In demonstrating how some of the world’s most powerful people hide their wealth, the Pandora Papers have exposed the details of a global system whose basic contours were already well known. Property laws have long been written by and for the wealthy, giving the public ample reason to suspect that the system is rigged. The “Pandora Papers,” a new investigation led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, has fueled outrage around the world. Politicians, businesspeople, sports stars, and cultural icons have been caught in the act of hiding their wealth and lying about it. But how likely is a…

World Food Day offers an important opportunity to recall how vital a role trade plays in shaping the production, availability, pricing, and quality of that food. In fact, no effort to create a more equitable and sustainable food system will be complete without concerted global action on trade. No one can survive without food. And yet, the world’s food systems are badly in need of reform. To ensure universal access to adequate nutrition, as well as long-term environmental sustainability, we need to change how we produce, process, transport, and consume food. World Food Day should spur us to consider how…

Politicians should not offload the responsibility onto others Should video websites have to review content before they publish it? Where does the boundary lie between hate speech and incitement to violence? Is pornography created by artificial intelligence an invasion of privacy? These are all hard questions, but behind them lies an even more difficult one: who should provide the answers? On the internet, such dilemmas are increasingly being resolved by private firms. Social networks are deciding what kinds of misinformation to ban. Web-hosting companies are taking down sites they deem harmful. Now financial firms are more actively restricting what people…

“I lost my husband four weeks ago to Boko Haram.” That was the message sent to me last week on WhatsApp by Angela, as I used to call her. Terse as it was, it bore the shattering impact of a two-tonnes bomb. Its massive boom and the doom it left in its trails deposited shrapnel of despondency in my heart. Its impact was deafening as it hit my ear lobe like a thunderbolt. How does this young, widowed lady, barely a year old in marriage, a First Class graduate of Law and lawyer, carry the massive, unkind fate of losing…