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March 5, 2026

Male teachers can challenge misogyny in schools every day, not just on International Women’s Day

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Troy Potter, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne

International Women’s Day is an important day for everyone, regardless of gender, to raise awareness about gender inequality. This includes naming harms, celebrating gains and recommitting to societal and institutional change.

But we should be doing this every day. Schools play a fundamental role in challenging gender inequality because they’re one of the few places where adults have regular, ongoing contact and relationships with young people. Classroom and schoolyard interactions provide an opportunity for teachers and students to develop these relationships in respectful ways.

While all teachers can contribute to this work, male teachers can play a significant role in disrupting patriarchal and misogynistic behaviours.

In a national study, Michael Kehler, one of the authors of this story, is currently hearing from male teachers from across Canada who promote gender and social justice while disrupting patriarchal masculinities in their classrooms. These teachers are reporting that, in varying degrees, they are challenging misogyny and homophobia, and disrupting damaging forms of masculinity in their classrooms and schools.

In partnership with a parallel project with Australian male teachers (led by the first author of this story, Troy Potter), our research offers emerging insights into how all teachers can challenge and respond to misogyny, sexism and homophobia in schools.

Enacting masculinity in schools

Boys often learn how to be particular kinds of boys by negotiating complex power dynamics. Bullying and harassment are used against other boys, as well as girls, to assert dominance and police traditional gender norms. Homophobic language and sexting are two examples of this.

Recent research shows that boys’ use of misogynistic language, hostility and harassment is on the rise, and is often fuelled by online “manosphere” content. Increasingly, schools are less safe for women teachers — a growing concern, especially when school leadership denies or minimizes women teachers’ experiences of sexual harassment.

Off-hand remarks like “that’s just boys” serve to excuse boys’ violence and aggression. At the same time, such responses also maintain the cultural conditions that continue to reproduce violence while ignoring the choices boys make to accept norms of masculinity.

Rather than turning a blind eye to boys’ problematic behaviour, drawing attention to it can encourage everyone to reflect on whether such behaviour is appropriate or beneficial.

Research in Australia has shown that boys are moving away from restrictive views of masculinity, believe in gender equality and are rejecting sexist behaviour. This change in boys’ attitudes can be further supported by addressing misogyny and sexism in schools at both the policy and classroom level.

Why male teachers matter

While gender justice work is often seen as women’s work, there’s a growing emphasis on the need to engage men to redress gender inequities.

The use of male role models, though, can often promote gender norms rather than changing them. Additionally, some calls for more male teachers have been based on a perceived need to re-masculinize schools and the assumption that male teachers are better disciplinarians.

And although women make up the majority of the teaching workforce in Canada, men are over-represented in school leadership positions. This is also the case for the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States. Male leaders can play a significant role in shaping equitable school cultures.

Within classrooms, it can also be dangerous for women teachers to call out misogyny. In some cases, women teachers may be labelled as “crazy” or “overreacting,” while in others, male students may use teachers’ objection as catalysts to increase harassment. Their relationships with male students may enable them to have more influence over what is seen to as appropriate masculine behaviours.

This isn’t to suggest male teachers operate from a neutral position. Male teachers live multifaceted identities, shaped by factors including gender, race, culture, ability and class. Male teachers navigate their own narratives and abilities to disrupt traditional masculinity.

But when men promote gender equality and challenge harmful forms of masculinity, they show boys that this is what men can, and should, do. They show boys that fighting for gender equality is not only women’s responsibility.

Micro‑moments matter

In Canadian schools, and those in many other countries, respectful relationships programs, such as Respectful Futures, are delivered to support students’ understanding of respectful, equal and non-violent relationships.

To be effective, however, respectful relationships programs — like all gender justice work — must move beyond isolated programs and be embedded into whole-school approaches.

In the ongoing Canadian study, (Re)defining Masculinities,, 20 teachers across four provinces have provided their insights and reflections. And while we are still inviting teacher participation across Canada, our preliminary findings indicate teachers are:

Calling out sexist jokes and asking students to explain why they’re funny
Challenging offhand remarks, such as “You’re such a girl!”
Unpacking power dynamics wherever they appear, whether in boys’ behaviour or in texts students view or read
Providing boys with a language to express emotions and vulnerability.

Misogyny stems not only from explicit acts, but also from inaction. When male teachers choose not to interrupt derogatory talk, sexist jokes or sexual harassment, those attitudes and behaviours become normal.

By contrast, when male teachers speak up, they help change what other boys think is OK and provide opportunities for boys to learn alternative ways of being young men.

Our research will learn more about the various ways male teachers are already disrupting harmful masculinities to reduce misogyny. This will allow us to better support other male teachers to become change agents for gender equality.

Gender justice benefits everyone

The 2026 International Women’s Day theme #BalanceTheScales emphasizes that all women and girls deserve to be safe, respected and free to shape their own lives, just like men and boys.

Creating gender equality is about expanding boys’ awareness and consideration of others, to support them to express care and empathy and to reject dominant and violent behaviour. It is about seeing girls and women, and other boys and men, as worthy of respect, rather than as threats.

Disrupting and interrupting misogyny not only benefits girls and women, but boys and men, too. When gender equality advances, we create more fair and just families, schools, communities and societies. How can that not benefit everyone?

Troy Potter receives funding from the Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne, for his research project, Challenging masculinities: Male-identifying teachers’ gender-just pedagogical practices in Australia.

Michael Kehler receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council for a national study-Redefining Masculinities: Male Identifying Teachers Engaging Boys as Change Agents.

– ref. Male teachers can challenge misogyny in schools every day, not just on International Women’s Day – https://theconversation.com/male-teachers-can-challenge-misogyny-in-schools-every-day-not-just-on-international-womens-day-277358

March 5, 2026

International Women’s Day: Why is Mark Carney rejecting gender equity efforts?

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jeanette Ashe, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Women’s Leadership, King’s College London

The past year marked the 30th anniversary of the United Nations Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the world’s most comprehensive plan to achieve the equal rights of women and girls.

Adopted in 1995, it called on governments to fight for gender equality, to protect women’s rights and to rebalance power structures so that everyone has an equitable chance in the world.

Thirty years later, Canada is still falling short. One of Beijing’s core commitments was for governments to create permanent, well-resourced institutions dedicated to advancing gender equality. Yet across Canada, some provinces still lack full, stand-alone ministries of Women and Gender Equality (WAGE), and the federal ministry of WAGE has been deprioritized.

A fragile federal commitment

Prime Minister Mark Carney initially dropped the Women and Gender Equality (WAGE) portfolio from his first cabinet, reinstating it only after pushback from women’s and social justice organizations.

More recently, reports of deep budget cuts to WAGE have renewed concern that gender equality remains politically expendable. Without sustained funding, programs vital to women’s safety and economic security could be decimated at a time when a number of urgent issues demand gender expertise.

As a recent UN Women media advisory reports, “the spread of digital misogyny poses a direct and urgent threat to progress on gender equality.” While much of this activity results in various forms of cyberbullying and harassment, the impact of these networks goes far beyond the digital world and shows up in real life spaces like our public schools.

Wavering commitment

Yet, Canadian governments have done little to respond, as exemplified by AI Minister Evan Solomon’s decision against banning Elon Musk’s X or his AI chatbot Grok despite the growing problems of “nudification” and personalized pornography .

This wavering commitment echoes global patterns of institutional gender rollback, with the UN warning of a “post-feminist retrenchment.”

These trends are part of an international shift against equity and inclusion exemplified by recent court cases and policy changes in the United States — a shift glaringly evident as the Donald Trump administration blames gangs of “wine moms” for ICE protests and violence, including the killing of 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis. Good’s death was described by Vice President JD Vance as a “tragedy of her own making.”

While this anti-equity rhetoric is circulating in Canada, a recent report reveals that “most Canadians view EDI measures in the workplace positively, with strong support among equity deserving groups, younger workers and those with positive job experiences.”

