The United Nations Treaties

DataForGood season #1

27 nov. 2018

Anastasiia Filchenko

Dirk Hesse

Geir Arne Hjelle

John Melin

Kleng Bråtveit

Patrick Merlot

"The United Nations (UN) is
the closest thing we have to
a world government"

  • founded on a legal document (The UN Charter),
  • a Court to resolve disputes between members,
  • a Parliament of states (the General Assembly),
  • and crucially, it can authorize collective enforcement of its will (via the Security Council)

Our international law are
based on UN Treaties & Custom

In Donald Trump vs International Law, Who is Winning?
http://www.globaldispatchespodcast.com/in-donald-trump-v-international-law-who-is-winning/

 

Our
Mission

Remind country leaders about the treaties & push them
to ratify more of them

By ratifying the Paris Agreement this weekend, the United States and China, the world's two largest carbon emitters, brought the treaty a lot closer to becoming enforceable international law. (Sept, 7th 2016)

By ratifying the Paris Agreement, the United States and China, the world's two largest carbon emitters, brought the treaty a lot closer to becoming enforceable international law.
(Sept, 7th 2016)

Bring attention to the treaties:

  • with impactful visualizations,
  • using social media.

World Resources Institute (WRI) - Jan. 2018
https://twitter.com/WorldResources/status/951099450793000961

Our Goal

World Resources Institute (WRI) - Jan. 2018
https://twitter.com/WorldResources/status/951099450793000961

Our Goal

Bring attention to the treaties:

  • with impactful visualizations,
  • using social media.

World Resources Institute (WRI) - Jan. 2018
https://twitter.com/WorldResources/status/951099450793000961

Our Goal

Bring attention to the treaties:

  • with impactful visualizations,
  • using social media.

https://treaties.un.org

UN Treaty on the
High Seas

Law of the Sea

https://treaties.un.org

UN Treaty on the
High Seas

Convention on the High Seas

Convention on Fishing and Conservation of the Living Resources of the High Seas

https://treaties.un.org

UN Treaty on the
High Seas

Where is

Norway?

Convention on the High Seas

UN Treaty on the
High Seas

Where is

Norway

again?

Convention on Fishing & Conservation of the Living Resources of the High Seas

https://treaties.un.org

Our Goals for 2018

  • Make information about the UN Treaties more accessible to people
     
  • Incentivize people in power to sign/follow up on treaties

 

Goals 2018

  • Make information about the UN Treaties more accessible to people
  • Incentivize people in power to sign/follow up on treaties

 

Build Google Search for the UN treaties

Goals 2018

  • Make information about the UN Treaties more accessible to people
  • Incentivize people in power to sign/follow up on treaties

 

  • Simplify legal jargon
  • use NLP to generate text summaries

Goals 2018

  • Make information about the UN Treaties more accessible to people
  • Incentivize people in power to sign/follow up on treaties

 

XKCD style to explain:
legal processes, historical context of a treaty, FAQ!

Goals 2018

Interactive & pedagogical visualizations

Costa Rica and Mexico win the World Cup for Disarmament

https://aoav.org.uk/2014/world-cup-for-disarmament-2014/

Goals 2018

  • Make information about the UN Treaties more accessible to people
  • Incentivize people in power to sign/follow up on treaties

 

Play Ego Games

a leaderboard for our leaders who signed/ratified the most

Goals 2018

  • Make information about the UN Treaties more accessible to people
  • Incentivize people in power to sign/follow up on treaties

 

Financial Times

https://www.ft.com/content/f1435a8e-372b-11e7-bce4-9023f8c0fd2e

Event-based reminder of a treaty's status on social media

Goals 2018

  • Make information about the UN Treaties more accessible to people
  • Incentivize people in power to sign/follow up on treaties

 

70 Ways the UN Makes A Difference https://www.un.org/un70/en/content/70ways

Incentives by examples

Map the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to the treaties

Our work this season

pip install un-treaties

Mostly done parsing https://treaties.un.org

https://pypi.org/project/un-treaties/

Our work this season

Empty API for non-python developers

un-treaties.herokuapp.com/

What's next?

  • build visualizations
    (leaderboard, pedagogical graphs)
  • build a Twitter bot to remind about un-ratified
  • call cartoonists for help
  • build tools to help monitor violations of UN treaties

The Team

John

Anastasiia

Dirk

Geir Arne

Patrick

Kleng