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January 26, 2026

Moore’s law: the famous rule of computing has reached the end of the road, so what comes next?

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Domenico Vicinanza, Associate Professor of Intelligent Systems and Data Science, Anglia Ruskin University

For half a century, computing advanced in a reassuring, predictable way. Transistors – devices used to switch electrical signals on a computer chip – became smaller. Consequently, computer chips became faster, and society quietly assimilated the gains almost without noticing.

These faster chips enable greater computing power by allowing devices to perform tasks more efficiently. As a result, we saw scientific simulations improving, weather forecasts becoming more accurate, graphics more realistic, and later, machine learning systems being developed and flourishing. It looked as if computing power itself obeyed a natural law.

This phenomenon became known as Moore’s Law, after the businessman and scientist Gordon Moore. Moore’s Law summarised the empirical observation that the number of transistors on a chip approximately doubled every couple of years. This also allows the size of devices to shrink, so it drives miniaturisation.

That sense of certainty and predictability has now gone, and not because innovation has stopped, but because the physical assumptions that once underpinned it no longer hold.

So what replaces the old model of automatic speed increases? The answer is not a single breakthrough, but several overlapping strategies.

One involves new materials and transistor designs. Engineers are refining how transistors are built to reduce wasted energy and unwanted electrical leakage. These changes deliver smaller, more incremental improvements than in the past, but they help keep power use under control.

Another approach is changing how chips are physically organised. Rather than placing all components on a single flat surface, modern chips increasingly stack parts on top of each other or arrange them more closely. This reduces the distance that data has to travel, saving both time and energy.

Perhaps the most important shift is specialisation. Instead of one general-purpose processor trying to do everything, modern systems combine different kinds of processors. Traditional processing units or CPUs handle control and decision-making. Graphics processors, are powerful processing units that were originally designed to handle the demands of graphics for computer games and other tasks. AI accelerators (specialised hardware that speeds up AI tasks) focus on large numbers of simple calculations carried out in parallel. Performance now depends on how well these components work together, rather than on how fast any one of them is.

Alongside these developments, researchers are exploring more experimental technologies, including quantum processors (which harness the power of quantum science) and photonic processors, which use light instead of electricity.

These are not general-purpose computers, and they are unlikely to replace conventional machines. Their potential lies in very specific areas, such as certain optimisation or simulation problems where classical computers can struggle to explore large numbers of possible solutions efficiently. In practice, these technologies are best understood as specialised co-processors, used selectively and in combination with traditional systems.

For most everyday computing tasks, improvements in conventional processors, memory systems and software design will continue to matter far more than these experimental approaches.

For users, life after Moore’s Law does not mean that computers stop improving. It means that improvements arrive in more uneven and task-specific ways. Some applications, such as AI-powered tools, diagnostics, navigation, complex modelling, may see noticeable gains, while general-purpose performance increases more slowly.

New technologies

At the Supercomputing SC25 conference in St Louis, hybrid systems that mix CPUs (processors) and GPUs (graphics processing units) with emerging technologies such as quantum or photonic processors were increasingly presented and discussed as practical extensions of classical computing. For most everyday tasks, improvements in classical processors, memories and software will continue to deliver the biggest gains.

But there is growing interest in using quantum and photonic devices as co-
processors, not replacements. Their appeal lies in tackling specific classes of
problems, such as complex optimisation or routing tasks, where finding low-energy
or near-optimal solutions can be exponentially expensive for classical machines
alone.

In this supporting role, they offer a credible way to combine the reliability of
classical computing with new computational techniques that expand what these
systems can do.

Life after Moore’s Law is not a story of decline, but one that requires constant
transformation and evolution. Computing progress now depends on architectural
specialisation, careful energy management, and software that is deeply aware of
hardware constraints. The danger lies in confusing complexity with inevitability, or marketing narratives with solved problems.

The post-Moore era forces a more honest relationship with computation where performance is not anymore something we inherit automatically from smaller transistors, but it is something we must design, justify, and pay for, in energy, in complexity, and in trade-offs.

Domenico Vicinanza 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. Moore’s law: the famous rule of computing has reached the end of the road, so what comes next? – https://theconversation.com/moores-law-the-famous-rule-of-computing-has-reached-the-end-of-the-road-so-what-comes-next-273052

January 26, 2026

Artificial metacognition: Giving an AI the ability to ‘think’ about its ‘thinking’

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ricky J. Sethi, Professor of Computer Science, Fitchburg State University; Worcester Polytechnic Institute

AIs could use some self-reflection. davincidig/iStock via Getty Images

Have you ever had the experience of rereading a sentence multiple times only to realize you still don’t understand it? As taught to scores of incoming college freshmen, when you realize you’re spinning your wheels, it’s time to change your approach.

This process, becoming aware of something not working and then changing what you’re doing, is the essence of metacognition, or thinking about thinking.

It’s your brain monitoring its own thinking, recognizing a problem, and controlling or adjusting your approach. In fact, metacognition is fundamental to human intelligence and, until recently, has been understudied in artificial intelligence systems.

My colleagues Charles Courchaine, Hefei Qiu and Joshua Iacoboni and I are working to change that. We’ve developed a mathematical framework designed to allow generative AI systems, specifically large language models like ChatGPT or Claude, to monitor and regulate their own internal “cognitive” processes. In some sense, you can think of it as giving generative AI an inner monologue, a way to assess its own confidence, detect confusion and decide when to think harder about a problem.

Why machines need self-awareness

Today’s generative AI systems are remarkably capable but fundamentally unaware. They generate responses without genuinely knowing how confident or confused their response might be, whether it contains conflicting information, or whether a problem deserves extra attention. This limitation becomes critical when generative AI’s inability to recognize its own uncertainty can have serious consequences, particularly in high-stakes applications such as medical diagnosis, financial advice and autonomous vehicle decision-making.

For example, consider a medical generative AI system analyzing symptoms. It might confidently suggest a diagnosis without any mechanism to recognize situations where it might be more appropriate to pause and reflect, like “These symptoms contradict each other” or “This is unusual, I should think more carefully.”

Developing such a capacity would require metacognition, which involves both the ability to monitor one’s own reasoning through self-awareness and to control the response through self-regulation.

Inspired by neurobiology, our framework aims to give generative AI a semblance of these capabilities by using what we call a metacognitive state vector, which is essentially a quantified measure of the generative AI’s internal “cognitive” state across five dimensions.

5 dimensions of machine self-awareness

One way to think about these five dimensions is to imagine giving a generative AI system five different sensors for its own thinking.

Emotional awareness, to help it track emotionally charged content, which might be important for preventing harmful outputs.
Correctness evaluation, which measures how confident the large language model is about the validity of its response.
Experience matching, where it checks whether the situation resembles something it has previously encountered.
Conflict detection, so it can identify contradictory information requiring resolution.
Problem importance, to help it assess stakes and urgency to prioritize resources.