A provincial patchwork

Six provinces currently maintain full, stand-alone ministries dedicated to women and gender equality:

Manitoba — Minister Responsible for Gender Equity (also responsible for Accessibility and Families)
Saskatchewan — Minister responsible for the Status of Women (also Parks, Culture and Sport, and other portfolios)
Québec — Minister responsible for Women’s Equality (also Health and Seniors)
New Brunswick — Minister responsible for Women’s Equality (also Seniors)
Prince Edward Island — Minister responsible for the Status of Women (also Workforce, Advanced Learning and Population)
Newfoundland and Labrador – Minister responsible for Gender Equality (sole portfolio)
All three territories, Nunavut, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories, also maintain full ministers responsible for women’s equality.

By contrast, four provinces still lack a dedicated ministry:

British Columbia — No ministry; a parliamentary secretary for Gender Equity is housed within the Ministry of Finance
Alberta — A minister for Arts, Culture and Status of Women shares the file among several unrelated responsibilities
Ontario — An associate minister for Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity reports to a senior minister, without a full department
Nova Scotia — The Attorney General and Minister of Justice holds the equality and anti-racism file alongside multiple other portfolios

Opaque and easily cut

When gender equality has a ministry of its own, citizens can see its budget, monitor its priorities and hold governments accountable. Where it does not, gender programs are buried inside larger departments; invisible in financial statements and easily cut.

Even federally, where WAGE exists, proposed cuts and decreased funding show how vulnerable these portfolios remain.

Carney’s mandate letter to cabinet clearly indicated a shift from his predecessor’s feminist brand. There is no reference at all to feminism or gender equality. In fact, Carney’s cuts to WAGE seem to reflect a larger rejection of feminist policies, including foreign policy.

But while governments stall, the public is ahead. Recent Abacus Data polling found that 86 per cent of Canadians support equal numbers of women and men in politics and 58 per cent support requiring political parties to nominate a minimum number of women candidates — up four points from last year.

This data shows Canadians are ready for legislated gender quotas and for the institutions needed to help deliver them. Fully funded ministries for Women and Gender Equality are one such institution.

Why now matters

The Beijing anniversary arrived amid a global gender backlash, from the rollback of reproductive rights in the U.S. to rising online abuse of women in politics. At precisely this moment, governments should be strengthening equality initiatives rather than weakening them.

If gender equality is a priority, it’s simply not enough to celebrate the growing number of women in our legislatures. Real progress demands institutional power and stable funding of gender equality mandates. As UN Women recently reported, “achieving gender parity could cumulatively add US$342 trillion to the global economy by 2050.”

Repositioning Canada in the global hierarchy does not mean leaving 50 per cent of the population behind. Now, more than ever before, it’s critical to double down on the commitment to equity. In troubled times, leaders need to embrace equity wholesale, and taking leadership on equity must be a cornerstone of Carney’s supposed “values-based” pragmatism.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. International Women’s Day: Why is Mark Carney rejecting gender equity efforts? – https://theconversation.com/international-womens-day-why-is-mark-carney-rejecting-gender-equity-efforts-273677

March 5, 2026

Respecting international law depends on who breaks it: Why Canada backed the war against Iran

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jeremy Wildeman, Adjunct assistant professor, Carleton University; L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

When Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney recently warned at the World at the Economic Forum in Davos that “middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu,” many saw this as a defence of international law and the multilateral order. That earned him global accolades.

At the time, Canada and Denmark were under pressure from the Donald Trump administration to surrender territory to the United States: Greenland from Denmark, and either the entirety or parts of Canada.

Trump’s demands came as a shock to a western leaders who maintain a deeply optimistic interpretation of American intentions and the immutability of their relationships. It also caused significant alarm among U.S. allies in the West, who have spent decades under the American security umbrella.

It’s likely because western countries were in disarray and unable to push back forcefully against Trump’s bullying that Carney’s speech was so well-received.

He appeared to put words into immediate action, rebuilding Canada’s fraught relationships with key Global South powers such as China and India while providing leadership on a major trade alliance among Canada, the European Union (EU) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership states to mitigate the impact of Trump’s aggressive use of tariffs.

Many observers thought Canada was turning to a principled foreign policy, championing universal liberal values such as democracy, justice, human rights and the rule of law. It seemed as though Canada was coming to the defence of a rules-based order, and this was helping it regain significant international prestige.

So it came as a shock when Carney offered immediate support to an illegal U.S.-Israel war of aggression against Iran on Feb. 28.

The liberal and rules-based orders

Within days Carney was equivocating about the war and his initial statement of support. He seemed to be attempting to balance his stated support for international law with being an American ally. He has said that he supports the U.S. and Israeli war “with regret” and that Canada will stand by its allies “when it makes sense.”

What seems like hypocrisy by Carney is in fact consistent with contemporary Canadian foreign policy and its interpretation of international law.

This can be understood by exploring Canada’s participation in two international systems established by the U.S. after the Second World War: the liberal international order and the rules-based order.

The liberal international order expresses some of the highest principles of liberal internationalism: anti-racism, democracy and the right to self-governance, free trade and economic interdependence, multilateral co-operation and respect for international law.

While the rules-based order draws on the liberal international order’s rules and norms, it selectively interprets them for U.S. and western interests. Whereas international law is a set of rules that govern relations between states and are enforced by institutions such as the International Court of Justice, the rules-based order is a deliberately opaque concept. Its rules are vague and ill-defined, and it is unclear who has the right to define or generate them.

Crucially, the post-war international order was meant to prohibit or restrict war, as laid out in the United Nations Charter. Article 2, paragraph 4, of the charter has been a cornerstone of international law and the liberal international order, which the U.S. helped establish after the Second World War. It explicitly prohibits states from threatening or using force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any other state.

Selective enforcement of international law

The U.S. appears to invoke these rules primarily when confronting geopolitical rivals such as Russia or China, or when imposing its will on the rest of the world.

The U.S. and other western powers began shifting their rhetorical support from the liberal toward the rules-based order in the 2000s in response to the rise of Global South powers like China. In many ways, the rules-based order is an inequitable, colour-coded system that reinforces western power, and Canada has been a strong supporter of it.

Carney acknowledged this in Davos by saying the rules-based order was never fair because the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, trade rules were enforced asymmetrically and international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

This is on vivid display when comparing Canada’s strong response against Russia’s illegal 2022 invasion of Ukraine compared to its support for the U.S.-Israel illegal 2026 war against Iran, its reluctance in early January to condemn the U.S. government’s illegal abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and its de facto support for Israel’s illegal occupation and war crimes in Palestine.

Trump and the unraveling of the western order

What changed in 2025 is the Trump government’s hostility to the rules-based order, which it considers a costly obstacle to consolidating power around the world.

Its strategic approach has included an explicit disavowal of liberal internationalism’s values, including multilateralism and international law. It has threatened to seize western allied territory and resources while imposing tariffs on them and pressuring them to substantially increase U.S. arms purchases.

Carney noted that western states had been fine with the inequities of the rules-based order so long as they benefited from it at the expense of the rest of the world. Their problem was when the U.S. started to treat them like it treats the Global South, through a neo-imperialism built on principles that “might makes right” and the strong should dominate the weak.

Another important factor that may have encouraged some in western capitals to accept the U.S. war against Iran was Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent Munich Security Conference speech. He lauded Europe’s colonial past and encouraged them to join the U.S. in a renewed global domination, plundering the rest of the world like they did in the past.

Canada’s decision to back the war with Iran was likely also based on the Carney government’s courting of Jewish and Iranian diasporic constituencies and a longstanding institutional reliance on U.S. leadership. But Rubio’s speech created conditions favourable for Carney to support the war under the logic of the rules-based order.

