Imagine that by releasing a single fly into the wild you could genetically alter all the flies on the planet. This is the terrifyingly powerful premise behind gene drives: a new and controversial genetic engineering technology that can permanently alter an entire species by releasing one bioengineered individual. Civil society groups are alarmed by this newfound ability to reshape the natural world.

Any international intervention has crucial limits: It can change the rules of the game, but it cannot empower local players. The articles collected in this issue of Perspectives Southeast Europe tell stories about the current challenges of international intervention in Albania,  Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia.

More and more individuals, communities, organisations and countries are considering climate litigation as 21 years of talks within UNFCCC have resulted in inadequate climate action. Climate litigation has seen tremendous progress worldwide as recent successful cases against different governments show. This report assesses current and pending climate litigation in the light of the Paris Agreement.

The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will hold its 13th Conference of the Parties (COP) in Mexico in December 2016. This briefing explains why synthetic biology is threatening all objectives of the CBD unless the parties act on five key issues.

As a country very vulnerable to climate change impacts, Morocco, the host of COP22, has very high climate ambitions and has taken on a global leadership role in committing to a renewable energy future. This study explores what role climate finance has played to allow Morocco to act as a trendsetter and how its climate finance governance can be further improved.

In Paris in 2015 governments agreed to keep global warming to well below 2 degrees. The mainstream pathways pin theirhopes to risky and costly technologies. In this joint publication, together with Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND) and Misereor, we present alternatives that are possible and necessary for a change of course.

This DPC paper by Bodo Weber critically deals with the policy European States pursued around the 'refugee crisis'. Furthermore, it gives recommendations for political institutions how to deal with the current situation and how to overcome the crisis of the EU.

The annual report 2015 of the Heinrich Böll Foundation offers an overview about the work in that year of the 31 international offices worldwide and 16 state-level Böll Foundations in Germany.

While the privileged few may cross legitimately by simply presenting their passport, for most, borders present difficult if not insurmountable hurdles. Furthermore there are plenty of other lines of division: social, ethnic, religious and ideological. Any border is a painful memory of the fact that it is not an individual’s choice to define which side he or she is on.

Across the world, activists, social movements and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are facing verbal hostility from politicians, new laws and regulations that curtail their ability to operate, and outright violence. Africa is no exception.