely the kind of slow moving, hard to reverse harm that markets are poorly suited to prevent on their own, because no company profits from admitting its own tools weakened democratic trust.

The Case for Balance and Its Limits Technology companies raise a real concern. Excessive or poorly designed regulation can entrench large firms that can afford compliance teams while crushing smaller innovators, and heavy handed rules risk pushing investment and talent toward countries with fewer protections, intensifying the geopolitical race for AI dominance between the United States, China, and the European Union. These are legitimate tradeoffs, and thoughtful regulation should include sandboxes, phased timelines, and support for smaller developers, several of which the EU has already incorporated. But acknowledging these costs is different from concluding that governments should regulate less aggressively. The evidence on bias, deepfakes, and misinformation shows that self regulation has already had years to work and has not kept pace with the harm. Slower economic growth is a real cost, but it is a recoverable one. Eroded trust in elections, wrongful denial of a loan or a job due to biased algorithms, and the spread of non consensual synthetic imagery are harms that are much harder to reverse once normalized. 115

Conclusion The debate between innovation and regulation is often framed as a tradeoff between progress and caution, but this framing understates what is actually at stake. Algorithmic bias, election deepfakes, and AI generated misinformation are not distant risks requiring more research before action. They are documented, ongoing harms affecting real people right now, from voters in Ireland and Canada to job applicants screened by biased hiring software. Governments should not wait for a catastrophic, undeniable failure before acting, especially when early evidence already points clearly toward growing harm. Aggressive, thoughtfully designed regulation, one that protects smaller innovators while holding the largest AI developers accountable, offers the only realistic path where innovation and human rights can coexist, rather than one being sacrificed for the other.

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The Future of Global Cooperation Is the United Nations Still Necessary? SDGs Connection:

Global Background The United Nations was established in 1945 to maintain international peace and security, promote human rights, support sustainable development, and encourage cooperation among nations. Today, the world faces increasingly complex challenges, including climate change, armed conflict, pandemics, refugee crises, and rapid technological change. Critics argue that the UN is slow, bureaucratic, and unable to effectively address modern global problems. Supporters counter that despite its limitations, the UN remains the most important platform for international dialogue and cooperation. As global challenges become more interconnected, debates about the future of multilateralism continue to grow.

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Although the UN Is Incomplete, But Why UN Should Be Maintained for whole world? Seoyun Lee

Pusan Foreign Language High School

When Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine, when famine spread through Gaza, and when wildfires and floods intensified across continents, one question kept resurfacing in newspapers and classrooms alike: what, exactly, is the United Nations doing about it? For an organization founded in 1945 on the promise of "never again," the UN often appears powerless in the face of the very crises it was built to prevent. Critics point to a Security Council paralyzed by veto power, a bureaucracy too slow to act, and resolutions that major powers routinely ignore. These criticisms are not exaggerated; they are documented, repeated, and, in many cases, fair. Yet the conclusion that the UN should therefore be abandoned does not follow. The international community should continue to rely on the United Nations as its primary platform for global cooperation — not because the UN is effective in its current form, but because no alternative institution offers a comparable combination of legitimacy, universality, and infrastructure, and because the honest path forward is reform, not retreat. To evaluate this claim fairly, it is worth remembering why the UN exists in the first place. Established in the aftermath of the deadliest conflict in human history, the UN was designed around a simple insight: that peace, human rights, and development are more easily secured through cooperation than through isolated national action. Its principal organs — the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Secretariat, the International Court of Justice, and the Economic and Social Council — divide labor between political deliberation, security enforcement, legal adjudication, and administrative coordination. Beyond these core bodies, specialized agencies such as the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the UNHCR carry out day-to-day work in public health, child welfare, and refugee protection that rarely makes headlines but affects millions of lives. This architecture makes the UN less a single actor and more a coordinating system — a shared infrastructure through which nearly every country on Earth can, at least in principle, negotiate, cooperate, and be held accountable. The criticisms of this system, however, deserve to be taken seriously rather than dismissed as cynicism. The most persistent complaint concerns the Security Council veto, held by its five permanent members: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China. Because any one of these states can block a resolution regardless of how many other countries support it, the Council has repeatedly failed to act in moments that demanded action. Vetoes have stalled ceasefire resolutions in Gaza and blocked accountability measures related to the war in Ukraine, allowing the very states most involved in a conflict to shield themselves from binding consequences. Beyond the veto, the UN's decision-making processes are often criticized as slow and overly political, better suited to producing statements than solutions. Enforcement is a separate problem entirely: the UN has no independent army and depends on member states to implement its decisions, which means resolutions can be — and frequently are — ignored by powerful nations without meaningful consequence. Taken together, these limitations explain why so many observers view the UN as a body that talks more than it acts.