At the same time, Canada will have weakened its moral standing if the U.S. turns to territorial expansion in the Americas. The war is also deeply unpopular among Liberal voters, and support for it undermined the prestige Carney gained from Davos, causing him to begin equivocating on his initial position.

Jeremy Wildeman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Respecting international law depends on who breaks it: Why Canada backed the war against Iran – https://theconversation.com/respecting-international-law-depends-on-who-breaks-it-why-canada-backed-the-war-against-iran-277684

March 5, 2026

The U.S.-Israel war with Iran could shatter the United Nations-led global order

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Kawser Ahmed, Adjunct Professor, Natural Resource Institute (NRI), University of Manitoba

Even as American and Iranian officials were participating in Omani-mediated talks aimed at preventing further escalation between the two nations, the United States, alongside Israel, launched military strikes on Iran on Feb. 28.

The mediation had raised cautious hopes of de-escalating long-running hostility between Iran and the U.S. Instead, this use of force reflects a familiar post-1945 pattern of major powers acting unilaterally rather than through multilateral institutions like the United Nations.

Since the end of the Second World War, international conflicts have been addressed one of two ways: collectively — through the UN Security Council — or unilaterally, often via so-called “coalitions of the willing.”

During the Cold War and beyond, global superpowers like the U.S. and Russia have often pursued methods that serve their national interests for regime change or geopolitical balances of power.

It’s against this backdrop that supposed U.S. “just war” objectives in Iran should be scrutinized. According to an official announcement, the U.S. has five primary aims. But how well do these stated objectives align with international law?

From the League of Nations to the UN charter

When rules are broken, there are consequences, whether at a personal, national or global level. Rules are made to bring order to chaos, and humans societies have long sought to craft and formalize them.

After the devastation of the First World War, the League of Nations was founded in 1920. Its preamble pledged:

“By the firm establishment of the understandings of international law as the actual rule of conduct among Governments, and by the maintenance of justice and a scrupulous respect for all treaty obligations.”

Without meaningful enforcement power, however, the organization failed to prevent aggression in the 1930s and ultimately set the stage for the outbreak of the Second World War.

The United Nations was founded in 1945 in the aftermath of that war. Its founding document, the Charter of the United Nations, placed particular emphasis on the territorial integrity and political independence of states.

These widely agreed principles are meant to prevent war, especially wars of choice. But the unequal nature of the Security Council, persistence of proxy wars and violent conflict shows how enforcement of international law remains uneven, especially when powerful states act outside collective mechanisms.

Scrutinizing U.S. objectives

When examined critically, significant inconsistencies emerge between Washington’s objectives for Iran and the actual legal realities undermining the rules-based international order laid out in the UN charter.

The first stated aim, according to the official joint statement by the U.S. and Israel, is to “stand united in defense of our citizens, sovereignty and territory.” This frames the attacks as protective and reactive. Yet at the outset of the war, there was no verified report of Iran posing an imminent threat to U.S. territory or allies. Instead, the objective closely aligns with Israel’s priorities in the region.

Second, the war has been framed as necessary to counter Iranian escalation. The joint statement describes Iranian missile and drone launches as “indiscriminate and reckless.” But those strikes only came after U.S. and Israeli strikes killed Iran’s top leadership and caused enormous civilian casualties. Framing Iran’s actions purely as escalation omits the fact that Iran’s regional strikes were responsive, not pre-emptive.

The third justification is to maintain “regional stability” and security. This claim sits uneasily alongside widening instability, including friendly fire incidents, cross-border missile exchanges and mounting casualties in Lebanon, Bahrain, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

Fourth, the invasion has been defended as necessary to uphold sovereignty norms. The joint statement accuses Iran’s attacks of violating the sovereignty of regional states. Yet prior to the joint offensive, there was no evidence of such a breach.

In contrast, U.S. and Israeli airstrikes penetrated deep into Iranian territory, breaching Iran’s sovereignty under Article 2(4) of the UN charter. Sovereignty appears to be invoked selectively.

Lastly, the war has been framed as an exercise of collective self-defence. However, Article 51 of the UN charter permits self-defence only if an armed attack occurs. As reported, the initial attack was conducted by the U.S. and Israel against Iran.

This raises a deeper legitimacy question: are some states claiming a right to pre-emptive or preventive war under the guise of self-defence while denying that right to others?

Regime change and historical lessons

None of this denies Iran’s long record of supporting regional proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen. However, the U.S. nevertheless moved, de facto, into a war that looks a lot like regime change by other means — particularly in light of targeted strikes against senior Iranian leadership.

The apparent calculation was that ordinary Iranians would quickly rise up, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would surrender and a U.S.-friendly government would emerge. That optimism was reverberated in U.S. President Donald Trump’s social media rhetoric, if not part of comprehensive U.S. strategy.

If history teaches anything, it’s this: bombing can change a ruler, but not the lives of the ruled. Another regime arrives, flags and ideologies shift and everyday people still carry the burden — just ask the people of Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya.

The growing trend of unilateral interventions severely erodes the aspiration of collective security founded in the UN system. It also sets a dangerous precedence that larger powers can usurp smaller ones should they chose to do so.

Russia had already invaded Ukraine in 2021 and though under-reported, Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen and Bahrain; Turkey in Syria, Iraq and Libya; and the UAE in Libya, Yemen.

The economic consequences of the current war are also great. Oil prices have increased and natural gas prices have spiked almost 70 per cent in Europe. Some countries, like Myanmar, are already preparing to ration oil and gas supplies.

In addition, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers in Gulf nations are stranded and unable to return to their home countries, and people are being displaced from Lebanon again — on top of the millions already suffering in Gaza.

Rich countries may be able to cope with such shocks, but poor ones in the Global South won’t. Unless this chaos stops, households won’t be able to keep the lights on or their engines running.

For the rule of law to prevail, states — especially powerful ones — must respect international norms consistently, rather than invoking them selectively. Without that restraint, the international system risks descending into a jungle where only the strongest survive.

Kawser Ahmed is affiliated with Conflict and Resilience Research Institute Canada (CRRIC)

– ref. The U.S.-Israel war with Iran could shatter the United Nations-led global order – https://theconversation.com/the-u-s-israel-war-with-iran-could-shatter-the-united-nations-led-global-order-277441

March 5, 2026

The ousting of Peru’s president points to a deeper crisis

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Étienne Sinotte, PhD Student in Political Science, McGill University

Peru’s interim president José Jerí was censured and removed by the country’s congress in February after just four months on the job. He was ousted for ethical failures following several scandals and replaced by current interim president José María Balcázar.

Jerí was the latest in a list of Peruvian presidents to be removed from office before completing their terms. His ouster occurred less than two months before the upcoming general elections, scheduled for April 12.

The elections are notable for the record number of competing parties and candidates for the presidency. No fewer than 36 candidates are competing for the country’s highest office, with none polling higher than 10 per cent.

These two elements — Jerí’s removal and the record number of presidential hopefuls — are not coincidental. Rather, they are symptoms of a profound institutional crisis.

Over the past decade, instability has come to define Peru’s political landscape, as successive congresses and presidents have become locked in a struggle for power.

How can this persistent tug-of-war be explained? And is there hope for a reversal?

A complex crisis

Jerí was the third president not to finish their mandate since Peru’s last elections in 2021. His predecessor, Dina Boluarte, was ousted by congress in October 2025 amid corruption allegations and criticism over her handling of rising insecurity. Before her, Pedro Castillo, elected in 2021, was removed from office and jailed after attempting a self-coup.

This pattern of rapid presidential turnover is not unprecedented: during the 2011–16 period, four presidents also held office in quick succession. The long-running instability is primarily caused by three core mechanisms: social fragmentation, political fragmentation and the normalization of extraordinary measures.

Peruvian society has lost many of the shared narratives — the stories through which we understand society — that once helped organize political conflict and representation. Class-based identities and the left-right divide, which previously structured social relations and electoral choices, have steadily eroded.

