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States "Need to Cooperate" on Global Crises & Conflicts

Spencer Platt
/
Getty Images
U.S. President Obama delivers remarks at the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters on September 28, 2015 in New York City.

Following last week’s address by Pope Francis, world leaders are gathering at the United Nations this week to go about the process of setting strategic goals for the coming fifteen years. 

The goal-setting comes at a time when world tensions are rising, thanks to ongoing refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe, and Russia’s recent efforts to exert its influence in eastern Europe. 

"There's this irony in which states are still flexing their sovereign muscles," says UN expert Thomas Weiss. "At the same time there are more and more life-threatening problems that require states to cooperate."

Tom Weiss is the Presidential Professor of Political Science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.  He was in Milwaukee last week to speak to the Rotary Club and at Marquette University.