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Supporters of multilateralism do not deny these flaws, but they argue that flawed cooperation is still preferable to no cooperation at all. The UN's core value, in this view, lies less in its enforcement power and more in its legitimacy and universality. It is the one forum where nearly two hundred countries — large and small, wealthy and poor — hold a seat at the same table and a vote in the General Assembly. This legitimacy matters practically: UN endorsement can transform a unilateral military action into an internationally sanctioned peacekeeping mission, and UN humanitarian coordination allows aid to reach conflict zones that would otherwise be inaccessible to any single country acting alone. Agencies under the UN umbrella coordinated much of the global vaccine distribution effort during recent health crises and continue to set technical standards, from aviation safety to climate reporting, that shape how nations interact even when they disagree politically. Perhaps most importantly, the UN provides something intangible but essential: a shared vocabulary and shared norms — human rights, sovereignty, humanitarian law — that give the international community a common reference point for judging state behavior, even when that judgment is not enforced. A fair evaluation, then, must hold both truths at once: the UN is structurally limited, and the UN remains uniquely valuable. The relevant question is not whether the UN is perfect — clearly it is not — but whether abandoning it would leave the world better or worse off. Historical precedent offers a cautionary answer. The League of Nations, the UN's predecessor, collapsed in the 1930s partly because major powers exited when it failed to serve their immediate interests, removing what little collective restraint existed just as fascist aggression accelerated. A world without any comparable platform today would not eliminate the underlying tensions between nations; it would simply remove the forum in which those tensions are at least discussed, documented, and occasionally restrained by international opinion. This is why the more productive debate is not "UN or no UN" but "what kind of UN." Several reforms deserve serious consideration. Veto restrictions in cases of mass atrocity — an idea already proposed by groups of member states — would prevent permanent members from blocking action on genocide or crimes against humanity in which they are not directly implicated. Expanding permanent Security Council membership to include underrepresented regions such as Africa, Latin America, and South Asia would better reflect twenty-first-century geopolitical realities rather than the power balance of 1945. Strengthening the UN's independent capacity for rapid humanitarian response, rather than relying entirely on voluntary state contributions, would reduce the gap between resolutions passed and aid actually delivered. None of these reforms would transform the UN into a world government, nor should they; the goal is a more responsive coordinating body, not a supranational authority that overrides national sovereignty. As climate change, armed conflict, pandemics, and rapid technological disruption become increasingly interconnected, the case for some form of multilateral cooperation only grows stronger — no single nation can regulate a warming atmosphere, contain a virus, or govern artificial intelligence within its borders alone. The question is whether that cooperation happens through a reformed, more accountable UN, or through a fragmented patchwork of regional alliances with far less universal legitimacy. Given the alternative, the United Nations — imperfect, slow, and often frustrating — remains the most defensible foundation the international community has. The task ahead is not to walk away from an unfinished house, but to keep building it.

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The Future of Global Cooperation: Is the United Nations Still Necessary? Minho Jun

BC Collegiate

The United Nations was established in 1945 after the devastation of World War II. It aimed to preserve international peace, safeguard human rights, foster development, and create a venue for dispute resolution through negotiation instead of war. After several decades, the world has encountered problems that were beyond the expectations of the architects of the UN structure, such as climate change, pandemics, artificial intelligence, cyber issues, and interconnected economic problems. At the same time, wars, refugee crises, and tensions between major powers still remain a reality. Therefore, although the UN is believed to often fail to bring peace and prevent the escalation of crises, it has to be viewed as the main platform for global cooperation. However, the UN needs to improve its decision-making and enhance its efficiency. The UN operates through six organs: the UN General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice, the Secretariat, and the Trusteeship Council. The General Assembly is composed of all Member States, and every Member State has one vote (United Nations, n.d.-a). The structure enables the United Nations to take part in global governance in ways that are not easily possible for nation-states acting alone. Climate change, pandemics, population movements, technological challenges, and other developments do not respect international borders. Each country has its own regulations and policies, but no country can solve global problems on its own. The UN gives countries a platform for discussion and negotiation. Even if negotiations do not result in immediate decisions, continuous communication can ensure that misunderstandings do not arise and that diplomatic relations do not break down. Another important aspect of UN operations stressed by its advocates is its humanitarian role. The work of different organizations that operate under the auspices of the UN can be given as an example. Organizations such as UNICEF, the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) provide food, healthcare, clothing, shelter, and other assistance during conflicts and natural disasters. In certain cases, the UN also runs peacekeeping missions and other political operations in different territories. According to information from 2026, UN peacekeeping operations can be seen in countries such as South Sudan, Lebanon, Cyprus, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic (United Nations Peacekeeping, 2026). Even though such operations do not always succeed in ending conflicts, they can help protect civilians, monitor signed agreements, and ensure the conditions needed to reach a political agreement. It should be noted, however, that there are many flaws in the UN that have been pointed out by its critics. One of the main disadvantages of the UN is its dependence on Member States. The United Nations lacks a permanent army and cannot collect taxes or make global powers abide by all the decisions made by the organization. The actions of the UN are strictly based on its funding, staff, and government support. As a result, the cooperation of all key political powers is critical.