In their place, a fragmented landscape of competing identities has emerged — regional, gendered, ethnic and occupational. None of these is strong enough to form a basis for national politics on its own.

This social fragmentation is mirrored by political fragmentation. Peru’s party system has all but disappeared, making way for personalistic parties, high turnover among politicians and weak ties between representatives and voters.

The way politics works has been changed because of more opportunistic behaviour by members of congress who know they’ll have short careers due to their weak relationships with constituents.

In the last decade, congress has increasingly relied on tools such as censure. As a result, political conflict is no longer resolved through negotiation or electoral cycles, but through institutional breakdown.

A democracy under stress

These elements result in a particular form of democratic backsliding, a concept which means the weakening of the institutions which make democracy work. We tend to think of struggling democracies as countries where leaders become increasingly autocratic and seek to increase their power.

U.S. President Donald Trump is a good example of this. Since the beginning of his second term, he has weaponized various government institutions to attack political opponents, launch immigration crackdowns and impose tariffs. However, backsliding in current-day Peru works differently.

Due to political fragmentation and the normalization of extreme measures like censure, Peru is not suffering from the concentration of power in the hands of one person. Rather, the country is experiencing the dilution of power into the hands of politicians attached to parties which have mostly ceased to represent the interests of the people and who are acting in their short-term interests alone.

Democracy is eroding not because of a tyrant, but because its support beams are being hollowed out from within.

It is highly unlikely that we will see much change to this situation in the near future. Many elements commonly needed to reverse democratic backsliding are not present in Peru today.

For instance, we are unlikely to see the election of a strong and unified pro-democracy coalition backed by a resourceful civil society. The upcoming elections are shaping up to be the most divided in history, with a record number of candidates for the presidency and a highly divided electorate.

In addition, the Peruvian state is facing crisis of legitimacy: most citizens distrust the government, believing it prioritizes political and economic elites rather than the public interest.

Another election and another president are not likely to solve Peru’s central issue: the erosion of the institutions that once connected citizens, parties and the state. Without rebuilding mechanisms of representation and accountability, elections alone are more likely to reproduce instability rather than resolve it.

Étienne Sinotte receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. The ousting of Peru’s president points to a deeper crisis – https://theconversation.com/the-ousting-of-perus-president-points-to-a-deeper-crisis-276847

March 5, 2026

Les animaux et le droit : vers une remise en question de nos catégories juridiques

Source: The Conversation – in French – By Daphnée B. Ménard, Doctorante en droit, avocate, LL.B., LL.M. , L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

Les rapports que les sociétés humaines entretiennent avec les animaux ne sont pas fixes. Ils varient selon les époques, les cultures, les territoires et les mœurs.

La chasse à la baleine, pratiquée depuis le 9^e siècle et industrialisée au 19^e, en est un bon exemple. Longtemps normalisée, la chasse commerciale est interdite depuis le moratoire mondial de 1986 et, bien que trois pays la maintiennent encore, elle est désormais largement considérée comme éthiquement inacceptable. Ce glissement – de l’exploitation à la protection – illustre la relativité de nos rapports aux animaux et la possibilité d’une transformation importante.

Or, bien que les époques se succèdent, que les cultures se transforment et que les habitudes changent, deux idées persistent : celle selon laquelle l’être humain transcende le règne animal et n’en fait pas partie, et celle selon laquelle il existe des « catégories » d’animaux – de compagnie, de ferme ou « sauvage ». En tant que doctorante en droit à l’Université d’Ottawa, je m’intéresse aux rapports que nous entretenons avec les autres animaux sur le plan juridique.

Les animaux en droit : des biens et des personnes

Biologiquement, les humains sont des animaux. L’animalité est un continuum, et aucune frontière ne sépare les humains des autres espèces. Cependant, d’un point de vue moral et juridique, nous continuons de distinguer les humains et les animaux non humains.

Dans quasiment tous les systèmes juridiques, les animaux sont considérés comme des « biens », c’est-à-dire qu’ils sont appropriables. Ils peuvent être achetés, possédés, vendus, « utilisés ». Les humains, eux, bénéficient de la personnalité juridique, de droits fondamentaux et de la capacité d’intenter une action en justice pour faire valoir leurs droits. Cela n’a pas toujours été le cas : certains rapports humains étaient aussi largement fondés sur la propriété, d’une manière semblable à celle dont nous traitons les animaux aujourd’hui. Il suffit de penser à l’esclavage.

Le statut juridique de l’animal au Québec

Au Québec, le droit a connu une évolution notable. Depuis maintenant dix ans, le Code civil reconnaît que les animaux sont doués de sensibilité et possèdent des impératifs biologiques, même si les dispositions relatives aux biens continuent de s’appliquer à eux.

La sensibilité – ou sentience – désigne la capacité d’un être vivant à ressentir des émotions et des sensations subjectives : douleur, plaisir, bien-être. Les impératifs biologiques, quant à eux, renvoient aux besoins essentiels d’un animal – physiques, physiologiques et comportementaux – liés à son espèce, son âge, sa race et son état de santé. Le chat qui fait ses griffes ou qui grimpe pour surveiller son environnement, le chien qui mâche des objets et explore en reniflant : ces comportements sont fondamentaux pour l’animal.

Malgré cette avancée juridique, le droit québécois continue de classer les animaux selon l’usage que nous en faisons – à la ferme, au laboratoire, à la maison –, ce qui engendre des protections inégales. Notamment, les animaux domestiques de compagnie sont mieux protégés en droit que les animaux utilisés en agriculture ou en recherche scientifique.

Définir le spécisme

Forgé par l’écrivain et psychologue britannique Richard D. Ryder en 1970, le mot spécisme établit un parallèle avec des formes connues de discrimination arbitraire comme le racisme et le sexisme.

Ainsi, le spécisme est une discrimination arbitraire selon l’espèce qui consiste à assigner une valeur différente ou des droits différents à des êtres sur la seule base de leur appartenance à une espèce. Prolongeant cette réflexion, le philosophe australien Peter Singer soutient que les intérêts de tous les êtres sentients – humains ou non – méritent une considération égale, et que nos pratiques alimentaires, scientifiques et économiques doivent être réévaluées en ce sens.

Comme l’expose l’historien français Philippe Le Doze dans un article publié dans The Conversation France, le spécisme ne se réduit pas à un simple biais cognitif ou à un anthropocentrisme ordinaire : il constitue le fondement d’un projet de société où des frontières sont érigées et l’exploitation de certains légitimée.

Protection inégale : un même geste, tantôt légal, tantôt illégal

Les contradictions du droit actuel apparaissent de façon saisissante lorsqu’on compare le traitement réservé à différentes catégories d’animaux – y compris au sein d’une même espèce.

Depuis 2024, plusieurs chirurgies esthétiques sont interdites chez les animaux de compagnie au Québec, dont la caudectomie, soit l’ablation partielle ou totale de la queue d’un animal. Les Dobermans et les Boxers gardent désormais leur queue intacte. Pourtant, les porcelets destinés à la consommation peuvent encore subir la coupe de la queue avant l’âge de 7 jours, sans anesthésie, bien que des analgésiques doivent être administrés à la suite de l’opération. Dans les deux situations, la caudectomie nuit au bien-être de l’animal, mais une seule est illégale.

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Le cas de la poule est tout aussi révélateur. En milieu urbain, la réglementation municipale impose généralement d’offrir à chaque poule environ 1,29 m², en combinant espace intérieur et enclos extérieur. En production commerciale, dans certaines conditions, il est actuellement permis de garder des poules dans des cages offrant 432 cm² par poule – soit à peine plus qu’une feuille de papier de format lettre. L’espace minimal requis pour une poule de basse-cour est ainsi environ 30 fois supérieur à celui prévu pour une poule en élevage intensif, alors que les besoins naturels de l’animal demeurent les mêmes dans les deux cas.

