Appropriating Apartheid is Social Injustice
“Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians: a cruel system of domination,” reads Amnesty International’s recent report. With their statement, Amnesty International joined forces with Human Rights Watch, which claimed last year that Israel is guilty of the “Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution.” Make no mistake, there is certainly discrimination in Israel, as there is in every country […]
Episode 17: “Global Health Institutions and the Importance of Leadership” with Carlos Arriaga Serrano
Bryan interviews Ph.D. student Carlos Arriaga Serrano about his most recent piece at NUPR, regarding COVID-19, global health organizations, and the need for good global governance. The conversation expands out to discussions on climate change work, and what the future holds for the role of supranational organizations. Make sure to check out Carlos’ piece for yourself […]
The Future of Climate Change International Policy
“We must now agree on a binding review mechanism under international law, so that this century can credibly be called a century of decarbonization.” –German Chancellor Angela Merkel, 2015 Paris Agreement negotiations The time for climate action is long overdue. Humanity must employ universal, cooperative efforts to prevent irreversible damage to our planet. The international […]
The UN’s Reformation
On the seventy-fifth anniversary of the UN’s formation, Secretary-General António Guterres said that it is “clear that the world has high expectations of us, as the main platform for multilateralism and cooperation on a rules-based international system.” To achieve effective cooperation, the UN Charter sets forth one of the UN’s most important missions as developing […]
America’s Lose–Lose Withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council
On June 18, 2018, US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley stood beside Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department to announce the US’ withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). Haley spoke of the hypocrisy of countries with abhorrent human rights records sitting on the Council and criticized its “chronic […]
Why Washington Won’t Pass a Policy to Prevent Genocide
The Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018 (S.1158) not only condemns genocide and acknowledges its threat to national and international security, but also establishes the United States’ responsibility for intervention and strengthens the “government’s capacity to prevent, mitigate, and respond to such crises.” The original proposal established a response to genocide, but […]
The Performativity of the Anti-Human Trafficking Regime
In my previous column, I touched upon the fraught history of the international counter-trafficking regime, including the rhetoric of white slavery, the Mann Act, and the Alien Act. This installment will focus on international legislative actions on human trafficking and the continued impact of moral panics and crusades on trafficking rhetoric. Before I begin, I […]
A Notorious Traffic: A History
It is a sad but inescapable truth about the history of international law—and internationalism more broadly—that much of it is fraught with racism, imperialism, and moral crusading. The counter-human trafficking regime is no exception. The earliest legislative action against human trafficking on an international level was conceived of as the International Agreement for the suppression […]