global governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century
By Dr. Augusto Lopez-Claros (et. al)

Publisher: Cambridge University Press (February 27, 2020)

How can the world’s leading nations address the economic, health, and military threats more cooperatively? Augusto Lopez-Claros has a plan.

Your audience can feel the call-to-action of those in power who are tasked to grapple with the immediate crises that threaten humanity, wherever it is geographically located. All those who despair at the state of the world and its multiple problems will find in this book an ambitious but reasonable proposals that will give our globalized world the institutions of international governance necessary to resolve pressing problems including, but not limited to peace, security, and climate change.

In an interview Dr. Lopez-Claros can discuss:

· The urgent and non-trivial international problems currently confronted by humanity and why TheBulletin of Atomic Scientists earlier this year set their Humanity DoomsdayClock closer to midnight than at any point since the Cold War. It is now set at100 seconds to midnight, which, they remark, seems to constitute the “new normal.”
· There is the current global COVID19 pandemic, of course, with over twenty-four million global verified cases and what is approaching 800,000 deaths worldwide at the time of this writing. With devastating effects on the global economy and substantially setting back recent progress achieved in poverty alleviation… We are told that more global pandemics are on the horizon, linked in part to our other global ecological crises.
· Catastrophicbiodiversity loss (as we head into the planet’s Sixth Mass Extinction, this time human-caused), weapons proliferation and renewed arms races (including in relation to WMDs), global financial crisis management capacity which is weaker than it was during the 2008-2009 crisis, novel threats posed by AI and emerging technologies—including lethal autonomous weapons—enabling intensified cyberwarfare, the degeneration of the integrity of information ecosystems (so important for the proper functioning of healthy democracies), not to mention sobering problems of economic inequality, and the predicted “fourth industrial revolution,” with the resultant possible mass joblessness due to new waves of automation.
· The Proposals for global Governance for the 21st Century including proposals to reform the central institutions of the United Nations, including giving the reformed general Assembly powers to adopt binding legislation concerning peace and security and the global environment (i.e., for the first time creating a true global parliament), together with scientific advisory mechanisms and a strong voice for progressive global civil society. The dysfunctional and hamstrungSecurity Council would be replaced with an Executive Council with management functions, mechanisms to oversee staged and verified arms control, and an international Peace Force, supported by new, reliable funding mechanisms. It would similarly strengthen the international rule of law with binding jurisdiction for the International Court of Justice, complemented by theInternational Criminal Court, an anti-corruption court, and an international human rights tribunal.
· What is truly at stake if the world’s governments and institutions cannot find more agile ways to implement changes
· Much More…
We include the book’s press release for additional background information and I look forward to hearing your interview interests for Dr. Augusto Lopez-Claros and GlobalGovernance soon.

‘This volume makes a powerful call for action to transform the international institutions that govern human affairs. Grounded in rigorous historical exploration, it offers a vision for collective courage to change what we can and reimagine what we consider outmoded and inadequate. This is the blueprint for a new global architecture.’
——Maria Ivanova, Director of Center for Governance and Sustainability, University of Massachusetts Boston

‘Ourworld has long required an international force as an essential tool for conflict prevention, and yet such a force has always stumbled through inadequate means and half-hearted implementation. Global Governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century provides a comprehensive set of proposals combining alternative dispute settlement mechanisms, phased disarmament, an International Peace Force adequate to the task, and paths to its implementation. As the risks of a major military confrontation increase, so too has the critical need to take these proposals seriously and work for their permanent implementation. There is no safe alternative.’

——Lt. Gen. (ret) the HonourableRoméo Dallaire

‘Lopez-Claros, Dahl, and Groff propose radical reforms to the charter that authorizes and rules the United Nations, and other methods of improving the current muddled state of global governance. Their case is persuasive. This book’s trenchant analysis of what ails the running of the globe should be read by policymakers everywhere, and certainly by those many citizens who concern themselves with fostering a better and more functional world. Change comes slowly, but this book is a prodding catalyst.’