Cette approche différenciée affaiblit la reconnaissance de la sentience et des impératifs biologiques des animaux pourtant inscrite dans le droit québécois. Comme le souligne la juriste et philosophe étasunienne Ani B. Satz : « lorsque des animaux dotés de capacités similaires sont traités différemment, l’utilisation des capacités animales comme base de référence pertinente pour la protection juridique est compromise » (traduction libre).

Vers la personnalité juridique des animaux ?

Pour plusieurs juristes et philosophes, dont l’étasunien Gary Francione, le problème central réside dans la chosification et le maintien du statut de propriété sur les animaux : tant qu’ils demeurent juridiquement assimilés à des biens, les protections dont ils bénéficient resteront limitées et subordonnées aux intérêts humains. La véritable transformation passerait donc par l’octroi de la personnalité juridique et de droits aux animaux.

Ce mouvement prend progressivement forme à l’échelle mondiale. En 2023, le Panama a adopté une loi accordant aux tortues marines des droits spécifiques : le droit de vivre dans un environnement sain, de migrer et de prospérer. En 2025, la municipalité de Satipo, au Pérou, a reconnu les abeilles sans dard (ou abeilles mélipones) comme titulaires de droits, incluant le droit d’exister, de maintenir des populations saines et de régénérer leur habitat.

Ces initiatives sont intéressantes, mais présentent certaines limites : elles concernent surtout des espèces particulières, dans des contextes locaux, et s’inscrivent souvent dans une logique encore anthropocentrée, où l’on protège les animaux parce qu’ils sont écologiquement utiles ou emblématiques, plutôt que pour eux‑mêmes. Elles témoignent néanmoins d’un mouvement plus large : celui d’un droit qui commence à reconnaître que les animaux ne sont pas de simples ressources, mais des êtres dont les intérêts méritent une considération réelle.

Si « le passé est garant de l’avenir », notre rapport juridique et moral aux animaux non humains continuera d’évoluer. La question n’est plus de savoir si ce changement aura lieu, mais quand et selon quelles voies les sociétés accepteront de repenser les hiérarchies et d’accorder aux autres êtres sensibles une place cohérente au sein de leur communauté morale et juridique.

Daphnée B. Ménard est membre du Barreau du Québec. Elle a reçu du financement du CRSH pour son projet doctoral.

– ref. Les animaux et le droit : vers une remise en question de nos catégories juridiques – https://theconversation.com/les-animaux-et-le-droit-vers-une-remise-en-question-de-nos-categories-juridiques-270876

March 5, 2026

D’Anthropic à l’Iran : qui fixe les limites de l’utilisation de l’IA dans les domaines de la guerre et de la surveillance ?

Source: The Conversation – in French – By Emmanuelle Vaast, Professor of Information Systems, McGill University

Anthropic, une entreprise de pointe dans le domaine de l’intelligence artificielle, a récemment refusé de signer un contrat avec Le Pentagone qui aurait donné à l’armée américaine un « accès illimité » à sa technologie « à toutes fins légales ». Pour signer, le PDG de la société, Dario Amodei, avait posé deux conditions claires : pas de surveillance de masse des citoyens américains et pas d’armes entièrement autonomes sans supervision humaine.

Le lendemain, les États-Unis et Israël lançaient une offensive à grande échelle contre l’Iran.

On peut se poser les questions suivantes : à quoi ressemblerait une guerre menée avec des armes entièrement autonomes ? Quelle est l’importance de la décision éthique prise par Amodei lorsqu’il a qualifié les armes entièrement autonomes et la surveillance de masse de ligne que son entreprise refusait de franchir ? Que représente cette limite pour d’autres pays ?

Cette décision a coûté très cher à Anthropic. Le président américain, Donald Trump, a ordonné à toutes les agences américaines de cesser d’utiliser les outils d’IA d’Anthropic, composés de grands modèles de langage (GML) et du robot conversationnel Claude. Pete Hegseth, secrétaire à la Défense, a qualifié l’entreprise de « risque pour la chaîne d’approvisionnement », ce qui pourrait avoir un impact sur les contrats futurs d’Anthropic. L’entreprise rivale OpenAI a rapidement conclu un accord avec Le Pentagone par la suite.

Les risques liés aux armes entièrement autonomes

Les robots conversationnels ne constituent pas des armes en soi, mais ils peuvent être intégrés à des systèmes d’armement. S’ils ne tirent pas de missiles et ne contrôlent pas de drones, ils peuvent toutefois être connectés à de grands systèmes militaires.

Ils peuvent notamment synthétiser rapidement des renseignements, générer des listes de cibles, classer les menaces hautement prioritaires et recommander des frappes. Le processus, qui va de la collecte des données des capteurs à l’interprétation, la sélection de cibles et l’activation d’armes représente un risque majeur : il s’effectue avec un contrôle humain minimal, voire inexistant, et sans qu’aucun opérateur en ait même conscience.

Les armes entièrement autonomes sont des plates-formes militaires qui, une fois activées, mènent des opérations de manière indépendante, sans intervention humaine. Elles s’appuient sur des capteurs, tels que des caméras et des radars, ainsi que sur des algorithmes d’IA pour analyser leur environnement, repérer, sélectionner et atteindre des cibles.

Des hélicoptères de pointe fonctionnent déjà sans intervention humaine. Avec les armes complètement autonomes, les humains ne jouent plus aucun rôle, et l’IA prend les décisions finales concernant les attaques et la stratégie sur le champ de bataille.Bas du formulaire

Ce qui est particulièrement inquiétant, c’est que des recherches récentes ont montré que, dans 95 % des cas, des modèles d’IA avancés avaient choisi d’utiliser des armes nucléaires dans des jeux de guerre simulés.

Les risques de la surveillance de masse

Les modèles d’IA de pointe peuvent résumer rapidement d’énormes ensembles de données et générer des profils afin de détecter des personnes et des activités suspectes, même à partir d’associations faibles. Dans sa déclaration sur les discussions entre Anthropic et le département de la guerre, Amodei a fait valoir que « la surveillance de masse basée sur l’IA présente des risques sérieux et sans précédent pour nos libertés fondamentales ».

Ces systèmes peuvent analyser des dossiers, des communications et des métadonnées afin d’effectuer des recherches au sein de populations. Ils peuvent produire des rapports et des listes de personnes qui permettent de déterminer qui sera interrogé, qui se verra refuser l’entrée dans un pays ou l’accès à un emploi, etc. Ils présentent des risques pour la vie privée, car ils peuvent analyser des données provenant de multiples sources, telles que des comptes de réseaux sociaux, et les combiner à des caméras et à la reconnaissance faciale pour suivre des individus en temps réel.

Les modèles d’IA peuvent commettre des erreurs. La moindre association erronée peut avoir des conséquences graves si le système est utilisé pour des millions de personnes.

De plus, ces modèles sont opaques : leur manière d’analyser les données et d’aboutir à des conclusions n’est pas entièrement compréhensible, ce qui rend difficile la remise en question des résultats obtenus.

À toutes fins légales

L’expression « à toutes fins légales » semble constituer une limite de sécurité. Pourtant, cette formulation signifie que le gouvernement peut utiliser l’IA pour toutes les fins qu’il juge légales, avec peu de restrictions dans le contrat.

Cette notion est importante, car la légalité est un concept variable : les lois peuvent changer et sont souvent mal adaptées pour faire face en temps réel à des innovations en constante évolution ; par ailleurs, les interprétations peuvent varier.

C’est ce qui a conduit Anthropic, une entreprise fondée par d’anciens employés d’OpenAI et dédiée explicitement à la sécurité et à l’éthique de l’IA, à affirmer que la surveillance de masse rendue possible par l’IA constituait un risque nouveau, et que la notion de « fins légales » ne garantissait pas une protection adéquate.

