South America

Is the IAEA a strong enough institution to successfully act as a monitor of this deal?

Yes, but the problem is going to be financing. This is a really resource-intensive project. This is two decades of monitoring a number of facilities, and it's going to need a number of people and equipment. It's going to be a resource-intensive process, but that's something that world powers are signing up for, as they'll need to.

Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) doctoral student Daniel Velez Lopez is researching air pollution in Mexico and whether the country is willing to pay the costs to reduce it. HKS student Jennifer Kao is interviewing academics, investors, and government officials working to generate and commercialize clean energy innovations in the United Kingdom.

"If the president of the mighty United States — which had the world's largest economy and powerful military forces stationed all over the world — was sufficiently frightened by the ragtag Sandinistas that he was willing to organize and back an illegal civil war against them, is it just barely conceivable that Putin and Medvedev and many other Russians might be just a mite concerned that a country of some 45 million people right on their border might be getting ready to realign, and bring the world's most powerful military alliance right up to their doorstep?"

The Future of Diplomacy Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs announces the appointment of spring 2015 Fisher Family Fellows; former NATO Secretary-General and Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen; former EU Trade Commissioner and Belgian Foreign Minister, Karel de Gucht; former National Security Advisor and Foreign Secretary of India, Shivshankar Menon; and Brazil’s former Minister of Defense and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Celso Amorim.

"...Lima is important because it calls for long-term action and has broad geographic participation. That is a sound foundation for ultimate success."

The Harvard Project on Climate Agreements cohosted two official side-events at the Twentieth Conference of the Parties (COP-20) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was held in Lima, Peru, in December 2014. In addition, Project Director Robert N. Stavins was a panelist at two other events at COP-20.

When the Saudis, the leaders of Opec, decided at the cartel’s recent meeting in Vienna to maintain their oil production levels, it sent a strong message to the world: the market, not Opec, should decide oil prices. As a result, oil prices dropped, falling below $60 per barrel this week.

Following 18 months of secret talks facilitated by Pope Francis and the Canadian government, President Barack Obama announced Wednesday that the United States and Cuba will re-establish diplomatic and economic relations, ending a political stalemate that began more than half a century ago.

Under the agreement, the United States will open an embassy in Havana; many existing travel, trade, and banking restrictions imposed on American citizens and businesses will be loosened; and Secretary of State John Kerry will review Cuba’s presence on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Additionally, Obama said, two American prisoners in Cuba, contractor Alan Gross and an unidentified U.S. intelligence officer, were released in exchange for three Cuban spies who had been jailed in the United States since 2001.

In separate phone and email exchanges, the Gazette turned to two Harvard authorities on Cuba and American foreign policy to interpret the importance of the U.S. policy shift with the island nation, one of the last bastions of communist rule in the world, and where the agreement likely will lead, both economically and politically. The changes also have implications for Harvard.

Nicholas Burns is the Sultan of Oman Professor of the Practice of International Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS). A former U.S. ambassador to NATO and Greece and a career Foreign Service officer, Burns is also director of the Future of Diplomacy Project at HKS. Here are their insights.

Jorge Domínguez is co-chair of Harvard’s Cuban Studies Program, focusing on Cuba’s domestic and international politics and economics. He is also vice provost of international affairs at Harvard and the Antonio Madero Professor for the Study of Mexico at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

These interviews were lightly edited for length and clarity.

The ninth Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will be held at the UN Headquarters in New York from April 27-May 22, 2015. This is the fourth such conference since the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995. Participating governments will discuss nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation, and the peaceful use of nuclear energy with a view to arriving at consensus on a number of issues.

Panelists will discuss how the new international agreement to be concluded in Paris, in December 2015 at COP-21, might either facilitate or impede linkage—not only among cap-and-trade systems, but among cap-and-trade, carbon tax, and non-market regulatory systems. This is an important topic, as linkage has the potential to increase the cost-effectiveness, political feasibility, and environmental effectiveness of regional, national, and sub-national climate policies. The event is co-hosted by the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), Arizona State University, and the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements.