The main activity of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is to publish regular reports on the state of knowledge about climate change.

The United Nations Mission to Investigate Allegations of the Use of Chemical Weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic submitted an investigative report to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday, September 15, 2013. This "Report on the Alleged Use of Chemical Weapons in the Ghouta Area of Damascus on 21 August 2013" concludes that "chemical weapons were used on a relatively large scale, resulting in numerous casualties, particularly among civilians and including many children."

On the margins of the G20 meeting in St. Petersburg, September 5-6, 2013, leaders from Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States of America released a joint statement condemning the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

The leaders of the G20 met in St. Petersburg September 5-6, 2013, to discuss the global economic development and regulation, energy policy, climate change initiatives, and corruption.

The African Union has achieved some peacekeeping successes but needs to improve coordination with the UN to strengthen African security, writes expert Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari.

"Those looking to the international community to deal with the world's problems will be disappointed," writes Richard N. Haass.

Joshua Kulantzick surveys the state of global trade in the midst of this week's G8 talks.

Trade liberalization, tax reform, and transparency in corporate ownership and international development are at the top of the G8 agenda, but they may be overshadowed by the civil war in Syria. This issue guide compiles news and analysis on policies on the table and member state's compliance with past years' commitments.

After over three decades of existence, the Group of Eight (G8) is struggling to defend its relevance amid criticism of its limited membership and lack of a compliance mechanism.

With widespread protests in Istanbul and a dozen other cities throughout Turkey, Steven A. Cook argues on the Washington Post that the European Union should reengage Turkey's stalled membership bid as a way to encourage Prime Minister Erdogan to implement democratic reforms at home.

Despite its strategic "rebalancing" toward Asia, the United States is unlikely to sponsor a collective defense organization for the Asia-Pacific, for at least three reasons: insufficient solidarity among diverse regional partners, fear of alienating China, and the perceived advantages of bilateral and ad-hoc security arrangements.

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U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel delivered these remarks at the First Plenary Session (Saturday, June 1, 2013) of the International Institute for Strategic Studies' Asia Security Summit (Shangri-la Dialogue) in Singapore.

Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, commends the work of the World Health Assembly in closing remarks at the Sixty-sixth World Health Assembly in Geneva Switzerland, May 27, 2013.

Laurie Garrett and Maxine Builder offer three recommendations for how the World Health Organization can adapt to an uncertain economic and political environment, without putting the world at risk of a disease outbreak.

The League of Nations was championed by President Woodrow Wilson in a fourteen-point speech to a joint session of Congress on January 8, 1918, and formally began its operations in January 1920. However, the League failed to win Senate approval and is forever remembered as a major example of a communications breakdown between the president and the Senate.

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Stewart Patrick and Alexandra Kerr make recommendations to improve the counterterrorism efforts of the United States and its allies, in conjunction with CFR's Global Governance Report Card, published by the International Institutions and Global Governance program.

The UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) was passed on March 28, 2013, and seeks to regulate and limit trade in arms in circumstances of human rights violations. Unfortunately, it will have minimal effect on the Syrian conflict. Syria's own vote against the treaty, along with Iran's and North Korea's, sounded the death knell for a universally applicable treaty to limit small arms, ammunition, and conventional weapons technology.

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Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah gave this statement at the end of the twenty-second Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit, on April 24 to 25, 2013. The theme of the conference was "Our People, Our Future Together."

The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, are five nuclear-weapon states that have signed the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). As the P5, they meet regularly to work toward nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.

Helen Clark discusses the 2013 Human Development Report, The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World. The report identifies more than forty developing countries that have done better than expected in human development in recent decades, with their progress accelerating markedly over the past ten years.