Last year, 2023, went down as the hottest ever recorded as also one with an alarming increase in the frequency and severity of a wide range of climate change induced extreme weather events. This gives us a stark warning of climate change impacts we can expect in the future. Scientists have urged world governments to urgently make use of one last window of opportunity to shift course. However, considering the scale of this challenge, the responsibility extends to all key stakeholders, including the news media.

The two most powerful people in India today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, both embody a notion of ascetic sovereignty or rājayoga. In this talk I shall look at historical precedents of the ascetic sovereign, primarily in the period which is the main focus of my research, the 11th to 15th centuries, when several monastic institutions became independently powerful and their rulers functioned like kings.

From birth to death, from late-term abortion on the basis of the disability of the foetus, to choices about puberty blockers to the demand to legalise assistance with dying, our bodies have become legal battle-grounds. How far are we entitled to assert that it is simply a matter of our choice – and who gets to decide when and how we have the right to make that choice?

The evolving US–China competition promises to become the defining feature of international politics in the foreseeable future. US objectives in the competition consist of preserving its global hegemony in diverse dimensions in concert with allies and friends, whereas China’s objectives consist of weakening the US security system in the Indo-Pacific en route to becoming a peer competitor of the United States globally.

25 years ago, Gudni Jóhannesson was writing his doctoral dissertation in modern history at St Antony’s. He then worked in academia but in 2016, he became president of Iceland. That drastic shift provided unique opportunities but also unique challenges.

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the health policy and regulatory landscape in the European Union. The pandemic has led to better cooperation and coordination in the European Union, including joint procurement of vaccines and implementation stricter health and safety regulations to protect public health. In November 2020, the European Commission has proposed to build a strong European Health Union.

Decisions on women’s claims for international protection from domestic violence, including Lazo-Majano (1987), Islam and Shah (1999) and Refugee Appeal No. 76044 (2008) have generated strands of case law which both contradict each other and the Refugee Convention’s object and purpose. Adjudicators have delineated overly restrictive social groups and ignored, identified, or imputed a range of political opinions. A disproportionate focus on ‘private’ motives has also obscured the nexus between persecution and the Convention ground(s).