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Another issue is the organization of the UN Security Council. There are fifteen members on the Council, with China, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and the United States holding permanent membership and enjoying veto power. A decision can be stalled by one nation if it votes against its adoption, even though the majority is in favor of it (United Nations Security Council, n.d.). There are also gaps in the representation of different parts of the world, such as Africa and Latin America, which are not permanently represented on the Security Council because there are no permanent members from those regions. Hence, as a reflection of the global powers of 1945, the Council does not represent the reality of the modern world. Decision-making within the UN is usually prolonged. It is always necessary to negotiate and reach a compromise when working with 193 countries. The overlapping responsibilities of various UN agencies and the complexity of the administration can complicate decision-making. In emergencies, governments might prefer to work together in small groups or with regional organizations that can be more agile in responding. Critics thus suggest that countries can help themselves better when they consult organizations such as the African Union, the European Union, NATO, ASEAN, or smaller groups of states with similar agendas instead of calling on the UN for help. By the same token, abandoning the UN in favor of smaller groups would raise a separate set of questions. While regional organizations play a significant role, they cannot guarantee global legitimacy or universal membership. Alliances tend to represent the interests of their Member States rather than those of the global community at large. In contrast, the UN offers one of the few opportunities for almost every country in the world to take part in discussions, even with countries with which it does not get along. Because of that, the answer may lie not in less dependence on the UN but in more comprehensive reform. In particular, reforms of the UN Security Council should be conducted. Africa, Latin America, and other underrepresented regions should have more representation on the Security Council as permanent members or for longer terms. Countries should also restrict the use of vetoes in cases of genocide, crimes against humanity, or attacks against civilians. Although it may be politically impossible to eliminate the veto function altogether because of the reluctance of the permanent members of the UN to give it up, one way of increasing accountability may be to require them to justify their use of the veto publicly or to make them refrain from using it during mass atrocities. Another direction in which the UN has to move is decreasing bureaucracy and improving coordination among various organizations. In 2025, the UN Secretary-General initiated the UN80 Initiative to make the organization more efficient, minimize duplication, analyze mandates, and consider reforming its structure. By 2026, the initiative had changed its status as it became focused on mandate analysis and humanitarian operations (United Nations, 2026). Such changes show that there is an understanding within the organization that its current system cannot remain unmodified. This is also confirmed by the Pact for the Future, which was adopted by world leaders in 2024. This agreement provides an action plan in various areas, including international peace and security, sustainable development, climate change, and several others (United Nations, 2024). Although its significance does not lie in providing solutions to all problems, its importance lies in creating a common framework for international cooperation.

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Another way of improving cooperation in the future is to provide developing nations with a stronger voice. Although these countries contain the majority of the world’s population and suffer from numerous socioeconomic and environmental issues, most rules are made by wealthy nations. Making the UN more democratic will help increase the legitimacy of its decisions and restore trust in cooperation. In conclusion, although many critics of the UN may be right in stating that the organization is not powerful enough and moves too slowly, it still remains an important institution, as no other body can fulfill its functions of establishing a platform for negotiating issues of global importance, coordinating humanitarian aid activities, supporting peacekeeping operations, and setting international standards.

References United Nations. (2024). Pact for the Future. https://www.un.org/pact-for-the-future/en United Nations. (2026). UN80 Initiative progress report. https://www.un.org/un80-initiative/en/media/629 United Nations. (n.d.-a). Main bodies. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/main-bodies United Nations Peacekeeping. (2026). Where we operate. https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/where-we-operate United Nations Security Council. (n.d.). Voting system. https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/content/voting-system

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Navigating Global Crises: Why the United Nations Remains Indispensable in an Era of Multilateral Strain Hyunjung Jung

Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies

The United Nations was established in 1945 in the aftermath of World War II with a clear and ambitious mandate: to maintain international peace and security, foster friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and promote human rights. For over eight decades, the organization has served as the bedrock of international law and global governance. However, the world of the mid-2020s faces a landscape dramatically different from that of the post-war era. Contemporary challenges—ranging from existential climate change and escalating armed conflicts to AI-driven technological disruptions, global health emergencies, and intensifying geopolitical rivalry—are inherently global and interconnected. In this complex climate, critics increasingly question whether the UN is still fit for purpose, pointing to its bureaucratic inertia, political paralysis, and enforcement deficits. Conversely, defenders argue that no other body possesses the universal legitimacy or operational capacity necessary to coordinate responses to global crises. In a world defined by systemic disruption and fragmentation, the international community must continue to rely on the United Nations as its primary platform for multilateral cooperation, while aggressively pursuing structural reforms to adapt the organization to modern realities. To understand the enduring necessity of the UN, one must first examine its unique structural role in global governance. Unlike regional alliances, economic pacts, or ad-hoc coalitions of the willing, the UN offers universal membership, granting equal voice to 193 sovereign states in the General Assembly. This global representation confers an unmatched degree of political legitimacy. Through specialized agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food Programme (WFP), and UNICEF, the UN performs vital operational functions that prevent humanitarian catastrophes daily. In conflict zones, disaster areas, and developing nations, UN agencies deliver life-saving aid, coordinate immunization campaigns, protect refugees, and establish baseline human rights standards. Furthermore, the UN serves as the primary forum for crafting international law and global norms. Major legal frameworks—ranging from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change—exist because the UN provided the institutional infrastructure required to negotiate consensus among diverse nations. Without this universal platform, international cooperation would devolve into fragmented, transactional arrangements that privilege powerful states while marginalizing vulnerable ones. Despite these vital contributions, the UN faces significant and valid criticisms regarding its institutional efficacy and structural limitations. The most prominent source of frustration centers on the UN Security Council (UNSC) and its permanent five members (P5)—the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom. Designed in 1945 to reflect the geopolitical power balance of the era, the veto power held by the P5 frequently leads to political paralysis during major international security crises. When the direct interests of a permanent member or its allies are involved, the veto mechanism enables individual powers to block collective action, leaving the international community incapable of stopping aggression or enforcing international law. This enforcement deficit has led many critics to view the UN as a talk shop that lacks the teeth to uphold

