Group of 78 – Le Groupe des 78 – Peace, Justice, Survival. Paix, Justice, Survie.

“A Perilous Decline in Global Leadership”: Canada Should Step Up to Increase International Funding for Peacemaking

Writing in The Hill Times on August 7, 2026, Jenna Sapiano, John Packer, Marie-Joëlle Zahar and Meredith Preston-McGhie argue that Canada should lead an international effort to reinvest in peacemaking. Military budgets are skyrocketing. “Yet at precisely the moment when the need for peacemaking is greatest,” the authors write, “the number of negotiated peace agreements is falling. Peace… Continue Reading “A Perilous Decline in Global Leadership”: Canada Should Step Up to Increase International Funding for Peacemaking

“Defending the ICC Today is About Defending Canadian Sovereignty”: Mark Kersten on Benyamin Netanyahu’s Breaching of Canadian Airspace

How Canada engages with international organizations demonstrates our sovereignty, wrote Mark Kersten, a criminal justice professor at the University of the Fraser Valley, on August 6, 2026, in The Globe and Mail. But the way Canada is ignoring its duty to the International Criminal Court signals “that our sovereignty is up for negotiation,” he argues. Over the past… Continue Reading “Defending the ICC Today is About Defending Canadian Sovereignty”: Mark Kersten on Benyamin Netanyahu’s Breaching of Canadian Airspace

G78 Announces its 2026 Annual Policy Conference, October 9-10, at the University of Ottawa

Reinventing the Architecture for Peace: Catalysing Citizens, Coalitions, and Capital The institutions created after World War II to maintain peace, security, and a rules-based international order are proving incapable of responding to the current polycrisis of coercive hegemons, ramped-up military spending, a new nuclear arms race, accelerating climate change, increasing migration, and inadequate ethical governance of AI. How… Continue Reading G78 Announces its 2026 Annual Policy Conference, October 9-10, at the University of Ottawa

“The Making and Unmaking of American Dominance”: The Iran War, the Second Precision Revolution and the Leverage of Commercial Uncertainty

Writing in Foreign Affairs on July 24, 2026, University of Chicago political scientist Robert A. Pape argues that the US-Iran war shows that, using cheap drone weaponry made largely from commercially available components, a weaker power can challenge US military dominance, creating market uncertainty that imposes real costs on American and global business interests. The Iran war, he… Continue Reading “The Making and Unmaking of American Dominance”: The Iran War, the Second Precision Revolution and the Leverage of Commercial Uncertainty

A nation’s war expenditures: “spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children”—Dwight Eisenhower via Heather Cox-RichardsonHeat

In her July 23, 2026, Substack blog, political commentator Heather Cox-Richardson reported on the opaque, unaccountable and mounting war budget of the current US administration. In contrast, she highlighted a 1953 speech by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, given following the death of Josef Stalin, that forcefully opposed the diversion of tax dollars to military spending. She quotes… Continue Reading A nation’s war expenditures: “spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children”—Dwight Eisenhower via Heather Cox-RichardsonHeat

The Green Helmets Initiative: Fighting Climate Disasters with NATO’s Budget-Can Canada Lead?

On July 24, 2026, Toronto Star reporter Allan Woods profiled Canadian development expert and former senior CIDA analyst, Dr. Rémy-Claude Beaulieu, and his proposal for a global mobile “Green Helmets” force to take emergency action to “keep the peace with Mother Nature,” as Woods puts it. Dr. Beaulieu’s vision of the initiative includes an international network of centres… Continue Reading The Green Helmets Initiative: Fighting Climate Disasters with NATO’s Budget-Can Canada Lead?

The Thomson Reuters Contract with ICE: What Could Go Wrong?

With the important mid-term elections in the United States coming up fast, and the Administration taking a range of steps to tilt the playing field in the GOP’s favour, civil-liberties and democracy advocates are expressing grave concern over Canadian-owned Thomson Reuters’ new $125-million contract to provide US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, with tools and support to… Continue Reading The Thomson Reuters Contract with ICE: What Could Go Wrong?

Rome Declaration: Nobel Laureates Call for Disarming Both AI and Nuclear Weapons

“In the midst of a worsening nuclear arms race, we are embarking on an equally dangerous AI race.” In mid-July 2026, a group of Nobel Laureates came together at the Papal Villas just outside Rome to explore the implications of and consider action on the combined threats of artificial intelligence and nuclear weapons. Deeply alarmed, they issued the… Continue Reading Rome Declaration: Nobel Laureates Call for Disarming Both AI and Nuclear Weapons

Life After Conference Reporting: Three NPSIA Friends Graduate!

At Carleton University’s June 2026 Convocation, three MA students with close ties to the Group of 78 graduated from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. Leah Darbyson, Tierra Habedus-Sorensen, and Savannah Westeinde were all student rapporteurs for G78 at our 2024 annual policy conference on citizen action on climate change. Since 2025, Leah has served as an… Continue Reading Life After Conference Reporting: Three NPSIA Friends Graduate!

Venezuela: “The emergency is human before it is political”-113 Economists Call for Lifting Economic Sanctions, Increased Post-Earthquake Aid

The Group of 78 has endorsed an open letter from 113 economists—including Jeffrey Sachis, James Galbraith, and Sakiko Fukuda-Parr—calling on the US and other governments to immediately lift economic sanctions on Venezuela to permit greater flows of humanitarian assistance in the wake of the recent disastrous earthquakes in that country. “The emergency is human before it is political,”… Continue Reading Venezuela: “The emergency is human before it is political”-113 Economists Call for Lifting Economic Sanctions, Increased Post-Earthquake Aid