Anthropic a créé un laboratoire interne afin de comprendre comment Claude interprète les requêtes et prend des décisions de manière autonome. Compte tenu de l’opacité des GML et de la rapidité avec laquelle leurs capacités évoluent, ce type d’initiative est essentiel.

Le projet Maven avec des enjeux plus importants ?

Cette histoire rappelle des précédents. Les sociétés technologiques sont depuis longtemps à la pointe de l’innovation, promettant des progrès considérables tout en présentant des risques d’utilisation abusive et de conséquences négatives. Le projet Maven de Google, lancé en 2018, est sans doute l’initiative qui offre le meilleur point de comparaison.

Google avait conclu un contrat avec Le Pentagone pour contribuer à l’analyse des images de surveillance prises par des drones. Quatre mille employés de Google ont protesté contre ce projet, affirmant que la surveillance ne devait pas faire partie de la mission de l’entreprise. Celle-ci a annoncé qu’elle ne renouvellerait pas le contrat Maven, puis a publié des principes en matière d’intelligence artificielle comprenant des assurances concernant les armes et la surveillance.

Cette situation est devenue un cas emblématique du pouvoir de la mobilisation des employés et de la pression publique.

L’exemple nous rappelle toutefois que l’éthique des entreprises et la sécurité de l’IA sont fluctuantes. Au début de l’année 2025, Google a en effet renoncé discrètement à son engagement de ne pas utiliser l’IA à des fins militaires ou de surveillance, dans le but d’obtenir de nouveaux contrats lucratifs dans le domaine de la défense.

La situation actuelle d’Anthropic présente certaines similitudes avec celle de Google et de son projet Maven. Elle met en lumière ce qui arrive lorsqu’une entreprise et ses dirigeants tentent de limiter les applications militaires de l’IA et que les valeurs défendues entrent en conflit avec les demandes des gouvernements et de la sécurité nationale.

Le cas d’Anthropic est différent de Maven, car l’IA générative est beaucoup plus puissante en 2026 qu’il y a quelques années. Maven ne concernait que l’analyse d’images filmées par des drones. Les modèles actuels servent à de nombreuses tâches, ce qui augmente le risque de débordement.

Les GML comme Claude peuvent s’améliorer de manière autonome en apprenant des corrections apportées par les utilisateurs et en affinant leurs actions grâce à des boucles de rétroaction itératives. Il est donc inquiétant d’imaginer ce que Claude et son client, Le Pentagone, auraient pu faire si on ne leur avait imposé aucune limite.

Qui établit les limites ?

La question n’est pas d’affirmer qu’Anthropic est particulièrement rigoureux dans ses principes ou que Le Pentagone a de trop grandes demandes, mais de comprendre que la question cruciale qui se posera sans cesse à mesure que l’IA deviendra plus puissante, c’est : qui fixe les limites de son utilisation lorsque la sécurité nationale est en jeu ?

Si la notion de « fins légales » devient la valeur par défaut, les garde-fous dépendront des politiques et de l’interprétation juridique. Pour le Canada et d’autres pays, les mesures de protection sont essentielles. L’éthique ne saurait être laissée aux négociations contractuelles et à la seule conscience des entreprises.

Ces événements illustrent la complexité de la mise en œuvre pratique de l’éthique de l’IA. Les principes et les déclarations en la matière sont nombreux et importants. Dans les faits, toutefois, l’éthique de l’IA est définie par des contrats, des règles d’approvisionnement, le comportement réel des différentes parties prenantes et la surveillance.

Les secteurs public et de la défense du Canada développent leurs capacités en matière d’IA et le pays travaille en étroite collaboration avec les secteurs de la défense et du renseignement américains. Cela signifie que le vocabulaire et les normes relatives à l’approvisionnement peuvent se propager. Si la notion de « fins légales » devient la norme sur le marché américain de la sécurité nationale, le Canada et d’autres pays pourraient être incités à adopter une formulation similaire.

La bonne nouvelle, c’est que le Canada dispose d’outils de gouvernance qu’il peut renforcer et étendre. La directive sur la prise de décision automatisée vise à garantir la transparence, la responsabilité et l’équité des systèmes. Elle prévoit une évaluation de l’incidence et la publication de rapports.

L’évaluation de l’incidence algorithmique est un outil obligatoire d’évaluation des risques liés à la directive.

Les Canadiens doivent suivre l’évolution de la situation afin de s’assurer que les normes d’approvisionnement mentionnent les utilisations interdites, de demander des contrôles et une surveillance indépendante, et de veiller à ce que les mesures de protection ne dépendent pas uniquement des gouvernements en place et des grosses entreprises.

Emmanuelle Vaast ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. D’Anthropic à l’Iran : qui fixe les limites de l’utilisation de l’IA dans les domaines de la guerre et de la surveillance ? – https://theconversation.com/danthropic-a-liran-qui-fixe-les-limites-de-lutilisation-de-lia-dans-les-domaines-de-la-guerre-et-de-la-surveillance-277457

March 5, 2026

Will the Iran war go global?

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate Editor, The Conversation

This article was first published in The Conversation UK’s World Affairs Briefing email. Sign up to receive weekly analysis of the latest developments in international relations, direct to your inbox.

Before the first airstrike hit Iran on Saturday morning, analysts were warning that a war against Tehran would be a highly risky business. The regime has been in place for nearly 50 years, has a huge, well-trained and loyal military, proxies throughout the region and a huge stockpile of ballistic missiles and drones – plenty to wreak havoc across the region and beyond.

And so it has proved. While Israeli and American forces have been pounding targets across the country, Iran has responded by attacking Israel as well as US military targets in neighbouring Gulf states, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Attacks have also been reported from Cyprus, Iraq and Jordan.

There is a fresh round of fighting in southern Lebanon after Hezbollah joined Iran in targeting Israel. Beirut is being bombarded.

The economic damage to the region has been enormous. Oil refineries have been shut down, the vital strait of Hormuz – through which 20% of the world’s oil cargo passes – is effectively closed, evacuation flights are leaving the Gulf states around the clock and people are cancelling their travel plans in droves.

And within days of the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in a targeted airstrike that also killed a number of his top advisers, a new leader is set to be picked. The smart money appears to be on his son, Mojtaba, known to be cut from very much the same authoritarian clerical cloth as his father. So the notion that with Iran you kill the figurehead and the regime collapses appears to be flawed, to say the least.

Just one week ago, American and Iranian negotiators were engaged in talks in Geneva, which were reported to be making “significant progress”. Now there’s no knowing how this conflict could escalate. On Wednesday, the downing of an Iranian missile over Turkish airspace prompted speculation that Nato would be pulled into a war it clearly doesn’t want. A US submarine sank an Iranian warship in international waters off the coast of Sri Lanka.

There are so many moving parts to this conflict that the sense of jeopardy is at times overwhelming. My email inbox this morning contained a message from Robert Reich, who was Bill Clinton’s secretary of labour between 1993 and 1997 and is a trenchant and energetic critic of the US president, headed: “World War III?
Trump’s and Netanyahu’s illegal war turns global”.

Let’s not second-guess Armageddon just yet. But there’s no denying how dangerous the situation is becoming as the conflict continues to spread. Scott Lucas, an expert in US and Middle East politics at the Clinton Institute, University College Dublin, answers some of the key questions about this fast-developing situation.

This has gone beyond what the US president, Donald Trump, referred to as “major combat operations in Iran”. What it might become is anyone’s guess.

What we don’t have to guess is whether Trump is managing to take the American people with him on his foreign adventure. A poll taken on March 2 and published by YouGov/Economist found that US respondents oppose the war by a margin of 45% against to 32% in favour. Predictably, there’s a hugely partisan divide: most Republicans back their president, while Democrats are overwhelmingly anti war.

