GLOBAL OUTLOOK

The Human Rights Revolution

Has the Iraq war fatally undermined the concept of "humanitarian intervention" aimed at stopping human rights abuses? Have the trials of Slobodan Milosevic and Charles Taylor discredited international criminal tribunals? Is universal jurisdiction legal?

RECENT COMMENTARIES

FEATURED COMMENTARIES

Havel Lives

Karel Schwarzenberg, Desmond Tutu and Richard von Weizsäcker Series: Human Rights

2012-02-03

PRAGUE – The death of Václav Havel, the former president of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, has been marked with mourning around the world. For his friends, the loss is overwhelming, but we all take comfort from the fact that his courage and his ideas helped to change our world for the better, and are still continuing to do so.... read

Comments: 1 Recommended: 0 Read: 4442

Afghanistan’s Terrorized Women

Mohammed Musa Mahmodi Series: Human Rights

2012-01-24

Ten years after the end of Taliban leadership, Afghanistan's women live in an environment in which domestic violence, torture, and lack of freedom are the norm. Will the authorities educate the public and prosecute the perpetrators, or will Afghanistan continue to be a world leader in human-rights abuses and oppression of women?... read

Comments: 1 Recommended: 0 Read: 7267

Europe’s Squandered Minority

Zeljko Jovanovic Series: Human Rights

2011-12-30

In the midst of Europe's financial crisis, one group – the Roma – have been ignored. The status quo is damaging the lives of millions of Roma, but it is also hurting Europe, both morally and economically.... read

Comments: 2 Recommended: 1 Read: 9037

Legal Power to the People

Vivek Maru Series: Human Rights

2011-11-09

Organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International can use documentation and public advocacy to shame governments guilty of human-rights violations. But without a consistent system for citizens to protect their rights in daily life, naming and shaming alone will not address every breach of basic rights.... read

Comments: 1 Recommended: 1 Read: 8312

Afghanistan’s Suffering Civilians

Staffan de Mistura Series: Human Rights

2011-11-08

The Taliban and other insurgents are responsible for nearly 80% of civilian casualties in Afghanistan, so they bear the greatest responsibility to change their behavior. But, while errors by international and government forces are responsible for a far lower rate of civilian casualties, the impact on Afghan communities is no less severe.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 4424

Operation Actual Justice

Ruti Teitel Series: Human Rights

2011-11-01

US President Barack Obama has promised to send a group of 100 armed military personnel to Uganda – a high-powered posse to help bring to justice the notorious war criminal Joseph Kony, the leader of the brutal Lords Resistance Army. Coming so soon after the Libya intervention, does this herald a new global police role for the US?... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 1 Read: 7807

The Digital Trial

Richard K. Sherwin Series: Human Rights

2011-10-12

Less discussed than the suspect DNA evidence in the Amanda Knox case was whether a graphic digital animation also contributed to her original conviction. Indeed, the growing use of videos, simulations, and sophisticated graphics as a basis for legal judgments exposes the vicissitudes of justice in the digital age.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 5820

The Power to End Poverty

Ban Ki-moon Series: Human Rights

2011-10-03

This month, the Millennium Villages Project launches its second five-year stage. Around Africa, and now around the world, governments are scaling up the lessons from this project and others like it: empower communities, help them to invest in their futures using cutting-edge technologies, and thereby end extreme poverty.... read

Comments: 2 Recommended: 1 Read: 19028

Qaddafi’s Western Friends

Arnold Cassola Series: Human Rights

2011-09-08

With Muammar el-Qaddafi’s regime in ruins and Qaddafi himself on the run, it is time to ponder just how he survived in power for so long. Greed for markets and money, it seems, often trumped the West’s supposed concern for human rights.... read

Comments: 3 Recommended: 0 Read: 14488

All Man’s Land	Rakesh Mani
India imagines herself as a woman – Bharat Mata, or Mother India. But, unless far-reaching changes are made soon, a cultural preference for boys – and a widespread willingness to abort girls – could one day leave Mother India the only woman left in the country.... read

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Stick to the Resolution

Gareth Evans Series: Human Rights

2011-03-23

The international military intervention in Libya is not about bombing for democracy or for Muammar el-Qaddafi’s head – let alone keeping oil prices down or profits up. But many voices now capturing media attention are beginning to confuse the basic message of the UN Security Council's historic Resolution 1973.... read

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Guilty Democrats

Ma Jian Series: Human Rights

2010-01-25

The Chinese government's imprisonment of the writer Liu Xiaobo is a blatant attempt to criminalize democratic thought, and the real criminal in this case is, of course, the Chinese state. But the world’s democracies are guilty as well, for they appear to have lost their willingness to stand up for their beliefs.... read

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What’s Wrong with Ethnic Profiling?