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its own resolutions. Additionally, the UN's expansive bureaucracy often struggles with inefficiency, slow decision-making processes, and a lack of transparency, leading to calls for fiscal and operational accountability. However, abandoning multilateralism or replacing the UN with alternative arrangements would compound global instability rather than resolve it. Proponents of regionalism or plurilateral groups—such as the G7, G20, or NATO—often argue that smaller coalitions can act with greater agility and decisiveness. While these bodies serve useful purpose-specific functions, they lack the universal legitimacy required to address global public goods. A regional economic block cannot establish rules for global artificial intelligence governance, nor can a military alliance coordinate a equitable global climate finance mechanism. The unique strength of the UN lies precisely in its ability to bring adversaries to the same table. During periods of heightened geopolitical tension, maintaining open channels of diplomacy is crucial to preventing miscalculation and escalation. The UN provides a persistent neutral arena where competing powers must engage in dialogue, defend their policies, and negotiate compromise. Addressing modern global challenges requires recognizing that the limitations of the UN are primarily a reflection of the political will of its member states, rather than an inherent flaw in the concept of international cooperation itself. The UN is not a world government; it is an association of sovereign states. When the UN fails to act, it is almost always because powerful member states choose to prioritize narrow national interests over collective security. Therefore, the path forward is not to dismantle the UN, but to reform it. Meaningful structural reforms are essential to restore confidence in the institution. Reform efforts must address the outdated composition of the Security Council by expanding permanent and non-permanent representation to better reflect contemporary global demographics and economic realities, particularly by including nations from Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Furthermore, limiting the scope of the veto in cases involving mass atrocities or severe humanitarian crises would prevent individual powers from shielding illegal actions. Operational streamlining, digital transformation, and stronger mechanisms for monitoring aid distribution must also be implemented to enhance institutional agility. Looking toward the future, the global community cannot afford to dismantle its primary mechanism for collective problem-solving. Issues such as runaway climate change, pandemic preparedness, cross-border migration, and automated warfare cannot be contained within national boundaries, nor can they be solved by any single nation acting alone. The United Nations remains the only global institution capable of synthesizing competing national interests into shared international standards. While its flaws are undeniable and its structural paralysis frequently frustrating, the alternative—a fragmented, multipolar world governed solely by raw power dynamics—would be far more dangerous and unstable. By committing to comprehensive reform, updating its governance structures, and reinforcing its foundational principles of human rights and international law, the international community can ensure that the United Nations remains an effective, resilient, and indispensable pillar of global peace and progress in the twenty-first century.

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Reforming Multilateralism: Why the United Nations Should Remain the Primary Platform for Global Cooperation Isaac Shim

Yongsan International School of Seoul

The United Nations faces a lot of criticism, especially as wars continue, humanitarian crises grow worse, and powerful countries ignore international law. Yet, just because the UN cannot fix every crisis does not mean it is no longer needed. In a time of climate change, armed conflict, pandemics, refugee crises, technological disruption, and geopolitical tension, it’s worth asking if there's a better global platform. The international community should still depend on the UN as its main platform for global cooperation. This is not because the UN is perfect, but because it is the only institution with broad legitimacy, humanitarian capacity, and the authority to set global standards. While the Security Council's veto power, weak enforcement, and political divides limit the UN’s effectiveness, abandoning it would lead to more fragmented and unequal global cooperation. Reforming the UN is a better solution than replacing it. The UN was established after World War II to prevent future global wars and create a permanent structure for cooperation among sovereign states. The UN Charter states that maintaining international peace and security, taking collective measures against threats, and encouraging cooperation on economic, social, cultural, humanitarian, and human rights issues is part of the organization’s mission (United Nations, “Chapter I”). This mission makes it clear that the UN was not meant to be just a military alliance or a world government. It was designed as a forum where states could resolve conflicts through diplomacy, law, and collective action. This distinction is important because many criticisms assume the UN should be able to compel all powerful states to comply. In truth, the UN’s strength relies on its members’ cooperation, which explains both its significance and its limitations. The UN also matters because its structure provides multiple paths for cooperation. The Charter identifies six main organs: the General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council, Trusteeship Council, International Court of Justice, and Secretariat (United Nations, “Chapter III”). The Security Council focuses on peace and security, while the General Assembly ensures all member states have a voice. ECOSOC promotes economic and social collaboration, the ICJ resolves legal disputes and offers advisory opinions, and the Secretariat manages day-today operations. In addition to these organs, UN agencies and programs tackle issues related to refugees, health, food, development, children, education, labor, and climate. Narrowing the UN down to just the Security Council overlooks the broader system of diplomacy, law, development, and humanitarian coordination that still makes the organization valuable. Critics rightly point out that the UN often falters when powerful states refuse to cooperate. The most serious flaw is the Security Council veto. The five permanent members—the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China—can block significant resolutions even when most other states support action. This veto power often leads the Council to reflect the politics of great powers rather than providing equal global representation. Records of UN vetoes show their ongoing use during major crises, such as those involving Ukraine and Gaza (United Nations, “Security Council Veto List”). These examples reinforce the criticism that the UN can become