We quantify each of these concepts within an overall mathematical framework to create the metacognitive state vector and use it to control ensembles of large language models. In essence, the metacognitive state vector converts a large language model’s qualitative self-assessments into quantitative signals that it can use to control its responses.

For example, when a large language model’s confidence in a response drops below a certain threshold, or the conflicts in the response exceed some acceptable levels, it might shift from fast, intuitive processing to slow, deliberative reasoning. This is analogous to what psychologists call System 1 and System 2 thinking in humans.

A diagram with five rectangles surrounding an oval with arrows connecting them — This conceptual diagram shows the basic idea for giving a set of large language models an awareness of the state of its processing.
Ricky J. Sethi

Conducting an orchestra

Imagine a large language model ensemble as an orchestra where each musician – an individual large language model – comes in at certain times based on the cues received from the conductor. The metacognitive state vector acts as the conductor’s awareness, constantly monitoring whether the orchestra is in harmony, whether someone is out of tune, or whether a particularly difficult passage requires extra attention.

When performing a familiar, well-rehearsed piece, like a simple folk melody, the orchestra easily plays in quick, efficient unison with minimal coordination needed. This is the System 1 mode. Each musician knows their part, the harmonies are straightforward, and the ensemble operates almost automatically.

But when the orchestra encounters a complex jazz composition with conflicting time signatures, dissonant harmonies or sections requiring improvisation, the musicians need greater coordination. The conductor directs the musicians to shift roles: Some become section leaders, others provide rhythmic anchoring, and soloists emerge for specific passages.

This is the kind of system we’re hoping to create in a computational context by implementing our framework, orchestrating ensembles of large language models. The metacognitive state vector informs a control system that acts as the conductor, telling it to switch modes to System 2. It can then tell each large language model to assume different roles – for example, critic or expert – and coordinate their complex interactions based on the metacognitive assessment of the situation.

a woman in a long black dress conducts an orchestra — Metacognition is like an orchestra conductor monitoring and directing an ensemble of musicians.
AP Photo/Vahid Salemi

Impact and transparency

The implications extend far beyond making generative AI slightly smarter. In health care, a metacognitive generative AI system could recognize when symptoms don’t match typical patterns and escalate the problem to human experts rather than risking misdiagnosis. In education, it could adapt teaching strategies when it detects student confusion. In content moderation, it could identify nuanced situations requiring human judgment rather than applying rigid rules.

Perhaps most importantly, our framework makes generative AI decision-making more transparent. Instead of a black box that simply produces answers, we get systems that can explain their confidence levels, identify their uncertainties, and show why they chose particular reasoning strategies.

This interpretability and explainability is crucial for building trust in AI systems, especially in regulated industries or safety-critical applications.

The road ahead

Our framework does not give machines consciousness or true self-awareness in the human sense. Instead, our hope is to provide a computational architecture for allocating resources and improving responses that also serves as a first step toward more sophisticated approaches for full artificial metacognition.

The next phase in our work involves validating the framework with extensive testing, measuring how metacognitive monitoring improves performance across diverse tasks, and extending the framework to start reasoning about reasoning, or metareasoning. We’re particularly interested in scenarios where recognizing uncertainty is crucial, such as in medical diagnoses, legal reasoning and generating scientific hypotheses.

Our ultimate vision is generative AI systems that don’t just process information but understand their cognitive limitations and strengths. This means systems that know when to be confident and when to be cautious, when to think fast and when to slow down, and when they’re qualified to answer and when they should defer to others.

Ricky J. Sethi has received funding from the National Science Foundation, Google and Amazon.

– ref. Artificial metacognition: Giving an AI the ability to ‘think’ about its ‘thinking’ – https://theconversation.com/artificial-metacognition-giving-an-ai-the-ability-to-think-about-its-thinking-270026

January 26, 2026

Where do seashells come from?

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Michal Kowalewski, Thompson Chair of Invertebrate Paleontology, University of Florida

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com.

Where do seashells come from? – Ivy, age 5, Phoenix, Arizona

Seashells are so plentiful that you may sometimes take them for granted.

Scientists have estimated that just one small stretch of beaches along the Gulf of California contained at least 2 trillion shells. That is 2 followed by 12 zeros.

2,000,000,000,000 shells – in just one small stretch of coast! Imagine if every human alive today went there to collect shells. Each of them would be able to claim nearly 1,000 shells.

But where do all these shells come from, and what tales can they tell us?

We are a paleontologist and marine ecologist, and our scientific research involves looking at shells and discovering where they came from and how old they are.

Skeletons on the beach

Shells are simply skeletons of animals, the remains of dead organisms. But unlike humans and most other animals, these mollusks, such as snails, clams, oysters and mussels, have an exoskeleton, meaning it’s on the outside of their bodies.

When people talk about seashells, they usually mean shells of mollusks. And these are, indeed, the most common types of shells we find on the beach today. Many other marine animals also make skeletons, including, among others, echinoids such as sand dollars that make internal skeletons called tests, and brachiopods, also known as “lampshells.”

These marine animals build their own shells to protect their soft bodies from external threats, such as predators or changes that happen around them in their habitat. Shells can also help these sea creatures stay stable on the seafloor, grow bigger or move around more efficiently.

Just as our bones provide a scaffold to which we attach our muscles, shells provide a rigid frame to which sea creatures attach their muscles. Some mollusks, such as scallops, can even swim by using powerful muscles to vigorously flap the two valves that make their shell. Other sea creatures use muscles attached to their shells to quickly bury themselves in the sediment.

A clam on the beach buries itself in the sand then releases water and waste.

Variety is the spice of marine life

The process of making a shell is known as biomineralization. How marine animals build their shells can vary greatly depending on the species, but all of these animals have special tissues to make their shells, just as humans have special tissues to grow and strengthen our bones.

Most marine animals form their shells from calcium carbonate, which is a tough mineral also found in limestone. Some sponges and microorganisms use another compound silica. There is also a group of brachiopods that build shells using calcium phosphate, which we use to build our bones, too.

More than 50,000 mollusk species live today on our planet, and most of them make shells. But each species makes a different shell. This accounts for the huge variety of shapes and sizes in the seashells you find on the beach.

Seashells of all different colors and shapes in a pile — With over 50,000 species of mollusk, seashells come in all different shapes and sizes.
Amanda Bemis/Invertebrate Zoology Collections, Florida Museum of Natural History

Just as with bones, shells can last for a very long time. The shells of dead animals are moved around by currents and waves. Many eventually wash up on shorelines. Other shells get buried beneath the seafloor. With pressure and time, the buried seafloor sediment becomes a rock, and shells turn into fossils. In fact, seashells are among the most common types of fossils large enough to see with the naked eye.

When an experienced hunter finds a bone in the forest, they know right away whether it came from a deer, rabbit or wild boar. Similarly, when a seashell expert finds a shell, they can tell you what sea creature made it.