James A. Goldston Series: Human Rights

2009-06-24

Following the terrorist attacks in the US in 2001, and in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, police across Europe began using ethnic stereotypes in deciding to stop, search, and detain people. Such practices express contempt for the values on which the EU is based, and a new study shows that they are also remarkably inefficient in addressing the threat of terrorism.... read

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At Home in Guantánamo Bay

Oybek Jamoldinivich Jabbarov Series: Human Rights

2009-04-30

President Barack Obama has promised to close the US prison at Guantánamo Bay within a year. But dozens of innocent detainees, like the author, have nowhere to go, because they face torture and abuse in their home countries.... read

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Coming Out in Africa

G. Pascal Zachary Series: Human Rights

2004-03-23

The lead story in a recent issue of the Daily Graphic , Ghana's most influential newspaper, was designed to shock: "Four Gay Men Jailed." Homosexual acts are crimes in Ghana - and across much of sub-Saharan Africa. ... read

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Poppy Power

Emma Bonino Series: Human Rights

2006-01-23

This month, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on Afghanistan that could pave the way for a new and more open-minded approach to counter-narcotics strategies worldwide. In fact, the resolution calls on the participants at a conference of donors, to take place in London at the end of January, “to take into consideration the proposal of licensed production of opium for medical purposes, as already granted to a number of countries.” ... read

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Down With Human Rights

David Rieff Series: Human Rights

2005-09-21

The relationship between the United Nations and the human-rights movement has always been ambiguous. On the one hand, human-rights ideology – and it is an ideology, every bit as much as Communism was or neo-liberalism is today – is profoundly legalist, claiming legitimacy from treaties and other international and national instruments. These include, as “first among equals,” the UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The modern human-rights movement was born out of the UN, and in many ways it has never entirely left home.... read

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Turkey, Armenia, and the Burden of Memory

Charles Tannock Series: Human Rights

2005-04-19

All wars end, eventually. But memories of atrocity never seem to fade, as the government-fanned anti-Japanese riots now taking place in China remind us. The 90th anniversary of the Armenian massacres of 1915, ordered by the ruling Young Turks of the Ottoman Empire and carried out with the help of the Kurds, is another wound that will not heal, but one that must be treated if Turkey’s progress toward European Union membership is to proceed smoothly. ... read

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The Intervention Syndrome

Marek Antoni Nowicki Series: Human Rights

2005-10-11

Kosovo is often held up as a test case for the concept of “humanitarian” intervention. But as Iraq spirals into chaos, diplomats and leaders everywhere are again asking themselves if it is ever appropriate for alliances of nations or the international community as a whole to intervene when a sovereign country appears unable or unwilling to defend its citizens from genocide, war crimes, or ethnic cleansing.... read

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Wars Against Women	Heleen Mees and Femke van Zeijl
In cultures where girls and women are married off and chastity is central to womanhood, the stigma of rape often is a heavier burden than the assault itself. So it is all the more striking – and painful – that for so long this specific crime of war has received little attention.... read
China’s Internet Dictatorship	Ma Jian
Eleven years after its initial connection to the World Wide Web (WWW), China’s access to the Internet is still guarded by firewalls, embedded in its proxy servers, which have proven to be more practical and impenetrable than the Berlin Wall. Moreover, an increase in the demand for broadband connection has triggered the launch of an $800 million “Jin Dun (Golden Shield) Project,” an automatic digital system of public policing that will help prolong Communist rule by denying China’s people the right to information. ... read

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GLOBAL OUTLOOK

The Human Rights Revolution

Havel Lives

Afghanistan’s Terrorized Women

Europe’s Squandered Minority

Legal Power to the People

Afghanistan’s Suffering Civilians

Operation Actual Justice

The Digital Trial

The Power to End Poverty

Qaddafi’s Western Friends

Stick to the Resolution

Guilty Democrats

What’s Wrong with Ethnic Profiling?

At Home in Guantánamo Bay

Coming Out in Africa

Poppy Power

Down With Human Rights

Turkey, Armenia, and the Burden of Memory

The Intervention Syndrome

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