This month, our Americas and European teams present perspectives on the 2023 Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, set for July 1 - December 31.
Mathilde Defarges discussed European progress on sustainability in a panel discussion hosted by ESG & CSR Board, which focuses on aiding corporations in their journey to socially responsibility and environmental sustainability.
As industry observers prepare for new U.S. regulations on ESG reporting, Europe is already several years ahead with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the draft Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDD) creating significant challenges for companies doing business on the European continent.
A Look Ahead to the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election
With the 2024 U.S. presidential election race taking shape, political strategist Doug Sosnik has released a new memo analyzing key factors in the race. Sosnik argues that traditional indicators such as presidential job approval, national polls and "right track/wrong track" numbers no longer have the predictive power that they once did.
Instead, he posits the importance of eight key swing states whose populations skew in the middle — "neither extremely high nor extremely low"— on specific factors such as educational attainment and the unique makeup of their electorate.
Marine Conservation Through Synthetic Drug Development
Blue Star Strategies is proud to support the Horseshoe Crab Recovery Coalition, which is urging U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) to standardize as "compendial" the use of a synthetic alternative to horseshoe crab blood in bacterial endotoxin testing called "recombinant Factor C (rFC)". Synthetic alternatives to horseshoe crab blood have existed for years, and rFC is now widely used and approved as compendial by pharmacopeia outside of the U.S., including in Europe and China, with Japan likely to follow soon.
Since the 1970s, horseshoe crab bloodhas been used to test new vaccines and medical devices for contamination, keeping countless people safe from dangerous, even deadly, infections. As a result, horseshoe crabs and the endangered bird species that depend on them are in a crisis for their survival due to the crabs' over-harvesting for bait and biomedical bleeding, putting their wider ecosystem at risk.
The horseshoe crab is a keystone species and is one of the oldest living species on Earth, with fossils dating back 400 million years before the arrival of dinosaurs or flowering plants. It has survived
through five of Earth's extinction events, where 75-90% of species disappeared.
The U.S. coalition's diverse members include animal and environment rights groups led by New Jersey Audubon, together with industry leaders such as bioMerieux (a global manufacturer of rFC) and Eli Lilly, an early champion of rFC.
We are excited to welcome two new team members, Erin McCoy, Senior Associate in our Washington, DC office, and Marie-Sixte Imbert, Consultant in our Paris office.
Marie-Sixte joins the firm with more than 10 years of experience in public affairs, including at the Parliament of France with the head of the European Affairs Committee and at the Open Diplomacy Institute, a French non-profit organization that promotes understanding of international relations for graduate students. She also hosts a weekly radio show on Euradio devoted to Franco-German relations🇫🇷
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Erin joins the firm after receiving her Master’s in International Relations and Economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where she focused on Security, Strategy, and Statecraft in South Asia. While in graduate school, Erin consulted to the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, where she conducted field research in Sri Lanka on artificial intelligence and women’s economic participation in the region.
Welcome aboard!
Summer Intern Awarded Prestigious Scholarship
The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) has selected our summer intern, Ignacio Albe from Argentina as a Herbert Roback Scholar, an annual distinction awarded to only two students from among top U.S. public policy and foreign affairs graduate schools.
Ignacio is currently a master’s student at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service.
USGLC's mission is to strengthen U.S. strategic investments in America's civilian-led tools — development and diplomacy — alongside defense.
"By advocating for a strong International Affairs Budget, the USGLC is working to make America’s international affairs programs a keystone of U.S. foreign policy."
- USGLC
Congratulations Jeremiah!
Thank you for reading this month’s #BlueStarBrief.
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