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ineffective when permanent members or their allies are involved in conflict. The strongest argument against the UN is not that it lacks ideals, but that its most powerful arm often cannot act when those ideals are most urgently needed. However, the veto issue is a call for reform, not an argument for abandonment. In 2022, the General Assembly adopted the Veto Initiative. This requires a debate within ten working days after a permanent Security Council member uses their veto (United Nations, “General Assembly Adopts Landmark Resolution”). While this does not eliminate the veto, it holds permanent members more accountable by requiring them to defend their actions publicly. Moreover, if the Security Council is paralyzed, it does not render the entire UN system ineffective. Even if the Council fails to prevent war, the UN can still document violations, coordinate humanitarian aid, support refugees, offer diplomatic forums, and keep international law in view. If the UN were to vanish, the veto issue would remain; powerful states would still exist, leaving smaller states without one of their few universal platforms. The UN is especially vital today because many of the biggest problems are transnational. Climate change illustrates this clearly. Emissions from a single country impact the entire planet, and climate disasters affect migration, food security, health, and economic stability. The Paris Agreement, developed through the UN climate process, shows that the UN can create a global framework for climate commitments, reporting, and financial negotiations (UNFCCC). While the agreement is not perfect—countries still lag behind scientific requirements—without the UN system, there would be no comparable platform for climate cooperation. Sustainable development follows the same pattern. The UN’s 2025 Sustainable Development Goals report highlighted that only 35 percent of targets were on track or showing moderate progress, while nearly half were progressing too slowly and 18 percent had worsened (United Nations, “Sustainable Development Goals”). This disappointing news illustrates the need for global data, accountability, and shared objectives. Humanitarian crises further underscore the necessity of the UN. The UNHCR reported that 123.2 million people were forcibly displaced at the end of 2024, with this number dropping to an estimated 122.1 million by the end of April 2025 (UNHCR). No individual country or regional group can manage protection and assistance for such a vast population. UN peacekeeping is also not without its flaws, but it continues to be one of the primary tools for stabilizing conflicts. Since 1948, over two million peacekeepers from 125 countries have served under the UN banner (United Nations Peacekeeping). While peacekeeping cannot resolve every war—particularly when major powers disagree—it can monitor ceasefires, protect civilians, and assist with post-conflict transitions. The UN should be evaluated not only by the wars it fails to stop, but also by the crises it manages and the humanitarian framework it upholds. Global health and technology further demonstrate the ongoing need for multilateralism. Pandemics cross borders, requiring countries to have shared systems for monitoring, preparedness, research, and response. In May 2025, WHO member states adopted the Pandemic Agreement to enhance pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response (World Health Organization). Likewise, artificial intelligence and digital technology pose risks that no country can handle alone, such as misinformation, cyber threats, surveillance, and inequality. The 2024 Pact for the Future, adopted at the UN Summit of the Future, aims to make the international system more inclusive and effective in addressing today's challenges, including digital cooperation and AI governance (United Nations, “About the Pact”). This indicates that the UN is still the platform where countries attempt to address new issues that arise. Still, depending on the UN should not mean accepting it as it is. The Security Council needs 126

reform to better represent today’s world, particularly for Africa, Latin America, and key developing regions. Veto use should be limited, or at least made more politically costly, in cases involving genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, or mass atrocities. UN funding should also become more predictable, transparent, and less affected by political pressures. Lastly, developing countries and youth should have stronger voices, as they are often the most impacted by climate change, debt, conflict, and technological disruptions. The appropriate takeaway from the UN's failures is not that we should discard multilateralism, but that it must become more representative and accountable. Some critics suggest that the world should lean more on regional organizations, alliances, or coalitions of willing countries. There is some truth to this perspective. Regional organizations may act more quickly, understand local conflicts better, and avoid some of the bureaucracy found in the UN. The UN Charter allows for regional arrangements as long as they align with UN goals (United Nations, “Chapter VIII”). However, regional groups cannot replace the UN because they lack universal reach. They often reflect the interests of specific regions or powerful states and may exclude smaller or poorer countries. Regional organizations should complement the UN rather than serve as substitutes. The UN is necessary because it offers a central space where the entire international community can debate, negotiate, and agree on common standards. The United Nations may not be strong enough to tackle every global crisis, but it is too important to abandon. Its shortcomings in armed conflict highlight the need for Security Council reform, increased veto accountability, and better representation. Yet, its efforts in humanitarian aid, development, climate cooperation, health, peacekeeping, and establishing global norms illustrate why it remains essential. In a divided world, the international community should continue to rely on the UN as its main platform, not because it is perfect, but because no other institution can provide the same universal space for cooperation. The future should envision not a world without the UN, but a stronger and better reformed UN.