Significantly, writes Paul Whiteley of the University of Essex, an expert pollster with an interest in UK and US politics, Independents are also against the war by a significant margin. Looking ahead to November’s mid-term elections, as the US president’s advisers undoubtedly are, things do not look good for Republicans’ chances of holding either the House or the Senate.

And the war looks as if it will not end anytime soon. NBC News was reporting this afternoon that the Trump administration may invoke the Defense Production Act to accelerate the production of munitions, which would effectively move the US economy further on to a war footing.

This would seem to hint at something that analysts have speculated about, namely that a lengthy conflict could exhaust America’s stockpile of munitions. The US and its allies — including Israel and the Gulf states — are most acutely exposed to this shortage of defensive interceptors. It’s only been ten months since the US and Israel waged the 12-day war against Iran and that depleted an enormous number of both countries’ defensive missiles, according to Andrew Gawthorpe, an expert in modern American history at Leiden University.

This inevitably means that Washington will have to pull munitions away from other theatres, including those earmarked for South Korea. It’s also fair to say there will be fewer available for Kyiv’s European allies to purchase for the defence of Ukraine, which will please Vladimir Putin no end.

And whether an air campaign will be enough to achieve regime change – if that is indeed the purpose of this conflict – is debatable, writes Matthew Powell, an expert in air power at the University of Portsmouth. Air campaigns rarely work as intended – they often make matters worse, as the world saw after the Nato air campaign that led to the toppling of the country’s ruler, Muammar Gaddafi. With no coherent ground strategy to follow, things fell apart rapidly, with the terrible results that are with us to this day.

‘Special relationship’ under strain

Keir Starmer certainly doesn’t believe in regime change “from the skies”, or so he told the House of Commons this week when fending off criticism of the UK government’s position on whether and how the UK should be involved in this conflict. As the US-Israeli attacks began, Starmer said that the UK would have none of it (due, in large part apparently, to his assessment of a lack of lawful basis for the campaign) and he was not prepared to allow America to use the UK’s bases in any capacity either.

He has since softened his stance, allowing the US to use some British bases, but purely for defensive purposes, to target Iranian ballistic launch sites that could threaten British interests in the region.

‘No Winston Churchill’.

But Donald Trump remains unimpressed and there’s no doubt that this episode has put severe pressure on the so-called “special relationship” between Britain and America. Matt Bar, of Nottingham Trent University, walks us through some of the ups and downs of this relationship over the decades and concludes that it has survived worse setbacks in its time.

If this all wasn’t so serious, the US president’s reaction to not immediately getting his way from Starmer would be amusing. In fact it drew an involuntary bark of laughter when I read that, in a press session after a meeting with the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, on March 3, the US president threw a few barbs Starmer’s way, concluding that: “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”

Indeed. Historian Richard Toye of Exeter University explores that unlikely comparison.

The view from Moscow and Beijing

As you’d expect, Beijing was quick to condemn the strikes. China has been heavily dependent on its imports of oil from Iran, and regime change there would threaten this and force it to look elsewhere.

China is linked to Iran in a number of ways, including – significantly – via Tehran’s use of China’s satellite navigation system, BeiDou , which Beijing is touting as a possible replacement for the western Global Positioning System (GPS).

China-watcher Tom Harper, of the University of East London, assesses how this conflict will affect China and concludes that while it will cause turmoil in the short-term, a protracted conflict will play to its benefit in the long term.

The assassination hit a raw nerve in Moscow. Putin, whose fear of assassination borders on the pathological, watched the killing of a fellow autocrat with undisguised alarm.

Iran is a close ally of Russia. Tehran provided huge numbers of its Shahed drones to Putin to help him wage his illegal war in Ukraine, and Iran has also helped Moscow circumvent the west’s sanctions regime.

Stefan Wolff, an expert in international security at the University of Birmingham, believes that the conflict will play to Moscow’s advantage in the short term at least, as the US diverts munitions earmarked for purchase by Kyiv’s European allies. But he thinks the war is “unlikely to shift the dial significantly towards Russian victory in the long term”.

Sign up to receive our weekly World Affairs Briefing newsletter from The Conversation UK. Every Thursday we’ll bring you expert analysis of the big stories in international relations.

– ref. Will the Iran war go global? – https://theconversation.com/will-the-iran-war-go-global-277680

March 5, 2026

Persian Gulf desalination plants could become military targets in regional war

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Michael Christopher Low, Associate Professor of History; Director, Middle East Center, University of Utah

The Ras al-Khair water desalination plant in eastern Saudi Arabia is just one of many along the Persian Gulf coast. Fayez Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and neighboring countries in the Persian Gulf region use the fossil fuels under their desert lands not only to make money, but also to make drinking water. The petroleum they produce powers more than 400 desalination plants, which turn seawater into drinkable water.

In the war that began on Feb. 28, 2026, with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, retaliatory attacks from Iranian forces have hit oil refineries and natural gas plants and disrupted tourism and aviation. Those attacks all hurt Gulf nations’ economies and their hard-won reputations for safety and stability.

But Iranian strikes have also already hit close to a key desalination plant in Dubai. Iranian strikes on March 2 on Dubai’s Jebel Ali port hit about 12 miles (20 kilometers) away from a massive complex with 43 desalination units that are key to the city’s production of more than 160 billion gallons of water each year.

And there has already been damage to the UAE’s Fujairah F1 power and water plant and at Kuwait’s Doha West plant. In both cases, the damage seems to have stemmed from attacks on nearby ports or from falling debris from drone interceptions.

Three people walk through a massive space with many large pipes and valves. — The internal workings of desalination plants can be massive and very complex.
Fayez Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images

Saltwater kingdoms

The region’s monarchies are often described as petro-states, but they have also become what I call saltwater kingdoms, global superpowers in the production of human-made fresh water drawn from the sea. Desalination is part of the reason there are golf courses, fountains, water parks and even indoor ski slopes with manufactured snow.

All together, eight of the 10 largest desalination plants in the world are in the Arabian Peninsula. Israel’s two Sorek plants round out the list.

The countries of the Arabian Peninsula have about 60% of global water-desalination capacity. And plants close to Iran, around the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, produce more than 30% of the world’s desalinated water.

Roughly 100 million people in the Gulf region rely on desalination plants for their water. Without them, almost nobody would be able to live in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE – or much of Saudi Arabia, including its capital, Riyadh.

Under a massive roof, skiers slide down snow-covered slopes while others sit in a chairlift. — A massive indoor ski area in Dubai is just one of the ways Gulf nations use desalinated water.
Karim Sahib/AFP via Getty Images

Sabotage of water supplies

CIA worries about attacks on Gulf region desalination plants date back to the 1980s. During Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, those worries became real.

After coalition forces began bombing Iraqi positions in January 1991, part of Iraqi troops’ response was to release millions of barrels of crude oil into the Persian Gulf. As the massive oil slick drifted south, U.S. and Saudi officials feared it was meant to sabotage desalination systems.

Workers installed protective booms to shield intake valves at major plants, especially the one that supplies much of Riyadh’s water. In Kuwait, Iraqi sabotage damaged or destroyed much of the country’s desalination capacity.

Kuwaiti authorities also turned to Turkey and Saudi Arabia to supply some 750 water tankers and 200 trucks to import an 18-ton emergency supply of bottled water. U.S.-supplied generators and mobile desalination units provided additional temporary relief, though the full recovery took years.

A beach with black oil on it and large buildings in the background. — Oil washes up on a Persian Gulf beach near a Saudi desalination plant in late January 1991.
Chris Lefkow/AFP via Getty Images

More recent threats

Fears of attacks on desalination plants resurfaced after Yemen’s Houthi movement launched drones and missiles at Saudi facilities at Al-Shuqaiq in 2019 and 2022 – though they did no lasting damage.

Iran’s weapons are far more numerous and sophisticated than the Houthis’, though, so if it attacked desalination plants, the damage could be significant.

