LAWS: Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems | WTO Fisheries Agreement Falls Short | UNEP to Focus on Health and Environment
Here at THE UN BRIEF we give you the scoops and fact checked news about the UN, the EU, and multilateral affairs and how emerging tech is impacting society.
Support independent journalism. Consider becoming a paid subscriber.
The UN Brief reports on tech policy and the global digital economy.
What are they saying about The UN Brief?
Director of Data and Analytics, WHO
“Maya and The UN Brief have been providing rich insights into the workings and personalities of the UN. It has filled a gap in the multilateral intelligence market.”
Director of Aerospace at Cranfield University
“I had the privilege of working with Maya Plentz as part of the Advisory Board of the Pascal Lamy High Level Group of Experts, the European Commission review of Horizon 2020 and its next funding cycle, Horizon Europe. I was enormously impressed by her knowledge and thought leadership on technology. I have subsequently remained in contact with Maya and find her critique and briefings around technology very interesting and insightful. Recommend getting to know her work.”
Here at THE UN BRIEF we give you the scoops and fact checked news about the UN, and the EU. We cover multilateral affairs and how emerging tech is impacting society.
We try to use a bit humor, a dash of wit, sprinkled with skepticism, as the good journalism that we aspire to produce calls for. As the good New Yorkers at heart we are. And because when you spend all day looking at outrageous, gruesome news, on seemingly all fronts, one needs to lighten-up so one can go through the day.
When You Cannot Stand Are Bored at the UN General Assembly
*Warning: Sarcasm Ahead | Opinion | On Boredom and Lighting
How the right lighting in Zoom calls will change your life.
We know some people are utterly bored to have to attend the UN General Assembly, not us here at THE UN BRIEF. We love hobnobbing with the mighty and powerful, to cultivate our sources, we love to hear first-hand from policymakers, and we learn from the experts so we can provide you with the insights and analysis that matter.
I am lucky to have grown up around the rainmakers, the politicians, the diplomats, and the news media — because my father, Ayrton Fagundes1, was in the spotlight daily as the anchor of several newscasts2 and is now featured in history books as one of the pioneers of television news. He was also the bureau chief and editor at several newspapers in the South of Brazil, including Correio do Povo, Jornal do Brasil, Zero Hora, and Jornal do Comercio. So I learned early that these functions are commercial events, trading on precious information. And they can be loads of fun and very entertaining. As a teenager I would roll my eyes a lot, and apparently now too. I grew up listening to politicians and diplomats at our garden parties in Brasilia.
I can attest that, as it is often said, politics is show business for ugly people (having experience in both), plenty of bores, lots of backstabbers and, here and there the eccentric and brilliant. Ugly people you say? I mean that in a nice way, let's rephrase it, I mean badly dressed people.
Everyone can look beautiful if they put on a little effort. Or a little make-up.
And don't even get me started on how people present themselves for zoom conferences. Light-up people, the right lighting can transform you. A good microphone and camera too, and I do not need to know about your personal library, or your sad little plant in the background, or if you read Kerouac in high-school, own the first edition of Aldous Huxley Eyeless in Gaza, or George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London. You will be best served if you use a virtual background, but choose something that highlights your features, shows your brand or institution logo, and matches colors and proportions to your face on the center of the screen. I digress.
But this? To find out that some people have to procure fentanyl to dull their senses so they can stand the fancy luncheons and the gala dinners? File under so outrageous it is funny. These are allegations, obviously, maybe politically motivated. Keep that in mind.
US Customs and Border Protection’s top doctor tried to order fentanyl lollipops for helicopter trip to U.N., whistleblowers say.
This article was featured on Government Accountability Project Whistleblower website and was originally published here.
In Other News
In China Money is Flowing Down Rivers, according to SCMP, for the Ongoing Lunar Year Celebrations.
Soft x Hard Authoritarianism and the Press
The South China Morning Post reports that no press conference for you is good and all you’re going to get, capiche? It must be a typo. It is not.
“It is one of the rare occasions when a top Chinese leader takes questions from local and international media. Those questions are often tightly scripted and chosen in advance, but it offers the outside world a chance to hear directly from a high-ranking official on policy directions.”
LAWS Meeting
Source: UNODA
The Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) meets this week in Geneva to address emerging technologies in the area of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS), from 4 to 8 March 2024. They will work on the building blocks of a treaty or other legal instrument. Watch the livestream here.
CCW/GGE.1/2024/WP.1 - Working paper submitted by Brazil
CCW/GGE.1/2024/WP.3 - Working paper submitted by Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway
CCW/GGE.1/2024/CRP.1 - Compilation of replies received to the Chair’s guiding questions
Books on AI of interest to the LAWS discussions:
Guardrails: Guiding Human Decisions in the Age of AI, by Urs Gasser and Viktor Mayer-Schönberger
“Whether we change jobs, buy a house, or quit smoking, thousands of decisions large and small shape our daily lives. Decisions drive our economies, seal the fate of democracies, create war or peace, and affect the well-being of our planet. Guardrails challenges the notion that technology should step in where our own decision making fails, laying out a surprisingly human-centered set of principles that can create new spaces for better decisions and a more equitable and prosperous society.”
Buy here. Publishing date is 5th March.