Abstract
We need to hope that advent of the year 2025 would herald the world into an era of compassion and hope for the humanity and its only abode – planet Earth. The UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution 79 (270) of March 04, 2025 has emphasized on ‘the relevance of hope and well-being as universal goals and aspirations in the lives of human beings around the world and the importance of their recognition in public policy objectives’. It has affixed July 12 as the International Day of Hope. This resolution builds upon the previous UNGA resolution 73/329 of 25 July 2019 entitled: ‘Promoting the Culture of Peace with Love and Conscience’.
The above emphatic acknowledgement and recognition, in a multilateral forum of the United Nations, as regards love, conscience, compassion, culture of peace and hope for the humankind shows our quest for holding on to these eternal human values at a difficult time of the planetary level crisis. Notwithstanding how nations behave through acts of omission and commission and posturing of the high-level UN representatives and their political leaders in power, especially reflected in voting and speeches in the UN organs, at the end of the day grappling with issues of contemporary concern would require a well calibrated nudge to the in-built human urge for love, empathy and conscience premised on the bedrock of hope for our common future. It is significant that January 24, 2025 report of one of the ‘specialized agencies’ of the UN, the World Health Organization, has been aptly titled with the word ‘compassion’ that is ‘wired in the human brain’ and arises from the universal experience of ‘shared humanity’. In the wake of making multilateralism work in this Digital Age, through the instrumentality of global conferencing technique, as witnessed in 2024 (Summit of the Future (September 22–23), 2023 (2023 Sustainable Development Goals; and 2022 (2022 Stockholm+50) would still require holding on to the conscience of the humanity. In order to give effect to the Pact for the Future (UNGA resolution 79/1 of September 22, 2024) in letter and the spirit, the outcome document of the 2024 Summit of the Future, calls for walking-the-talk by appealing to the vibrations of the heart as referred to in the UNGA resolution of March 04, 2025 (79/270).
It is in the above context that the EPL Special Issue Volume 54 (2024) on the Planetary Future audaciously sought to cover a wide canvass of issues of planetary concerns through contributions of 20 global thought leaders from around the world. They were published in equal numbers both prior [EPL Issues 54 (2–3)] to the 2024 Summit of the Future and after it [EPL Issues 54 (4–6)]. Apart from it, this first issue of the EPL Volume 55 (2025) comprises one more article (Cecilia Silberberg) on the Planetary Future for Antarctic governance in the context of scholarly proposal for ‘repurpose’ [EPL 52 (3–4) 2022, 223–235] of the UN Trusteeship Council (UNTC) for the global commons as well as reflection of the UNTC ‘repurpose’ in the 2021 Our Common Agenda (page 77) report of the UN Secretary-General. This article has sought to evaluate the Antarctic Treaty System's effectiveness in ensuring stability, scientific collaboration, and environmental protection, offering policy recommendations to strengthen Antarctic governance. It assumes significance in the aftermath of the 2024 Pact for the Future. Moreover, this first issue also contains articles on interpretation of the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention in the context of climate change (Leon Karbic Warren) and reflections on environmental impact assessment as customary International Law in ASEAN region (Pangfoo Pimonkorn). They highlight issues of global sectoral concern as well as of regional governance.
With this issue of 2025, the EPL ushers into its own new era of hope and governance with Sage Publications taking over IOS Press. The Editor-in-Chief hopes that all the arduous efforts made in the last five years by placing the EPL in the forefront in the field and contribution to the global knowledge pool would get a big fillip through a larger and more resourceful global network of Sage Journals.