What shells can teach us

Besides the sheer number of sea creatures, another reason shells are so prolific is that they last for a very long time. In our research, we use a process called carbon dating to figure out how old a shell is. Mollusks and many other animals use calcium, carbon and oxygen to build their shell. There are three types of carbon – called isotopes – and one of them, known as radiocarbon, is unstable. As a shell ages, its radiocarbon decays at a constant rate. Older shells have less radiocarbon, and we scientists can estimate their age based on that fact.

This process has allowed us and other researchers to date thousands of shells collected from modern beaches and sea bottoms all around the globe. We discovered that many of those shells are hundreds or thousands of years old.

These shells are not just beautiful to look at – they’re also very useful. Like little time machines, these shells carry within them a wealth of information about the past, including details about the habitats in which they lived. Scientists like us can often tell from a shell whether the animal that created it was a predator, a plant eater or even a parasite.

By studying the chemical makeup of the shell, scientists can learn about past climates and environments. We can often even discern how the owner of a shell died and the hazards it faced during its life.

So the next time you admire shells on your favorite beach, inspect them for clues about their past lives. Does the shell contain a round hole? That reveals that the animal was killed by a drilling predator. Does it have a repair scar? It may have survived an attack by a crab. Does the shell belong to an animal that lived in a seagrass meadow that is no longer there?

Each shell is a little diary, and if you know how to read it, it can tell you exciting stories of animals and habitats from the past.

Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

Michal Kowalewski receives funding from federal agencies (National Science Foundation) and private organizations such as Felburn Foundation and University of Florida Foundation.

Thomas K. Frazer receives funding from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Florida Department of Transportation, and South Florida Water Management District and The Ocean Conservancy.

– ref. Where do seashells come from? – https://theconversation.com/where-do-seashells-come-from-270153

January 26, 2026

How the polar vortex and warm ocean intensified a major US winter storm

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Mathew Barlow, Professor of Climate Science, UMass Lowell

Boston and much of the U.S. faced a cold winter blast in January 2026. Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

A severe winter storm that brought crippling freezing rain, sleet and snow to a large part of the U.S. in late January 2026 left a mess in states from New Mexico to New England. Hundreds of thousands of people lost power across the South as ice pulled down tree branches and power lines, more than a foot of snow fell in parts of the Midwest and Northeast, and many states faced bitter cold that was expected to linger for days.

The sudden blast may have come as a shock to many Americans after a mostly mild start to winter, but that warmth may have partly contributed to the ferocity of the storm.

As atmospheric and climate scientists, we conduct research that aims to improve understanding of extreme weather, including what makes it more or less likely to occur and how climate change might or might not play a role.

To understand what Americans are experiencing with this winter blast, we need to look more than 20 miles above the surface of Earth, to the stratospheric polar vortex.

A forecast for Jan. 26, 2026, shows the freezing line in white reaching far into Texas. The light band with arrows indicates the jet stream, and the dark band indicates the stratospheric polar vortex. The jet stream is shown at about 3.5 miles above the surface, a typical height for tracking storm systems. The polar vortex is approximately 20 miles above the surface.
Mathew Barlow, CC BY

What creates a severe winter storm like this?

Multiple weather factors have to come together to produce such a large and severe storm.

Winter storms typically develop where there are sharp temperature contrasts near the surface and a southward dip in the jet stream, the narrow band of fast-moving air that steers weather systems. If there is a substantial source of moisture, the storms can produce heavy rain or snow.

In late January, a strong Arctic air mass from the north was creating the temperature contrast with warmer air from the south. Multiple disturbances within the jet stream were acting together to create favorable conditions for precipitation, and the storm system was able to pull moisture from the very warm Gulf of Mexico.

A map of storm warnings on Jan. 24, 2026. — The National Weather Service issued severe storm warnings (pink) on Jan. 24, 2026, for a large swath of the U.S. that could see sleet and heavy snow over the following days, along with ice storm warnings (dark purple) in several states and extreme cold warnings (dark blue).
National Weather Service

Where does the polar vortex come in?

The fastest winds of the jet stream occur just below the top of the troposphere, which is the lowest level of the atmosphere and ends about seven miles above Earth’s surface. Weather systems are capped at the top of the troposphere, because the atmosphere above it becomes very stable.

The stratosphere is the next layer up, from about seven miles to about 30 miles. While the stratosphere extends high above weather systems, it can still interact with them through atmospheric waves that move up and down in the atmosphere. These waves are similar to the waves in the jet stream that cause it to dip southward, but they move vertically instead of horizontally.

A chart shows how temperatures in the lower layers of the atmosphere change between the troposphere and stratosphere. Miles are on the right, kilometers on the left.
NOAA

You’ve probably heard the term “polar vortex” used when an area of cold Arctic air moves far enough southward to influence the United States. That term describes air circulating around the pole, but it can refer to two different circulations, one in the troposphere and one in the stratosphere.

The Northern Hemisphere stratospheric polar vortex is a belt of fast-moving air circulating around the North Pole. It is like a second jet stream, high above the one you may be familiar with from weather graphics, and usually less wavy and closer to the pole.

Sometimes the stratospheric polar vortex can stretch southward over the United States. When that happens, it creates ideal conditions for the up-and-down movement of waves that connect the stratosphere with severe winter weather at the surface.

A stretched stratospheric polar vortex reflects upward waves back down, left, which affects the jet stream and surface weather, right.
Mathew Barlow and Judah Cohen, CC BY

The forecast for the January storm showed a close overlap between the southward stretch of the stratospheric polar vortex and the jet stream over the U.S., indicating perfect conditions for cold and snow.

The biggest swings in the jet stream are associated with the most energy. Under the right conditions, that energy can bounce off the polar vortex back down into the troposphere, exaggerating the north-south swings of the jet stream across North America and making severe winter weather more likely.

This is what was happening in late January 2026 in the central and eastern U.S.

If the climate is warming, why are we still getting severe winter storms?

Earth is unequivocally warming as human activities release greenhouse gas emissions that trap heat in the atmosphere, and snow amounts are decreasing overall. But that does not mean severe winter weather will never happen again.

Some research suggests that even in a warming environment, cold events, while occurring less frequently, may still remain relatively severe in some locations.

One factor may be increasing disruptions to the stratospheric polar vortex, which appear to be linked to the rapid warming of the Arctic with climate change.

Two globes, one showing a stable polar vortex and the other a disrupted version that brings brutal cold to the South. — The polar vortex is a strong band of winds in the stratosphere, normally ringing the North Pole. When it weakens, it can split. The polar jet stream can mirror this upheaval, becoming weaker or wavy. At the surface, cold air is pushed southward in some locations.
NOAA

Additionally, a warmer ocean leads to more evaporation, and because a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, that means more moisture is available for storms. The process of moisture condensing into rain or snow produces energy for storms as well. However, warming can also reduce the strength of storms by reducing temperature contrasts.