——Robert I. Rotberg, Harvard university, author of On Governance

global governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century
By Dr. Augusto Lopez-Claros

Publisher: Cambridge University Press (February 27, 2020)

Hardcover: 558pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (February 27, 2020)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1108476961
ISBN-13: 978-1108476966

What Does Peace Mean to Augusto Lopez : http://goodnewsplanet.com/what-does-peace-mean-to-augusto-lopez/

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See the Faces and Listen to the Stories of Our Society’s Most Overlooked Outcasts:

The Mentally Ill and Homeless http://www.robertokinmd.com

From L.A. to Philly to Miami, they’re out there—pushing their carts, digging through garbage, sleeping on park benches, sometimes ranting about nonsense to no one. They often look and sound crazy, smell bad, and make us uneasy, so we avoid them. We know better intellectually, yet most of us shun people suffering from homelessness and mental illness because we view them as deeply flawed—somehow less human than the rest of us.

As part of his career devoted to the mentally disabled, Dr. Robert Okin decided to use a powerful artistic medium to advocate for these people. In SILENT VOICES: People with Mental Disorders on the Street (Golden Pine Press, October 2014), Dr. Okin invites all of us to get to know the people society treats like pariahs, people who, beneath their symptoms and rags, struggle with feelings and needs similar to those of the rest of us. He shares the striking and evocative photographs and stories—most often, in their own words—of more than 40 mentally ill people he met on the streets of San Francisco. “I wrote this book,” Dr. Okin reflects, “to contribute to making these people known as human beings.”

SILENT VOICES offers a glimpse of the dark pasts—marked by abuse, violation, tragedies, crime, drugs, and addiction—and everyday challenges of homeless men and women suffering from bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and other serious mental disabilities.

Based on his interviews, research, and decades of professional experience, Dr. Okin discusses:

 Staggering facts on how the mentally ill are neglected, mistreated, and discriminated against. In America today, over 200,000 people with mental disorders are abandoned in the streets and another 250,000 are locked up in jails and prisons.

 Measures needed to reduce the widespread, escalating problem of the homeless mentally ill, including increased government funding for affordable housing, partnerships between the public and private sector to provide job training, and legal reform.

 The critical need for well-trained, dedicated professional clinical case managers. “Without excellent clinical case managers, a mental health system will tend to be mechanistic, inaccessible, and exclusively focused on the management of symptoms with medication, rather than also on clients’ human development and rehabilitation,” Dr. Okin asserts.

 What everyone can do to overcome the stigma of mental illness and prevent homelessness, with the goal of not just social acceptance for people with mental illness but genuine inclusion in society. “Treatment cannot occur first and inclusion second,” stresses Dr. Okin.

Robert L. Okin, MD, served as chief of psychiatry at San Francisco General Hospital and professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, for 17 years. He is also a former state commissioner of mental health for both Vermont and Massachusetts. Throughout his career, he developed crucial services and clinical case management programs to enable mentally ill people to live with dignity in the community. A member of the board of advisors of Disabilities Rights International (DRI), he has provided psychiatric advocacy and consultation for missions to Mexico and Turkey, among many other countries, to investigate human rights violations in mental institutions. He lives in San Francisco.

I hope you will be moved, uplifted, and outraged by the stories in SILENT VOICES.

Dr. Robert Okin, Author of SILENT VOICES

1. You’ve forged relationships with the homeless, but you’re a trained psychiatrist. What can the average person do to help a homeless person they see on the street?

It is true that I was able to forge such relationships, but I don’t think this primarily resulted from any particular skill I had as a psychiatrist. It was more the result of my openness and expressed interest in the people I met. This may sound corny, but saying a simple “Hello, I hope you have a good day” or “I wish you well” is probably the best and easiest thing to do. It won’t change the actual living conditions of the homeless people, but at least it will make them feel that they’re not invisible. It would be great if you could follow up with an e-mail to your city supervisors and congressperson about the need for supportive housing for homeless people. And if you really want to move this project forward, get your friends to send e-mails as well.

