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In this episode, Ken Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, interviews Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla on how much the Global South has influenced the world order and whether it can actually exert any pressure on the international stage.

Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla is the general coordinator for Progressive International, a think tank working to unite, organise and mobilise progressive forces around the world.

She’s also one of the founders and the executive secretary of the Hague Group, a coalition of nations from the Global South formed in January 2025 to uphold the rulings of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court regarding Israel-Palestine, and “stand together to defend the principles of justice, equality and human rights”.

Among the collective measures the group has taken is to close their ports to ships carrying weapons or fuel to Israel and commit to honour international arrest warrants.

Emily Feng is an award-winning Chinese American journalist who spent a decade reporting from China and Taiwan. In 2022, Feng was barred from returning to the Chinese mainland and labelled a “race traitor” for her journalism.

Her recent book, Let Only Red Flowers Bloom: Identity and Belonging in Xi Jinping’s China, tells the human stories of resistance and rebellion against the Chinese state’s vision of a unified national identity.

In this episode, Ken Roth and Emily Feng examine Xi Jinping’s past, exploring what distinguishes his style of authoritarianism and how this affects human rights both within China and globally.

In this episode of Reframe, Ken Roth and Silvia Fernandez discuss what international justice means today, exploring the significance of the ICC and asking if the “court of last resort” can withstand threats and sanctions by global superpowers and uphold the rule of law.

A longtime columnist for Foreign Policy and professor of international relations at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Stephen Walt is a sharp critic of how the United States has pursued its version of liberal democracy globally, which he calls liberal hegemony. His books include Taming American Power, The Hell of Good Intentions, and the New York Times bestseller The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.

In this episode of Reframe, Ken Roth and Stephen Walt discuss how President Donald Trump is undermining democratic norms and institutions within the US and worldwide, questioning whether his leadership has brought about an unprecedented shift in its global power.