The opposing effects make it complicated to assess the potential change to average storm strength. However, intense events do not necessarily change in the same way as average events. On balance, it appears that the most intense winter storms may be becoming more intense.

A warmer environment also increases the likelihood that precipitation that would have fallen as snow in previous winters may now be more likely to fall as sleet and freezing rain.

There are still many questions

Scientists are constantly improving the ability to predict and respond to these severe weather events, but there are many questions still to answer.

Much of the data and research in the field relies on a foundation of work by federal employees, including government labs like the National Center for Atmospheric Research, known as NCAR, which has been targeted by the Trump administration for funding cuts. These scientists help develop the crucial models, measuring instruments and data that scientists and forecasters everywhere depend on.

This article, originally published Jan. 24, 2026, has been updated with details from the weekend storm.

Mathew Barlow has received federal funding for research on extreme events and also conducts legal consulting related to climate change..

Judah Cohen 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. How the polar vortex and warm ocean intensified a major US winter storm – https://theconversation.com/how-the-polar-vortex-and-warm-ocean-intensified-a-major-us-winter-storm-274243

January 25, 2026

DNA evidence: A double-edged sword that can actually deny justice for some wrongfully accused

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Kent Roach, Professor of Law, University of Toronto

Jon-Adrian (JJ) Velazquez, a New York man who spent half his life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, recently sued New York City and its police for US$100 million for his wrongful murder conviction. Velazquez may be known by film buffs for his role in the Oscar-nominated film Sing Sing.

Velazquez may be entitled to millions in compensation if he can prove his factual innocence, typically through DNA evidence at the crime scene. Alas, such evidence is often not available.

The United States has paid almost US$4 billion in damages and settlements to 901 people who have been exonerated of crimes since 1989. This history of wrongful convictions is a warped form of American exceptionalism that I document in my new book Justice for Some: A Comparative Examination of Miscarriages of Justice and Wrongful Convictions .

Proving innocence

Proven factual innocence is a powerful, populist idea. It’s easier to understand and more widely accepted than concepts such as miscarriages of justice, conviction safety or judicial error, which are used to address wrongful convictions in many other countries, including England, Canada and countries in continental Europe.

These more generous approaches used outside the United States better respect the fundamental principle of giving people the benefit of reasonable doubt about their guilt.

It’s very difficult to prove factual innocence. In 2016, a New York court held that Velazquez had failed to prove his innocence despite many weaknesses in the case that led to his 2000 murder conviction.

By 2016, two eyewitness who identifed Velazquez as the person who killed a retired New York police officer had recanted. Some witnesses had initially identified the perpetrator as a Black man with long braided hair; Velazquez is Hispanic and had very short hair. Some said the perpetrator used his right hand to shoot the victim; Velazquez is left-handed.

Consistent with the popular appeal of proven factual innocence, Velazquez was freed in 2021 not by the courts but by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, with President Joe Biden apologizing to him the following year. They were responding to investigative reporting and new DNA testing that excluded Velazquez from a betting slip that the killer touched.

The fact that politicians who may have been hoping for re-election were ahead of the American courts in exonerating Velazquez reveals a lot about the decline of the rule of law in the United States.

DNA exonerations

Prominent American lawyers Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck, the founders of the Innocence Project, argued 26 years ago that DNA exonerations were largely a matter of luck. They predicted in a 2000 book that DNA exonerations would eventually dry up as police only use DNA testing in the small minority of crimes where the perpetrator leaves biological evidence at the crime scene.

Scheck and Neufeld may have been overly optimistic about the competence of American police and prosecutors in their book. Post-conviction, DNA-based exonerations, like Velazquez’s, continue to this day.

DNA is a double-edged sword: it offers compelling evidence of innocence while simultaneously raising the threshold for overturning wrongful convictions. In the U.S., the wrongfully convicted are often expected to prove their innocence through DNA, even though many crimes leave no biological evidence and existing samples are frequently mishandled or unavailable. DNA, in short, serves only a fraction of those wrongfully convicted.

Mass imprisonment in China and the U.S.

The country most closely resembling the U.S. in its insistence on proof of factual innocence is the People’s Republic of China.

Like the U.S., China typically remedies miscarriages of justice only after multiple court proceedings. Intervention by politicians also plays a critical role in obtaining justice for the wrongfully convicted, as it did in the Velazquez case. China has also begun providing more generous compensation to those who can prove their factual innocence.

In both countries, generous compensation for the few who can prove factual innocence risks legitimizing unjust systems that harshly punish the many, including those with wrongful convictions but no meaningful path to justice.

American legal reformers have proposed that a right to claim factual innocence should be added to international law. I argue in Justice for Some, however, that proof of factual innocence would have regressive implications in many other parts of the world that correct miscarriages of justice without such onerous proof. In short, factual innocence would provide justice for fewer people.

Factual innocence spreads to England

Countries other than the U.S. and China are not immune from the populist appeal of factual innocence.

Since 2014, England has required proven innocence for compensation. This has drastically reduced compensation payments. It’s even resulted in the denial of compensation to people like Velazquez who have been exonerated by DNA.

Victor Nealon spent 17 years in a British prison after being convicted of attempted rape. His lawyers eventually discovered an unknown person’s DNA on clothing that had not been disclosed by investigators, and his conviction was quashed.

Nealon took his compensation claim to the European Court of Human Rights. It ruled in a divided decision that states can require proven innocence without breaching the presumption of innocence. In essence, this allows the wrongfully accused to be denied compensation without regard to the fundamental legal principle that people are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Factual innocence requirements can spread from compensation to appeals from convictions.

Those who can prove their innocence deserve justice — but justice should not be limited to them alone. Proven innocence rations justice too narrowly.

It may be the best that mass-incarceration societies like the U.S. and China have to offer. But even though factual innocence is popular and easy to grasp, applying this standard broadly across liberal democracies would likely have regressive effects.

Kent Roach is affiliated with the Canadian Registry of Wrongful Conviction. His book received funding to assist in it being published in open access from the Jackman School of Law at the University of Toronto.

– ref. DNA evidence: A double-edged sword that can actually deny justice for some wrongfully accused – https://theconversation.com/dna-evidence-a-double-edged-sword-that-can-actually-deny-justice-for-some-wrongfully-accused-273788

January 25, 2026

How to include fossil fuel communities in Canada’s clean energy transition

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Ekaterina Rhodes, Associate Professor, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria

Fossil fuel-dependent communities in Western Canada sit at the centre of Canada’s energy decisions. A just and inclusive clean energy transition will depend on how well governments listen to these communities and how fast they deal with the forces working to slow down energy decarbonization.