2. What is the root of society’s fear and stigmatization of mental illness?

Some of society’s fear comes from the strangeness and unpredictability people associate, sometimes correctly, with mental illness. Because mentally ill people seem strange, it’s hard for us to empathize with them and to remember that they were once children with hopes and dreams like our own. At a deeper level, people have always projected the most feared and hated parts of themselves onto those who have mental illness. Mentally ill people become the living representation of the most disavowed parts of ourselves and thus become stigmatized. Not wanting to be reminded of these parts of ourselves, we, as a society, have burned these people, drowned them, isolated them in mental hospitals, and put them away in jails where we can’t see them. But those who become homeless and aren’t put out of sight evoke in us responses that cause us to avoid them in other ways: basically, we close our eyes to them.

3. Did you have any preconceived ideas about the homeless? What was your biggest misconception about them?

I expected to be dismissed and rejected when I reached out to them. I was a stranger, so I assumed they wouldn’t want to talk with me. I also assumed that if they did, they wouldn’t reveal their feelings. I was wrong on all counts. Most of the people I met genuinely welcomed my overtures and quickly warmed up to me. I was repeatedly surprised at how much grief these people were carrying just under the surface and how willing they were to reveal it to me. More than anything else, I was reminded of just how human and vulnerable these people are. I easily identified with and felt close to them. At the end of a day of talking with them, I felt sad, wrung out, and anxious about my grip on my own financial and emotional security.

4. How did your own opinions change after meeting and getting to know some of them?

I developed an abiding admiration for many of them—I respected how they were willing to continue living, despite the brutal conditions they were dealing with day after day. I often wondered if I would have the grit and the courage to stick it out if I were in their position. I don’t know if I could stand living their lives and dealing with the hopelessness most of them feel.

5. What percentage of the homeless suffer from mental illness?

Approximately 25 percent primarily have severe and chronic mental illness and another 15 percent have significant drug abuse disorders.

6. What can city and state governments do to help the homeless mentally ill integrate back into society?

First, these people need supportive, supervised housing and a sufficient income that allows them to escape the deprivations of poverty. Without housing, any other intervention is ineffective. Second, they need case management from a social worker with a relatively small caseload who has the time to meet them where they live, provide a loving human connection with them, help them with their daily tasks (laundry, shopping, budgeting), help them reduce their drug intake, and when indicated, help them to be evaluated by a psychiatrist to get them on psychiatric medications. These social workers also have to play a major advocacy role in helping their clients rejoin society. And third, the homeless mentally ill need something productive to do during the day—some sort of job.

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The Public Theater produces new plays, musicals, productions of Shakespeare, and other classics in its headquarters on Lafayette Street (the former Astor library, which opened as The Public Theater in 1967 with the world premiere of the musical Hair) and at the Delacorte Theater, its permanent summertime home of free Shakespeare in the Park each summer.

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Celebrating its 51st Anniversary, the Delacorte Theater officially opened in Central Park on June 18, 1962 with The Merchant of Venice, directed by Joseph Papp and Gladys Vaughan and featuring George C. Scott as Shylock.The Merchant of Venice was followed that summer by a production of The Tempest, directed by Gerald Freedman and featuring Paul Stevens as Prospero and James Earl Jones as Caliban. The first Delacorte summer season concluded with King Lear, directed by Joseph Papp and Gladys Vaughan and featuring Frank Silvera as Lear.  Since then more than 100 productions have been presented for free at the Delcorte Theater. Highlights of past Delacorte productions include Othello in 1964 with James Earl Jones; Hamlet in 1975 with Sam Waterston; The Taming of the Shrew in 1978 with Raul Julia and Meryl Streep; The Pirates of Penzance in 1980 with Kevin Kline and Linda Ronstadt; Henry V in 1984 with Kevin Kline; Much Ado About Nothing in 1988 with Kevin Kline and Blythe Danner;Richard III in 1990 with Denzel Washington; Othello in 1991 with Raul Julia and Christopher Walken; The Tempest in 1995 with Patrick Stewart; The Seagull in 2001 with Natalie Portman, Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline and Philip Seymour Hoffman; Mother Couragein 2006 with Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline; Macbeth in 2006 with Liev Schreiber; HAIR in 2008 with Jonathan Groff and Will Swenson; Twelfth Night in 2009 with Anne Hathaway; The Merchant of Venice in 2010 with Al Pacino and Lily Rabe; and most recently last summer’s acclaimed productions of As You Like It and Into the Woods.

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