Today’s economic and political climate presents the BRICS countries with a number of challenges and opportunities – from internal cooperation, to BRICS Pay, to navigating relations with the US. Considering the issues in this Global Insight podcast are:

After over 20 weeks of hearings, the High Court in London recently ruled that the UK government acted lawfully in continuing to supply F-35 jet parts to Israel through a global pool. While acknowledging the parts could be used in ways that breach international humanitarian law, the judges said the issue is one for the executive, ‘not for the courts’.

The case, brought by Palestinian NGO Al-Haq, challenged the UK’s decision to exempt the parts when it suspended 30 arms export licences to Israel in September. Though dismissed, the case has spotlighted UK arms exports and the government's assessment of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

In this Global Insight podcast, IBA Multimedia Journalist Alice Johnson speaks to Jennine Walker, senior lawyer at Global Legal Action Network and part of the team who represented Al-Haq in the case, and Sara Elizabeth Dill, an international human rights lawyer and officer of the IBA’s War Crimes Committee.

Additional comment comes from David Lammy MP, UK Foreign Secretary, at a Foreign Affairs Committee meeting.

Digital assets such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs emerged as disruptors, designed to challenge traditional financial systems and sidestep conventional regulation. But, as these technologies have developed, so too have legal frameworks. At the end of 2024, MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation) entered into force in the EU, and the US House of Representatives is set to consider three crypto-related bills in summer 2025, including the GENIUS Act, which seeks to establish the first comprehensive federal framework for the issuance, regulation and oversight of payment stablecoins in the United States.

In this Global Insight podcast, four experts — who spoke at the IBA’s Annual Conference in Mexico — explore the effect regulation can have on digital assets:

From enormous political donations and influence on US government policy to dominance in shaping narratives on social media,  Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has been the most prominent of a number of billionaires and companies impacting the course of democracy and the rule of law.

In this podcast, Mark Stephens CBE, Co-Chair of the IBA’s Human Rights Institute, George Havenhand, Senior Legal Researcher at Spotlight on Corruption, and Courtney Radsch, Director at the Centre for Journalism and Liberty, discuss the issues and what needs to be done to safeguard against undue influence.

Laws around beneficial ownership – identifying the ultimate owners of corporate entities - are intended to be a tool to provide transparency and to combat corruption, terrorist financing and other human rights abuses. However, such legislation and related proposals have been criticised by some as disproportionate and sometimes contradictory to other rights. Meanwhile, legal professionals must increasingly navigate growing due diligence and reporting requirements and regulatory scrutiny in this area. 

In this podcast, compiled from a session at the IBA’s Annual Conference, our speakers consider the issues:

Radical changes in US policy under the presidency of Donald Trump, from foreign aid to global trade and beyond, are having a profound impact on the rest of the world. This Global Insight podcast explores the implications for the rule of law, international relations and global security.

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The Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in 2021 after the sudden withdrawal of Western forces, implementing an interpretation of strict Sharia law that has especially affected women and girls.

Since then, international relations have worsened. In early 2025, the ICC sought arrest warrants for Taliban leaders over gender-based persecution, prompting Afghanistan to withdraw from the court, condemning the action as baseless and politically motivated. Meanwhile, efforts are underway to bring a case to the International Court of Justice over alleged violations of a UN anti-discrimination treaty. A Taliban spokesperson has stated that the Taliban respect women’s rights in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic law and local customs.

In this Global Insight podcast, our speakers consider the situation in Afghanistan, described by some as ‘gender apartheid’.

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The need for financial assistance for developing nations to address the effects of the climate crisis and to transition to low-carbon economies continues to grow. But the specifics on how much and how to implement this have been the subject of intense negotiation.

At the 29th UN Climate Change Conference (COP29), what’s known as the New Collective Quantified Goal was agreed on after negotiators agreed to raise $300 billion a year in climate finance – triple the original $100 billion target – by 2035. However, this figure doesn’t account for inflation, and some feel it still falls short of what is needed to tackle the severity of the crisis.  

Podcast speakers:

The EU’s AI Act came into force in 2024 and will regulate Artificial Intelligence systems in the European Union based on which ‘risk category’ they fit into. Its provisions will mostly become applicable over the next two years.

The Act is far from the only piece of legislation or agreement covering AI in the EU, with others including the updated Product Liability Directive, a proposed AI Liability Directive and the Council of Europe Framework on Artificial Intelligence.

In this Global Insight podcast, we consider the significance of the developments with:

In April 2024, a group of older Swiss women successfully argued before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) that the Swiss government was failing to take sufficient action on climate change, violating their human rights as a disproportionately affected group under the European Convention on Human Rights. However, the Swiss parliament rejected the judgment in Klimaseniorinnen v Switzerland, claiming the ECtHR had overstepped its legal boundaries and engaged in ‘inappropriate judicial activism’, a stance later supported by the Swiss Federal Council, the country’s highest executive authority.

Switzerland has since presented a National Action Report on climate instead, which critics argue will not adequately implement the Court’s judgment.

This podcast explores the impact and fallout of the case.

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