When it comes to the energy transition, public discussion tends to focus on emissions targets and policies to achieve them. These are important, but they’re just one aspect of the issue. In the oil- and gas-producing regions of Western Canada, conversations and concerns centre on livelihoods, identity and a nagging doubt: does anyone in power grasp rural realities?

Our ongoing research across the region — based on large citizen surveys to focus groups with municipal leaders and analysis of disinformation — highlights that emotions, narratives and perspectives of communities at the heart of Canada’s energy transition politics. As we mark the United Nation’s International Day of Clean Energy today, these voices demand attention before divides deepen further.

Focus groups with municipal staff from 10 oil- and gas-producing communities in British Columbia and Alberta revealed a delicate balancing act. They’re actively pursuing diversification — geothermal projects, hydrogen pilots, tourism expansion, data centres, manufacturing hubs, even rare-earth mineral processing — but most of these efforts build around, rather than beyond, oil and gas.

For many communities, the industry isn’t just jobs. It’s the economic engine funding hospitals, schools, arenas, roads and the very existence of their towns. Abstract talk of an energy transition can feel threatening when it overlooks this.

An Alberta official captured the fear bluntly:

“If you took oil and gas out of our community, I would suggest that there would be no hospital. There would be no schools. There would be no town. The only reason our community exists is to service the oil and gas industry.”

Deep emotional divides

Our 2025 survey of 3,400 residents in non-metropolitan communities across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba helps explains why climate policy ignites public backlash.

Affective climate polarization, which describes the emotional distance between those who support and oppose climate policy, rivals partisan left-right divides in intensity. These emotional climate identities help explain differences in support for climate policy that ideology alone can’t capture — particularly on the political right, where views on climate action are more diverse.

Policy design nuances are critical but complicated by affective polarization. Clean technology mandates and renewable electricity requirements tend to draw broader backing than carbon taxes, which are generally less popular and spark fierce resistance from right-leaning citizens.

Bundling climate policies with just transition measures, such as government-funded training for new jobs, community-owned energy, low-carbon incentives and public transit, can boost support for carbon pricing among the less polarized. However, for those with stronger emotional commitments, these just transition supports are often ineffective and can even trigger backlash.

Climate policy details matter less to people who score high on affective climate polarization. This helps explain why climate policy debates remain so deeply politicized: when emotional attachments to climate identities are strong, people respond more to elite cues and identity-based judgments than to policy design itself.

Municipalities grapple with limitations

Municipal officials battle structural voids. Officials in northeastern B.C. and Alberta juggle economic ambitions and governance limitations. They craft economic strategies and chase low-carbon investments, while being hamstrung by thin staffing and permitting delays stalling projects for years.

The sharpest barrier to the clean energy transition is the absence of coherent, regionally tailored visions from other levels of government. Federal clean growth plans promote critical minerals and hydrogen. Provincial strategies mix liquefied natural gas with renewables.

Locally, these strategies ring hollow — they seem contradictory and urban-centric. A municipal official in B.C. we spoke to decried a “one-size-fits- all” approach, citing propane-powered electric vehicle chargers in -40 C winters: “How do you gain the support … when even the province isn’t actually addressing” regional realities?

We’ve found that public attitudes differ by age, with youth embracing climate sustainability but veterans of oil-tied lives viewing transition as a “hard sell.” Without a common vision recognizing municipal governance limitations, community leaders hesitate on bold plans, wary of backlash in towns deeply connected to the promise and precarity of oil’s boom–bust cycles.

These tensions are being wilfully intensified by the fossil-fuel industry’s propaganda machine, which uses bad-faith arguments to suggest that climate policies and fossil-fuel communities are at odds.

These arguments often ignore the potential for a well-managed energy transition to improve public health, foster regional development and increase community resilience in these regions.

These are not the only narratives the fossil-fuel industry is using to slow climate action. Our research on Canada’s climate delays shows that fossil-fuel propaganda is being used to falsely portray Canadian oil as low-emissions, to urge Canada to wait for others to act first and to claim that climate policies are more detrimental to workers more than climate change.

Fostering a just energy transition

Governments must engage in genuine listening. Fossil-fuel communities aren’t barriers, but key participants in all energy transition risks and benefits. Co-creating policies with them rather than imposing top-down visions can help grow jobs, revenues and services in Western Canada.

Engagement with communities must also be emotionally attuned. Overcoming climate polarization means restoring trust via local messengers, consistent follow-through and deliberative forums like public assemblies.

At the same time, governments must confront misinformation and propaganda. They can can step in with policies that challenge disinformation legally, regulate ads and fund community energy transformations beyond fossil fuel extraction.

The International Day of Clean Energy spotlights promise. In Western Canada, it also spotlights peril. The energy transition’s success hinges on centring fossil fuel communities as protagonists, not peripherals — turning the transition into a shared opportunity.

Ekaterina Rhodes receives funding from Canada First Research Excellence Fund as part of the University of Victoria-led Accelerating Community Energy Transformation Initiative.

Megan Egler received funding from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund as part of the University of Victoria-led Accelerating Community Energy Transformation Initiative.

Rowan Hargreaves received funding from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund as part of the University of Victoria-led Accelerating Community Energy Transformation Initiative.

Samuel Lloyd receives funding from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund as part of the University of Victoria-led Accelerating Community Energy Transformation Initiative. He also received funding from the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions for a research project that inspired one of the papers included in this article.

– ref. How to include fossil fuel communities in Canada’s clean energy transition – https://theconversation.com/how-to-include-fossil-fuel-communities-in-canadas-clean-energy-transition-273331

January 25, 2026

With ‘KPop Demon Hunters,’ Korean women hold the sword, the microphone — and possibly an Oscar

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Hyounjeong Yoo, Instructor, School of Linguistics and Language Studies, Carleton University

When I was a child in South Korea, the New Year often began with a familiar song: “Kkachi Kkachi Seollal.” Seollal refers to the Lunar New Year, one of Korea’s most important family holidays, and kkachi means “magpie,” a bird associated with good fortune and joyful beginnings.

Singing the song, we believed, would invite pleasant guests into the home. For my siblings and me, those guests were usually our grandparents — and their arrival marked warmth, continuity and belonging.

Decades later, I now live in Canada, where distance has made such visits from my home country rare. Yet it feels as though the magpie has arrived again — this time on a global screen.

Netflix’s animated film KPop Demon Hunters, which follows adventures of a fictional Kpop girl group (Huntrix) whose members hunts demons by night, now has an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song. This follows recent Golden Globe wins.

The film, created by Korean Canadian Maggie Kang, has musical production by Teddy Park and is voiced by Korean American actors such as Arden Cho, Ji-young Yoo and Audrey Nuna.

I’m interested in how KPop Demon Hunters marks a new phase of the Korean Wave. In this phase, folklore and women’s musical labour come together to challenge how Asian stories have long been sidelined in western media.