References United Nations. “About the Pact.” Pact for the Future, United Nations, www.un.org/pact-forthe-future/en/about-pact ---. “Chapter I: Purposes and Principles.” United Nations Charter, United Nations, www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-1 ---. “Chapter III: Organs.” United Nations Charter, United Nations, www.un.org/en/aboutus/un-charter/chapter-3 ---. “Chapter VIII: Regional Arrangements.” United Nations Charter, United Nations, www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-8 ---. “General Assembly Adopts Landmark Resolution Aimed at Holding Five Permanent Security Council Members Accountable for Use of Veto.” United Nations Meetings Coverage and Press Releases, 26 Apr. 2022, press.un.org/en/2022/ga12417.doc.htm ---. “Security Council Veto List.” Dag Hammarskjöld Library Research Guides, United Nations, www.un.org/depts/dhl/resguide/scact_veto_table_en.htm

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---. “The Sustainable Development Goals Have Improved Millions of Lives over the Past Decade, but Progress Remains Insufficient, UN Report Finds.” United Nations, 14 July 2025, www.un.org/en/desa/sustainable-development-goals-have-improved-millionslives-over-past-decade-progress-remains United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. “The Paris Agreement.” UNFCCC, unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Global Trends 2024. UNHCR, 2025, www.unhcr.org/publications/global-trends-2024 United Nations Peacekeeping. “United Nations Peacekeeping.” United Nations Peacekeeping, United Nations, peacekeeping.un.org/en World Health Organization. “Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response Agreement.” World Health Organization, www.who.int/news-room/questions-andanswers/item/pandemic-prevention--preparedness-and-response-accord

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Reforming Multilateralism: Why the United Nations Remains Indispensable in an Age of Global Crisis Euhyun Jahng Pomfret School

Introduction Established in 1945 in the aftermath of the Second World War, the United Nations (UN) was founded on a singular, ambitious mandate: to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, safeguard fundamental human rights, and foster international cooperation. Eight decades later, the global landscape has changed radically. Humanity today faces a complex web of interconnected threats—including accelerating climate change, re-emerging interstate conflicts, rapid technological disruptions from artificial intelligence, and widening economic inequality. As these transnational challenges multiply, critics increasingly question whether an institution designed in the mid-twentieth century is equipped to manage the friction of the twenty-first century. This tension raises a fundamental question for global governance: Should the international community continue to rely on the United Nations as its primary platform for global cooperation? While the UN is constrained by structural paralysis, bureaucratic inertia, and power asymmetries, it remains an indispensable framework for global order. Rebuilding global stability does not require abandoning the UN, but rather committing to structural reforms that align its institutions with contemporary geopolitical realities.

The Structural Deficits of the United Nations To evaluate the future of global cooperation, one must first confront the severe limitations that undermine the UN’s authority. The most prominent source of frustration is the structural design of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Tasked with maintaining international peace and security, the Security Council grants permanent seats and veto power to five nations: the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France (the P5). This architecture reflects the geopolitical power dynamics of 1945 rather than the multipolar distribution of power today. When strategic interests collide among the P5, the veto power frequently paralyzes the Security Council. High-profile conflicts in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa have repeatedly demonstrated how individual permanent members can block binding resolutions, preventing collective action against clear violations of sovereign borders and human rights. Beyond the Security Council, the UN faces significant enforcement limitations. The General Assembly operates on the principle of sovereign equality, allowing all 193 member states an equal vote, yet its resolutions carry moral weight rather than binding legal force. Consequently, major powers frequently ignore UN declarations when compliance conflicts with national strategic interests. Furthermore, overlapping agency mandates, bureaucratic delays, and chronic funding shortages hinder the organization's agility, leading critics to view the UN as an outdated talking

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shop rather than an effective body of global governance.

Why the UN Remains Indispensable Despite these well-founded criticisms, discarding the United Nations or replacing it with adhoc coalitions would compromise global stability. The UN possesses three unique attributes that no alternative global platform—whether the G20, BRICS, NATO, or regional blocs—can replicate: universal legitimacy, specialized humanitarian infrastructure, and norm-setting capacity. 1. Universal Legitimacy The UN is the only global entity where nearly every recognized sovereign nation holds a seat. While regional alliances reflect specific geopolitical interests or economic tiers, the UN General Assembly provides a neutral diplomatic arena where small and developing nations voice concerns on an equal footing with superpower nations. 2. Operational Humanitarian Infrastructure While political bodies experience gridlock, the UN's operational agencies perform critical daily functions across the globe. Organizations such as the World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), UNICEF, and the World Health Organization (WHO) deliver essential public goods: 

Coordinating emergency relief for tens of millions of refugees and displaced persons.

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Managing global vaccination campaigns and epidemic monitoring.

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Negotiating humanitarian access and distributing food assistance in active war zones.

Without the UN’s centralized coordination, humanitarian responses would become fragmented, inefficient, and increasingly politicized. 3. Norm-Setting and Framework Building The UN serves as the foundational architecture for international law and global standards. From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to international maritime conventions, UN treaties establish the rules that govern global stability. On climate change, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement provide the primary mechanisms for holding nations accountable to mitigation targets. Similarly, landmark initiatives such as the Pact for the Future and the Global Digital Compact establish broad international frameworks for governing artificial intelligence, data privacy, and digital infrastructure across borders. "If the United Nations did not exist, we would have to invent it. Its flaws are not the flaws of the organization itself, but reflections of the divisions among its member states."