There is an irony here: Iran’s capital city of Tehran has a water shortage crisis so serious that in 2025 the government reportedly considered relocating the drought-stricken capital to the coast. But Iran is less vulnerable to attacks on desalination, because its water supply relies instead on dams and wells.

Whatever else the war may be about, water could well become a major factor in the violence and leave lasting political scars. And if either side were to intentionally attack water sources or desalination plants, it would clearly be a human-rights violation.

Michael Christopher Low does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Persian Gulf desalination plants could become military targets in regional war – https://theconversation.com/persian-gulf-desalination-plants-could-become-military-targets-in-regional-war-277597

March 5, 2026

De Irán a Europa: el feminismo utilizado como coartada geopolítica

Source: The Conversation – (in Spanish) – By María López Belloso, Profesora e Investigadora de la Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas de la Universidad de deusto, Universidad de Deusto

Mujeres en el metro de Teherán. Grigvovan/Shutterstock

La reciente escalada entre Irán, Estados Unidos e Israel ha reactivado un argumento recurrente: la situación de las mujeres bajo el régimen de los ayatolás como justificación del ataque y de la vulneración del derecho internacional.

La represión no es nueva. Desde 1979, los derechos de las mujeres se han visto gravemente restringidos, y en los últimos años la presión se ha intensificado con campañas como el Plan Noor y con la pena de muerte para sofocar el movimiento “Mujer, Vida, Libertad”“, activo desde 2022.

En diciembre de 2025, tras nuevas protestas por un cambio de régimen, la represión dejó entre 3 428 y 12 000 víctimas, según distintas fuentes.

Pero ¿es realmente esa la razón del ataque conjunto? La defensa de los derechos de las mujeres ha ocupado un lugar central en la justificación pública de la ofensiva. Benjamin Netanyahu invocó el lema “Mujer, Vida, Libertad” y afirmó que la operación buscaba abrir camino a la libertad del pueblo iraní; Donald Trump habló en términos similares, afirmando perseguir la liberación del pueblo iraní.

Las contradicciones sobre el sufrimiento femenino

Sin embargo, los bombardeos alcanzaron infraestructuras civiles, incluidas escuelas de niñas en Hormozgan. La contradicción es evidente: mientras se apela al sufrimiento femenino para legitimar la intervención, la guerra incrementa su vulnerabilidad y refuerza la represión interna bajo el argumento de la seguridad.

Esta incoherencia no es exclusiva de Estados Unidos ni del caso iraní. Afganistán ofrece un ejemplo igualmente revelador. Desde el regreso del régimen talibán en 2021, se han aprobado más de un centenar de edictos que prohíben a las mujeres la educación secundaria y universitaria, el trabajo en ONG y su presencia en espacios públicos, llegando incluso a impedir que su voz sea escuchada en la calle.

La ONU ha calificado esta situación como “apartheid de género”. Sin embargo, la respuesta de las potencias occidentales ha sido claramente desigual: abundan los comunicados de “profunda preocupación”, pero no se han aplicado medidas de presión comparables a las dirigidas contra Irán.

Esta inacción sugiere que, una vez que Afganistán dejó de ser prioridad estratégica, los derechos de sus mujeres dejaron de ocupar un lugar central en la agenda internacional.

Salvadores blancos

La recurrente retórica de “liberación” que hemos visto desde Afganistán hasta la reciente ofensiva contra Irán en 2026 encuentra su explicación más lúcida en la obra de la antropóloga Lila Abu-Lughod, Do Muslim Women Need Saving?. Abu-Lughod denuncia que la narrativa occidental de la mujer musulmana como una víctima pasiva e indefensa no es un acto de empatía, sino una herramienta de paternalismo colonial que despoja a estas mujeres de su propia esencia para convertirlas en el pretexto de intervenciones militares.

Este “complejo de salvadora blanca” permite a líderes como Donald Trump o la alta representante de la UE para Asuntos Exteriores y Política de Seguridad, Kaja Kallas, ejercer una falsa superioridad moral, simplificando realidades complejas para presentar a la cultura del “otro” como intrínsecamente opresora.

Bajo este marco, la salvación de la mujer no blanca se transforma en un activo geopolítico: se utiliza su rostro para justificar bombardeos y sanciones, pero se ignora su voz y su contexto local. Al final, como sostiene Abu-Lughod, estas políticas no buscan transformar las estructuras de opresión, sino utilizar la vulnerabilidad de las mujeres para validar agendas de control que, irónicamente, suelen terminar agravando su precariedad bajo el fuego de la guerra o el aislamiento económico.

El escenario bélico actual es quizá el ejemplo más evidente de cómo opera este principio de “salvadores blancos”, pero no es el único. En los discursos de los partidos de ultraderecha hemos visto cómo se usa este mismo argumentario para perseguir a los migrantes magrebíes, acusados de maltratar a sus mujeres y agredir a las mujeres locales.

Ultraderecha e inseguridad de la mujer

Este fenómeno de instrumentalización encuentra su base teórica en el concepto de “femonacionalismo”, acuñado por la socióloga Sara Farris en su obra En nombre de los derechos de las mujeres (2021). Farris expone cómo la extrema derecha europea ha “secuestrado” la retórica feminista para convertir la igualdad de género en una herramienta de exclusión y estigmatización contra la población migrante, especialmente la magrebí.

En España, el partido Vox ejemplifica esta deriva al vincular sistemáticamente la inmigración con el aumento de la inseguridad femenina. Esta narrativa, que también ha explotado Marine Le Pen en Francia al calificar la migración como “el fin de los derechos de las mujeres”, revela una profunda inconsistencia: mientras estos partidos utilizan la figura del “agresor externo” para alimentar la islamofobia de género, suelen negar simultáneamente la existencia de la violencia machista estructural en sus propios países.

La inconsistencia de este feminismo “de conveniencia” se hace insostenible al observar la gestión doméstica de estos partidos, donde la supuesta defensa de las mujeres desaparece para dar paso a un desmantelamiento sistemático de sus derechos.

En las administraciones donde la ultraderecha ha ganado influencia, hemos asistido a recortes drásticos en las partidas destinadas a políticas de igualdad y a la eliminación de concejalías y programas de atención a víctimas de violencia de género, bajo el pretexto de combatir el “gasto ideológico”.

Esta hostilidad institucional se traduce, además, en una violencia política y mediática dirigida contra figuras que encarnan la lucha feminista. Lejos de proteger a las mujeres, este discurso ejerce una violencia disciplinaria contra aquellas que no encajan en su ideal tradicionalista, demostrando que su preocupación por la seguridad femenina es meramente reactiva: solo les importa la violencia contra las mujeres cuando el agresor es el “otro” extranjero, pero la ejercen y la legitiman cuando la víctima es una mujer política o feminista que desafía su hegemonía.

El escudo moral para justificar guerras

En última instancia, el análisis de estos escenarios –desde los bombardeos sobre Irán hasta los recortes de igualdad en nuestras propias instituciones– revela una verdad incómoda: los derechos de las mujeres no son el fin de estas políticas, sino su coartada geopolítica. Se nos utiliza como escudo moral para justificar guerras y como argumento de exclusión para criminalizar al migrante, mientras en la práctica se desmantelan los recursos que garantizan nuestra seguridad real.

Hoy, más que nunca, cobran vigencia las palabras de Simone de Beauvoir:

No olvidéis jamás que bastará una crisis política, económica o religiosa para que los derechos de las mujeres vuelvan a ser cuestionados. Estos derechos nunca se dan por adquiridos; debéis permanecer vigilantes toda vuestra vida.

María López Belloso no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.

– ref. De Irán a Europa: el feminismo utilizado como coartada geopolítica – https://theconversation.com/de-iran-a-europa-el-feminismo-utilizado-como-coartada-geopolitica-277670