KPop Demon Hunters, like the success of some other recent popular Korean cultural production in the West, reflects diasporic creativity, notes scholar Michelle Cho, whose research focuses on on Korean film, media and popular culture.

Folklore as cultural authority

One of KPop Demon Hunters’s most striking features is its unapologetic use of Korean symbols. The demon hunters wear gat — traditional horsehair hats associated with scholars during Korea’s Joseon dynasty — while battling demons alongside the tiger, long regarded as a guardian spirit of Korea. These elements function as assertions of cultural authority.

Historically, western film and animation have often relegated Asian characters to stereotypes or erased them altogether through whitewashing.

By contrast, KPop Demon Hunters places Korean folklore at its narrative centre. The gat evokes dignity and discipline; the tiger represents protection and resilience. Together, they counter the lingering assumption that mainstream entertainment led by Asian characters is somehow niche or inferior.

By using distinctly Korean imagery — such as the satirical minhwa art style of the film’s Derpy Tiger — the movie firmly anchors itself in a specific Korean context that cannot be generalized or mistaken for a broad, pan-Asian esthetic.

For many in the Korean diaspora — including myself, who grew up rarely seeing people like me centred in mainstream media — this visibility carries emotional weight.

Research in media and cultural studies shows that representation matters not only for how groups are seen by others, but also for how people understand their own place in society. Seeing Korean symbols treated with respect offers a quiet but powerful form of cultural validation.

A matrilineal line of survival

One of the film’s powerful moments is the opening montage. Through a rapid succession of shamanic figures, flappers and disco-era performers, the sequence offers what can be read as matrilineal homage to female Korean musicians across generations.

As writer Iris (Yi Youn) Kim notes, citing a lecture by Asian American studies scholar Elaine Andres, this lineage echoes the real-life story of the Kim Sisters, often described as Korea’s first internationally successful female pop group. After losing their father during the Korean War, the sisters were trained by their mother, the renowned singer Lee Nan-young — best known for the anti-colonial song “Tears of Mokpo” — to perform at U.S. military bases as a means of survival.

The Kim Sisters perform ‘Fever’ on the Ed Sullivan show.

The Kim Sisters later became regular performers on The Ed Sullivan Show, captivating American audiences while navigating racist expectations that framed Asian women as approachable, non-threatening and exotic.

Symbolic labour of representing a nation

The fictional group Huntrix inherits this legacy. Like the Kim Sisters, they are expected to embody discipline, professionalism and national representation.

For example, the film shows the group grappling with perfectionism and the intense discipline demanded of them, often maintaining polished public performances while suppressing personal vulnerability to fulfil their dual roles as idols and protectors. On a meta-narrative level, Huntrix is framed as a cultural representative through the use of Korean folklore imagery, like the gat and the tiger.

As “cultural diplomats” both on and off the screen, Huntrix carry not only entertainment value but also the symbolic labour of representing a nation to a global audience.

By embedding this lineage into a mainstream animated film, KPop Demon Hunters acknowledges that KPop’s global success rests on decades of women’s labour, sacrifice and negotiation with western power structures.

Beyond soft power

The film’s success arrives amid the continued expansion of the Korean Wave across global media.

South Korean cinema and television have already reshaped international perceptions through landmark works such as Parasite and globally streamed series like Squid Game. Netflix has publicly committed hundreds of millions of dollars to Korean content, signalling that this cultural shift is structural rather than fleeting.

KPop Demon Hunters demonstrates how Korean popular culture now moves fluidly across media forms — music, animation, film and streaming — while retaining cultural specificity. Its reception challenges the persistent assumption that stories rooted in Asian experiences lack universal resonance.

Recognition alone does not erase inequality, nor does it dismantle the racialized hierarchies built into global media industries either. But sustained visibility can matter. Studies suggest that repeated exposure to multidimensional, humanized portrayals of marginalized groups helps reduce racial bias by normalizing difference rather than exoticizing it.

Holding the sword and the microphone

While the film grows out of cultural histories shaped by U.S. military presence and Cold War politics, it reshapes those influences through diasporic storytelling that centres Korean voices and perspectives.

The magpie’s promise has finally been kept. Korean characters are no longer merely “pleasant guests” or supporting figures in someone else’s narrative. They are protagonists — holding the sword, the microphone and perhaps, one day, an Oscar.

Recently, I found myself rewatching KPop Demon Hunters while eating kimbap and instant noodles, the same comfort foods the characters share on screen. The moment felt small, but meaningful.

It reminded me of something one of my students once said: seeing this level of representation allows those who have long felt wounded by exclusion to finally feel seen.

Hyounjeong Yoo 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. With ‘KPop Demon Hunters,’ Korean women hold the sword, the microphone — and possibly an Oscar – https://theconversation.com/with-kpop-demon-hunters-korean-women-hold-the-sword-the-microphone-and-possibly-an-oscar-273443

January 25, 2026

#GoodVibesOnly: The shared emotions we don’t quite name

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Lei Yu, PhD Candidate in Comparative Literature, Western University

Our contemporary lives are saturated with vibes. You buy an ambient lamp to set a vibe, scroll through shopping sites selling “Tuscan vibes” or walk into a room and instantly sense this party has a buzzing vibe.

Yet when someone asks where the vibe comes from, the answer gets slippery. Is it in the light? Not quite. The light blends into the room, mixing with voices, colours and furniture. It’s not just one thing. Vibe is elusive. It spreads, permeates and connects. It’s in the relationship between things — how people, sounds and materials work together to create a shared feeling.

This is where literary and philosophical thinkers come in. For decades, they’ve explored such elusive sensations — the collective moods that organize everyday life even when we can’t quite name them.

Thinking seriously about vibe reveals something crucial: feeling is a shared form of knowledge shaped by environments — a human experience that may matter more as technology advances.

Long before vibes had a name

The word itself is quite recent. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, vibe appeared in the 1960s as U.S. slang shortened from vibration as a way of describing the emotional charge a person or place gives off.

To say something “has a vibe” is to say your body has vibrated to it in a particular way. It’s not just a thought but a physical adjustment: the space, sound or presence around you has moved you, subtly shifting how you feel.

Philosophers, of course, have long been interested in this same experience, though they called it by a different name. Long before vibe entered everyday speech, thinkers used words like atmosphere or ambience to describe the shared feeling that fills a space and shapes our response to it.

Vibe, in this sense, updates an old philosophical question: how does the world around us make itself felt, not just known?

One of the first modern critics to take this question seriously was Welsh cultural theorist Raymond Williams, who coined the phrase “structure of feeling” in 1954. Williams argued that every historical moment has its own emotional texture; the felt sense of what it’s like to live in that time.

It isn’t a single mood but the background hum of experience that connects people before they can describe it. Think of the buoyant optimism of the 1950s or the political turmoil of the 1960s, similar to what we’re experiencing now. We can sense the mood immediately.

