Charles Marsh

In September 2018, the East African Community appointed a twelve member Committee of Experts to begin drafting a new constitution for an East African Confederation as a step towards full federation.[1] By 2021, it is hoped the bloc will have a functional constitution, to be promulgated by 2023. By the middle of this decade then, a new nation could encompass a large part of East Africa and provide a hopeful future for one of the poorest regions of Africa. This piece provides a brief overview of t

The EU, largely at the behest of France, Denmark and the Netherlands, has decided to delay starting the accession process of North Macedonia and Albania, in favour of first focusing on consolidating existing member states.[1] Despite extensive debate on the matter, a decision on whether to officially open accession talks for these states has now been postponed till a future EU summit. In Mr. Macron’s own words: “I don’t want any further new members until we’ve reformed the European Union itself.

CANZUK International’s lead researcher, Charles Marsh, explains why CANZUK is not just about migration and trade agreements between Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, but a collaboration of like-minded nations to uphold liberal values of democracy, freedom and prosperity. Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia all share a common trait; their economies are angled towards , which is in turn facilitated by the international rules-based order. As seen by the danger

A Discussion In The Context Of The 73rd UN General Assembly And Changes To The Global Order Last month when opening a UN Security Council (UNSC) meeting on “Strengthening multilateralism and the role of the United Nations,” UN Secretary-General (UNSG) Antonio Guterres argued that “multipolarity without multilateralism is just anarchy.” This is a theme he has staunchly defended from the start of his term in office, and it is manifest in his current ambitious proposals for UN reform. These propos

Friedrich Hayek, one of the 20th century’s most prominent economists, continues to have his theories lauded by many in the field to this day. What is less well known about him is that, like many other in the inter-war period, he was a vocal supporter of the theories of inter-state federalism. Indeed, Hayek became an active member of the group “Federal Union” in the late 1930’s, having been brought into the movement by fellow economist and federalist Lionel Robbins. Notably, Hayek didn’t just su

There has been much discussion of where Britain should look to develop its trade ties should it leave the European Customs Union (expected in October 2019), with one proposal being the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). The CPTPP is the world’s third largest trade grouping by GDP, containing 11 Pacific Rim nations. It also contains the three other proposed members of the CANZUK bloc, and this is where this proposal’s relevance to this campaign co

A new report by the Pew Research Centre published last month found that a population’s satisfaction with democracy is tied to subjective assessments of economic wellbeing, respect of individual rights, and of separation of the “elites” from the rest of the population. The report, which gathered data from interviews in 28 nations, provides evidence for the reasons behind the increasing fragility of global democracy seen in recent assessments such as from Freedom House. As the study points out, a

Last month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a special report titled Global Warming of 1.5°C which emphasises the urgent need to act upon climate change before it is too late. The executive summary points out with “high confidence” that the “large majority of modelling studies could not construct pathways characterized by lack of international cooperation, inequality and poverty that were able to limit global warming to 1.5°C.” Therefore, unless ways are found to es

At a plenary session on 5 July, the European Parliament called upon the European Union member states to support the establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) at the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly that started this September and will run for one year. In particular, the adopted resolution calls on the EU’s governments to “advocate the establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) within the UN system in order to increase the democrati

A recent publication by Rachel Vanderhill of Wofford College’s department on government and international affairs charted the efforts of autocratic regimes to undermine the diffusion of democracy within their respective countries. It assessed how countries that are otherwise integrated into global society can resist the spread of democracy. Focussing on China and Kazakhstan, Vanderhill found that two main methods are utilised: “restricting exposure to democratic ideas” and “developing alternativ