Reforming Multilateralism for a Modern Era

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Relying on the United Nations as the primary platform for global cooperation does not imply accepting the status quo. To remain relevant in an era of rapid technological disruption and First, reforming the Security Council is essential to restoring its global legitimacy. The Council must expand both its permanent and non-permanent membership to include historically underrepresented regions—most notably Africa, Latin America, and South Asia—and reflect emerging powers like India and Brazil. Additionally, member states should adopt voluntary limits on the veto power, prohibiting its use in cases of documented mass atrocities and crimes against humanity. Second, the UN must strengthen its collaboration with regional organizations and international financial institutions. Partnering with bodies like the African Union (AU), the European Union (EU), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) allows the UN to leverage regional expertise while maintaining global oversight. Reforming the international financial architecture to ensure developing nations can access sustainable development capital without entering debt distress is equally critical. Third, the UN must adapt its governance frameworks to anticipate emerging, non-traditional risks. Issues like autonomous weapons systems, cybersecurity threats, deep space exploration, and sudden climate migration require rapid legislative and technical oversight. Strengthening initiatives like the Global Digital Compact will ensure that global standards keep pace with technological advancement.

Conclusion The international community stands at a critical juncture. The escalation of armed conflicts, the reality of climate destabilization, and the rapid rise of transformative technologies threaten to fragment the global order into competing regional blocs and spheres of influence. Abandoning the United Nations in favor of unilateralism or limited coalitions would exacerbate these divisions, leaving vulnerable populations without protection and global crises without multilateral solutions. The United Nations remains imperfect, constrained by the very national rivalries it was designed to manage. Yet, it remains the only global framework capable of convening all nations under a shared legal standard. The solution to the world's governing crises is not the dismantling of multilateralism, but its renewal. By pursuing targeted structural reforms, expanding regional representation, and modernizing its governance mandates, the international community can ensure that the United Nations fulfills its purpose as an indispensable platform for global peace, equity, and progress.

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Is the United Nations Still Necessary? William Ahn BC Collegiate

Introduction In 2026, the United Nations marked its eightieth anniversary while confronting what many observers call an existential crisis. Its regular budget faces a twenty percent cut, roughly seven thousand jobs across the Secretariat are at risk, and total system wide resources are projected to fall by a quarter compared to just two years earlier. Major member states, including the United States, have withheld assessed contributions, leaving peacekeeping missions and human rights programs starved of funding even as armed conflicts, climate disasters, and refugee crises multiply around the world. Critics point to this dysfunction as proof that the UN has become a relic, too slow and too divided to solve modern problems. Yet the same crisis that exposes the UN's weaknesses also reveals why no alternative has emerged to replace it. This essay argues that the international community should continue to rely on the United Nations as its primary platform for global cooperation, not because the institution is functioning well, but because its core functions, universal membership, a shared legal framework, and a forum for dialogue even among rivals, remain irreplaceable, and because its current troubles stem from a lack of member state commitment rather than a flaw in the concept of multilateralism itself.

The Case Against the UN's Continued Relevance Critics raise serious arguments. The Security Council's five permanent members, the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France, hold veto power that has repeatedly paralyzed responses to major conflicts, since any one of them can block action that threatens its own interests or those of an ally. Donor governments increasingly earmark funding for specific projects rather than giving to general UN budgets, which skews priorities toward donor preferences instead of the needs identified by countries on the ground. Senior leadership positions are often distributed through geopolitical bargaining rather than merit, which some observers argue prioritizes diplomacy over operational effectiveness. The UN80 reform initiative launched in 2025 was meant to address these structural problems, but critics note that its first phase focused mainly on budget cuts and job losses rather than the deeper governance issues, such as veto reform or earmarked funding, that actually limit the UN's effectiveness. If reform under crisis conditions produces mostly cuts rather than structural change, critics argue, the institution may be sliding toward slow irrelevance rather than renewal.

Why the UN Remains Necessary Despite these real failures, no other institution offers what the UN provides. It is the only forum where all one hundred ninety three recognized states, regardless of size, wealth, or ideology, sit as members with a voice in the General Assembly. This universality matters enormously, because

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global problems such as climate change, pandemics, and refugee movements do not respect borders and cannot be solved by any single country or regional bloc acting alone. The UN also provides the legal and institutional architecture, treaties, conventions, and specialized agencies, through which cooperation actually happens in practice. The World Health Organization coordinates pandemic response, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change hosts the annual COP negotiations that produced the Loss and Damage Fund, and UN peacekeeping missions, however underfunded, remain the primary mechanism through which the international community intervenes to stabilize conflict zones. Even the current financial crisis illustrates the UN's importance indirectly. When Secretary General Antonio Guterres declared that the United States must pay its assessed contributions, calling the obligation non negotiable, and when tensions over funding drew Security Council attention even during a period of budget cuts, this showed that major powers still see the institution as significant enough to fight over, rather than simply abandoning it. An organization genuinely irrelevant would not generate this much geopolitical contest over its funding and direction.

Case Study: The UN80 Reform Effort The UN80 Initiative offers a useful case study of both the UN's dysfunction and its capacity for self correction. Launched by Guterres in March 2025 and expanded into a formal action plan by late 2025, the initiative outlines eighty seven separate actions grouped into thirty one work packages, ranging from consolidating overlapping agencies to streamlining peace operations. Some proposed mergers, such as combining UNAIDS into the World Health Organization or merging several human rights bodies into a single agency, represent real attempts to reduce duplication and stretch limited funding further. At the same time, the 2026 budget approved under the initiative's first phase disproportionately cut human rights programs, largely because those positions were already vacant due to a hiring freeze, which critics say reflects short term crisis management rather than a deliberate reform vision. The reform effort demonstrates that the UN is capable of responding to pressure and attempting structural change, even if the results so far are incomplete and driven more by necessity than by strategic planning. This uneven progress does not prove the institution is beyond saving. It shows an organization still capable of adaptation, operating under conditions member states themselves created by withholding funds they are legally obligated to pay.