For Williams, this “structure of feeling” made art and culture matter. They recorded not just what people thought but what life felt like.

The business of engineered feeling

A few decades later, German philosopher Gernot Böhme gave this idea a physical body. In The Aesthetics of Atmospheres, he argued that atmosphere is something we encounter, not imagine.

Walk into a cathedral, a café or a store, and the air itself feels different. Your senses are triggered and combine to shape how you experience the ambience. Atmosphere, as Böhme sees it, exists in the space between object and subject, sound and listener, light and body.

Companies and marketers understand this better than anyone. They don’t simply sell objects, they sell worlds of feeling.

Step into a boutique and you’re greeted not by bright displays but by a carefully tuned vibe. The air swirls with fragrance as a salesperson asks if you’d like to sample one. By answering, you fall into the illusion that the perfume alone produces your feeling, when in fact it’s the entire composition — soft jazz, the scent of citrus wood — that moves you.

We are enveloped in these designed environments, and we know that the same scent wouldn’t move us the same way elsewhere.

Brands no longer sell perfume or soap so much as an atmosphere of belonging. They offer a shared world we learn to recognize and desire through our senses. This commercial atmosphere reminds us that our emotional lives are increasingly shaped by design.

Why sensing atmosphere remains human

As artificial intelligence grows ever more capable of performing the tasks we once called creative — writing, composing, painting — it also changes how we think about perception itself.

If machines can analyze patterns and generate words or images, what remains distinctly human may not be our ability to produce things but to feel them. Catching the tone of a voice, noticing how light shifts across a face or sensing the vibe of a room are forms of knowledge no algorithm yet replicates.

That doesn’t mean AI and feeling must be opposites. As we outsource more of our labour to artificial systems, the art of cultivating and interpreting atmosphere may become even more essential.

Learning to name a mood, to notice how spaces and technologies shape emotion, could be one way we stay alert to what connects us as human beings. If AI teaches us efficiency, vibe-thinking teaches us sensitivity. It reminds us that meaning doesn’t live only in data or design but in the air between us — the moods we co-create, the atmospheres we learn to share, the vibe.

Lei Yu 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. #GoodVibesOnly: The shared emotions we don’t quite name – https://theconversation.com/goodvibesonly-the-shared-emotions-we-dont-quite-name-269996

January 25, 2026

Global demand for shea butter is growing: but it’s not all good news for the women who collect the nuts

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Francois Questiaux, Researcher, Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen

Shea butter has become a highly sought-after ingredient in cosmetics and food manufacturing worldwide. Since the early 2000s its use as a substitute for cocoa butter has driven a dramatic rise in international demand. The shea butter industry has grown by more than 600% over the last 20 years.

The shea tree is semi-domesticated across the dry savannah region in a “shea belt” west to east from Senegal to South Sudan, and about 500km north to south. It is not planted but protected within farmland and also found in communal bushland.

An estimated 16 million women collect and process shea fruits in rural west Africa, turning them into dry kernels for sale or processing the kernels into shea butter.

Global companies, development agencies and NGOs frequently present the shea industry as a pathway to women’s economic empowerment in the region.

To explore this idea, we conducted research into how the rise in demand for shea butter has affected women collectors in Burkina Faso and Ghana. These two countries are among the lead exporters of dry shea kernels.

The study formed part of our work on agrarian change, political ecology and livelihoods. We study relationships between producers and other actors of global value chains, as well as the impacts of externally induced changes on smallholders.

We combined data from a survey of 1,046 collectors in 24 communities with data from interviews with 18 collectors.

Our results show that the shea boom has intensified competition for access to trees. Over 85% of collectors surveyed reported an increase in the number of shea nut collectors in their community over the past 10 years. We also documented how access to shea trees was becoming more restricted, especially for women who rely most heavily on shea for their livelihoods.

Our results point to widening inequality within the collector population, even as the overall value of the shea sector grows.

Global demand meets local tenure systems

Historically, access to nuts was governed by a combination of customary rules and social norms. Women could usually collect freely on communal land, and also on farmland belonging to their households or relatives. Shea was often treated as a semi–open-access resource, available to women of the community according to need.

This system has come under pressure.

Firstly, as prices have increased over the last three decades, so have the number of people collecting.

Secondly, the common land is shrinking. Expansion and mechanisation of agriculture, population growth and peri-urban development have reduced the areas that once served as shared collection spaces.

Several collectors we interviewed noted that land previously considered “bush” had been converted into fields, removing an important safety net for those without farmland.

As a result, access to shea trees is increasingly tied to access to private land. Over 55% of our survey respondents reported that collection on private fields had become more restricted, with landowners enforcing boundaries more tightly. This shift reflects a broader tendency in both countries for land rights to become more individualised as resources acquire market value.

Third, resource pressure has introduced new forms of conflict, like trespassing on land. Conflicts reinforce exclusion, as landowners become more reluctant to allow non-family members onto their fields.

Unequal effects across collector groups

Our research distinguishes three types of collectors:

dedicated collectors, who derive all of their annual income from collecting and selling shea nuts
diversified collectors, who combine shea collection with farming or other activities
collector–traders, who not only collect nuts but also purchase them from others to sell at higher prices later in the year.

These groups experience the shea boom in different ways.

Dedicated collectors have the most limited access to private land. Only 16% of them collect from their own fields, compared to 38%-43% among the other groups. They depend on the communal bush.

Diversified collectors have better access to private fields than dedicated collectors, but still face similar challenges as bush areas shrink. And they have less time to spend collecting, limiting their ability to compensate for increasing competition.

Collector-traders maintain more secure access to private fields and receive more assistance from household members. Over half report receiving help from men, such as transporting nuts or protecting fields from trespassers. This is significantly more than dedicated or diversified collectors. The additional labour gives them a strategic advantage.

More work, but not more income

Rising prices might suggest that women would earn more from shea today than a decade ago. Yet this is not what most collectors experience. Only 48.7% reported an increase in shea income over the past 10 years, despite the international boom.

Total annual income from shea remains very low – on average only US$174 (purchasing power parity) per year, with differences between collectors.

For poorer collectors, several factors suppress income gains:

limited access to shea trees constrains the volume of nuts they can gather
many have to sell nuts early in the season, often at low prices, to meet immediate cash needs. Better-off collector-traders can purchase nuts cheaply, store them, and profit from higher prices later in the year.

Rethinking the ‘win-win’ narrative

The findings challenge the claim that integrating women into the global shea value chain will empower them and reduce poverty. The boom has indeed created new economic opportunities, but these are unevenly distributed. Market expansion has strengthened the position of those with greater land access and financial capital. At the same time it’s undermined the livelihoods of those who rely exclusively on the resource.

Our study does not prescribe specific policy measures, but its findings point to several possible avenues for intervention.

First, measures that strengthen women’s land and tree rights are likely to be critical. Recent work on peri-urban Ghana, for example, calls for wider rights to land and shea trees for women in policy and tenure reforms.

