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3 weeks ago | 
dailytelegraph.co.nz | Ramesh Thakur
Like a bad ‘When a chicken walked into a pub’ type of joke, when activist litigants walk into a courtroom and meet injunction-happy judges, the result is a swirling vortex of weaponised lawfare. In discussing the current jurisdictional kerfuffle between the US federal executive and judiciary, I find it impossible to overlook the total failure of the courts to protect people’s rights, dignity, and liberty under comprehensive assault from the administrative state during the Covid years.
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3 weeks ago | 
johnmenadue.com | Ramesh Thakur
The territorial standoff in the Himalayas is a lose-lose proposition for both India and China. What on earth is going on near the roof of the world? Since mid-June, the worlds two most populous countries have been eyeballing each other in a tense military standoff at the point where their borders meet up with tiny Bhutan. The narrow Doklam Plateau is a 90km strip at an altitude of over 4,000 meters that China claims as part of Tibet. Bhutan insists it is the rightful claimant.
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3 weeks ago | 
johnmenadue.com | Ramesh Thakur
Australias restrictive eligibility criterion for entering Parliament is out of touch with modern reality but, as long as it is the law of the land, it has to be enforced and be seen to be impartially enforced.
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3 weeks ago | 
johnmenadue.com | Ramesh Thakur
Many nations that previously championed their nuclear disarmament credentials have now been outed as part of the problemIn a historic vote at the United Nations on Friday, 122 nations adopted a new nuclear weapon prohibition treaty (NWPT) to ban the acquisition, development, production, manufacture, possession, transfer, receipt, testing, extraterritorial stationing, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons.
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3 weeks ago | 
johnmenadue.com | Ramesh Thakur
There are currently no negotiations or discussions on arms control being conducted at all between any of the countries that possess nuclear weapons (China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, UK, USA)The Preparatory Committee process for the 2020 five-yearly Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference began with the first meeting in Vienna in May. The 2020 conference will mark the 50th anniversary of the NPT entering into force.
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3 weeks ago | 
johnmenadue.com | Ramesh Thakur
Japan’s strategic environment is shaped by the intersection of three major geopolitical story lines: the rise of China as a comprehensive national power; the Trump administration’s reset of relations with China into full-spectrum strategic competition; and the expansion, consolidation and deepening of India-U.S. ties. U.S. President Donald Trumps high-profile visit to India from Feb. 24 to 25 had a fivefold significance.
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3 weeks ago | 
johnmenadue.com | Ramesh Thakur
The doomed impeachment has helped Trump and damaged Biden. The election is now Trumps to lose and the Democratic nomination is Sanders to lose. Some readers of Pearls and Irritations were unhappy with my analysis, back in October, of the politics of the drive to impeach President Donald Trump. Increasing numbers of people seem to find it difficult to distinguish between impartial analysis and partial advocacy: if you say something is likely to happen, it can only be because you want it to happen.
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3 weeks ago | 
johnmenadue.com | Ramesh Thakur
This is the text of the address delivered by Ramesh Thakur at the launch ofThe Nuclear Ban Treaty: A Transformational Reframing of the Global Nuclear Order(Routledge, 2022) at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation on Friday, 24 June 2022. In January last year, for the first time, a global treaty came into force outlawing the bomb the most significant multilateral development in nuclear arms control since the NPTs entry into force in 1970.
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3 weeks ago | 
johnmenadue.com | Ramesh Thakur
The non-use of nuclear weapons since 1945 is largely explained by the strong moral taboo. There have been many occasions when they could have been used without fear of retaliation but were not, even at the price of defeat on the battlefield, as in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Norms, not deterrence, have anathematised the use of nuclear weapons as morally unacceptable.
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3 weeks ago | 
johnmenadue.com | Ramesh Thakur
Biden escaped rigorous critical scrutiny that is the normal lot of presidential campaigns with the help of major media and Big Tech platforms that despised Trump. The world is now discovering just how grave the real-world consequences can be when reality bites back. In the 2020 election, President Donald Trumps supporters looked beyond manifest character flaws to domestic and foreign policy results but opponents couldnt overlook his character to assess any policy achievements.