Toward Reformed Multilateralism The strongest argument against abandoning the UN is not that it works perfectly, but that the alternative, a world without any universal forum for dialogue and cooperation, would almost certainly be worse. Bilateral deals and regional blocs cannot coordinate a global pandemic response, negotiate binding climate commitments among nearly two hundred countries, or provide a shared legal basis for humanitarian intervention. What the current crisis demands is not abandonment but genuine reform: addressing veto abuse in the Security Council, reducing dependence on earmarked funding that distorts priorities, and ensuring member states meet their legal funding obligations rather than using non payment as leverage. The UN80 Initiative, despite its limitations, shows this kind of reform is possible when member states choose to pursue it seriously rather than merely cutting budgets under financial duress.

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Conclusion The United Nations enters its ninth decade weakened by underfunding, paralyzed at times by great power rivalry, and criticized for bureaucratic inertia. These are legitimate and serious problems that deserve honest acknowledgment rather than reflexive defense. Yet the international community should continue to rely on the UN as its primary platform for global cooperation, because its unique combination of universal membership, legal infrastructure, and space for dialogue among rivals cannot be replicated by any existing alternative. The proper response to the UN's current troubles is not retreat into fragmented unilateralism, but the harder work of reform, ensuring the institution that nearly every country still fights to shape becomes one that can actually deliver on the promises made in 1945.

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INSTITUTION INTRODUCTION

Hope to the Future Association Status

NGO Representative at the United Nations Department of Global Communications (UN DGC) and the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)

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Hope to the Future Association (HFA) is a non-profit organization registered under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea. Since 2014, HFA has been associated with the United Nations Department of Global Communications (UN DGC) as a Civil Society Organization, and in 2018, it registered as an official member of United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) Korea, expanding its scope as an educational institution. HFA's mission is to foster global competence and raise awareness about the importance of global citizenship education and international development among domestic and international youth. HFA provides guidance and academic inspiration with a global focus, empowering young people to become active global citizens who can positively impact their communities and the world. To achieve its mission, HFA offers International Understanding Education Programs and Sustainable Sponsorship Programs. These programs provide a platform for youth to discuss and explore international issues, including the United Nations and its agenda regarding the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). HFA believes that advocating for the United Nations and its agenda as a common goal is essential for creating a sustainable and peaceful world. Overall, HFA strives to inspire and empower the global youth to become leaders and advocates for positive change through global citizenship education and a focus on international development.

Main Programs 01. Training Program at the United Nations - Conducts youth-focused training sessions at the UN Headquarters in Geneva and New York Features insightful lectures by senior UN officials and international experts - Enhances participants' understanding of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and key global issues within the UN's purview. - Facilitates discussions with the UN Ambassador from the Republic of Korea. 02. International Model United Nations - 'Yale MUN & Yale MUN Korea' - Established a formal partnership with the Yale MUN Secretariat in February 2018 to organize YMUN Korea

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Provides MUN training sessions led by UN Ambassadors and global experts, focusing on enhancing public speaking and diplomacy skills among youth ambassadors/delegates

03. Global Youth Forum on the United Nations - A four-day program designed to deepen participants' understanding of the UN and international organizations - Concentrates on the theme of 'Sustainable Development Goals and Peace’ 04. UN SDG Book Club Korea - Launched in 2020 as the first UN-affiliated book club in Korea, initiated through a proposal from UN Publications - Engages members with books recommended by the UN and features lectures by experts in literature and Sustainable Development Goals 05. Youth Solidarity Magazine 'Global Citizen' - Includes interviews with former ambassadors, professionals from international organizations, and ESG entrepreneurs - Features articles and content created by youth journalists 06. Donation Campaign for Children in Africa - 'Container of Hope' - Sends a 40ft container filled with translated English books, shoes, and school supplies to developing countries in Africa - Supplies and donations are collected through campaigns led by student volunteers

Partners / Sponsors Group Programmes Unit, Visitors Services, United Nations Department of Global Communications With kind cooperation and support and support of the DGC Group Programmes Unit, HFA is able to organize a diversified and a high-quality UN Training curriculum the Korean Youth every year. The Visitor Centre provides UN Expert briefings and guided tours to visitors from around the world.

Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University Under the principles of 'Freedom, Peace and Humanity,' 'International Mutual Understanding,' and the 'Future Shape of the Asia Pacific Region,' APU was established on April 1, 2000 with the aid of Oita Prefectur, Beppu City and more. APU's philosophy is to create a university campus that produces graduates with the skills they need to contribute to international society based on the fundamental principles of the campus. APU has been one of the biggest sponsors of Hope to the Future Association since 2013.

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ⓒ HOPE TO THE FUTURE ASSOCIATION 2026. All Rights Reserved. All photographs and textual content, including essays, featured in this report are the property of Hope to the Future Association, unless specified otherwise. Certain images and statistical data incorporated within student essays are credited to their respective sources, as noted within the document. While some materials may lack explicit references, their use is intended solely for educational and informational purposes. Unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or commercial exploitation of any content from this report without express permission from Hope to the Future Association is strictly prohibited. Publish Date

August 31, 2026

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