Second, empirical studies of female shea actors in Ghana suggest that collective organisation, better access to finance and improved infrastructure (notably storage facilities) can enhance women’s position.

Finally, evidence from northern Ghana indicates that women themselves recommend changes in farming practices to sustain the resource base.

Francois Questiaux is a Postdoc at the University of Copenhagen.
This project was funded by a grant from the Danish Independent Research Fund (Obstacles, Grant 2102-00030B) and a grant from the Innovation Fund Denmark (Sheaine, Grant 9067-00030B)

Marieve Pouliot is an Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen. This project was funded by a grant from the Danish Independent Research Fund (Obstacles, Grant 2102-00030B) and a grant from the Innovation Fund Denmark (Sheaine, Grant 9067-00030B).

– ref. Global demand for shea butter is growing: but it’s not all good news for the women who collect the nuts – https://theconversation.com/global-demand-for-shea-butter-is-growing-but-its-not-all-good-news-for-the-women-who-collect-the-nuts-273242

January 25, 2026

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland: the strategic calculations at play

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Federico Donelli, Associate Professor of International Relations, University of Trieste

Somaliland is not internationally recognised as a sovereign state, though it declared independence from Somalia in 1991. A territory becomes a sovereign state when its independence is recognised by the United Nations. For this reason, it has no seat at the UN and is considered, under international law, part of Somalia.

Nevertheless, Somaliland holds elections and maintains relative internal stability. It is also attracting increasing informal diplomatic engagement – though not formal recognition – from Ethiopia, the United States and, most recently, Israel.

This growing interest highlights a geopolitical paradox. An unrecognised polity has become strategically relevant in the Red Sea region, along the Gulf of Aden at the Horn of Africa. This is a key corridor linking the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Indian Ocean.

On 26 December 2025, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel’s recognition of Somaliland as a sovereign state. This made Israel the first UN member to do so. While the concrete effects of the decision remain uncertain, Israel’s move fits into a broader strategy to strengthen its presence in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea region.

Of all the African states, landlocked Ethiopia has come closest to formally recognising Somaliland, driven by its wish to get direct access to the Red Sea via the port of Berbera. This has become more urgent amid regional competition and instability.

US officials have defended Israel’s right to recognise Somaliland, but the US itself hasn’t done so despite speculation that it might.

I have studied the political dynamics in the Horn of Africa and recently published a book on the competing interests in the Red Sea. For me, this latest development raises two key questions: what is Somaliland’s strategic importance and why the growing interest now?

In short, Somaliland is important because it is located on one of the world’s most critical maritime routes. Current regional instability has increased the importance of partners that can provide security, access and political stability, even without formal recognition.

Israel’s strategic calculation

Israel has framed its recognition of Somaliland primarily in terms of regional security and strategic stability. It has cited the need to safeguard maritime routes in the Red Sea and counter growing threats in the Horn of Africa.

Beyond these stated reasons, however, Israel is motivated by national security considerations. Following the 7 October 2023 attacks and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, the importance of existing strategic priorities in the Red Sea region has increased.

Somaliland’s location on the Gulf of Aden puts the territory – and any external actors with a presence there – in a position to monitor some of the world’s most important maritime and undersea communication routes.

Of particular concern to Israel is the threat posed by Iran-aligned actors, such as Houthi fighters in nearby Yemen. Engaging with Somaliland provides strategic depth and the potential for an early warning system.

Iran has capacity to exert indirect influence through proxy forces that target maritime routes and regional security.

Attacks on shipping by Houthi missiles and drones launched from Yemen take place just a short distance from Somaliland.

Establishing a presence in Somaliland, or simply relying on it as a partner, would enhance Israel’s ability to monitor Houthi activities and counter threats to maritime traffic.

An increased presence also provides a counterweight to the growing influence of Saudi Arabia and Turkey through diplomatic, economic and – in Turkey’s case – military engagement across the region.

Israel and the UAE both view Somaliland as a relatively non-aligned actor capable of reducing Turkish and Saudi influence in the Horn of Africa.

For Israel, engaging with Somaliland is a calculated risk, based on the belief that the strategic benefits outweigh the diplomatic and political risks.

Ethiopia: the vital need for sea access

Ethiopia is another catalyst of Somaliland’s growing importance. Eritrea’s secession in 1993 made Ethiopia a landlocked country. At present it relies heavily on Djibouti for sea access.

The Red Sea region

The port of Berbera in Somaliland offers Ethiopia politically stable and geographically convenient access. This explains Ethiopia’s interest in signing a memorandum of understanding with the breakaway state in January 2024. Although the agreement has not been widely implemented, it has drawn international attention back to Hargeisa’s claims.

Ethiopia’s cautious approach has aimed at avoiding further regional tensions.

Domestic political factors also influence its tepid response. The country is dealing with several potentially secessionist insurgencies within its borders. There could be consequences for supporting a secessionist movement.

An additional factor is Ethiopia’s close political and economic relations with China and Turkey, which both strongly support Somali territorial integrity.

It is this combination of regional ambition and domestic constraint that explains Addis Ababa’s cautious response to Israel’s announcement.

The United States: balancing realism and norms

Washington officially continues to support Somalia’s territorial integrity, largely due to its counter-terrorism cooperation with the federal government in Mogadishu.

However, Israel’s recognition of Somaliland has reignited debate within US strategic and policy circles. Some favour Somaliland’s recognition. They point to US security interests and global trade.

There is growing openness to engaging with Somaliland incrementally, stopping short of fully breaking diplomatic ties with Mogadishu.

Much of the US debate focuses on recognition itself, but this risks missing the more consequential issue: the precedent Somaliland could set.

Not all that glitters is gold

The typical portrayal of Somalia as a failed state and Somaliland as a democratic oasis is simplistic.

Unlike many secessionist movements, Somaliland is not a newly formed political entity. Consequently, beneath its apparent internal cohesion lie deep and persistent fault lines. Hargeisa does not control all the territory it claims. The eastern regions have never entirely accepted Somaliland’s authority.

This cleavage came to a head in violent clashes in Las Anod between 2022 and 2023. Local militias took control of the area, which now functions as a self-administered entity recognised as a federal state within Somalia.

Somaliland’s growing strategic relevance masks its unresolved internal divisions. It illustrates a broader trend in geopolitics now: stability and utility increasingly matter more than legal status alone.

For external actors, engagement with Somaliland may offer short-term gains in a volatile region. But without addressing its internal fractures and contested sovereignty, recognition risks creating new sources of instability rather than resolving old ones.

Federico Donelli is affiliated with the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI), and the Orion Policy Institute (OPI)

– ref. Israel’s recognition of Somaliland: the strategic calculations at play – https://theconversation.com/israels-recognition-of-somaliland-the-strategic-calculations-at-play-273817