Scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the U.S. a more responsible global partner.
Human Rights

Assessing the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)

by | Oct 28, 2010

The Rising Continent assesses the performance of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and UN peacekeepers’ forces in DR Congo (MONUSCO), and concludes that both failed to live up to their mandate: ‘[In] November 2010 it will be sixteen years that ICTR will have been put in place. The budget spent on its operations will be almost 1.5 billion $ by the end of 2010. The Tribunal has so far investigated and sentenced only one side to the Rwandan genocide…

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Postcard from…Mini Numa

Postcard from…Mini Numa

by | Oct 25, 2010

Ten Mixteco men led me across a stream and through a cornfield on a toilet tour of Mini Numa. At each adobe hut housing a shiny white flush toilet, I snapped a photo of a contented owner.  In recent years, six children had died in this small village from diseases rooted in poverty and lack of sanitation. With the support of the human rights organization, Tlachinollan, the Mini Numa community had forced the hand of the government to support the right to health.

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U.S. Military Aid Far Outpaces Democracy Assistance

by | Oct 20, 2010

Desperate to secure supply routes to Afghanistan, the United States has been spending at least six times more on military aid for the mostly authoritarian states of Central Asia than on efforts to promote political liberalisation and human rights in the region, according to a new report released here by the Open Society Foundations (OSF).

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Creating Cultural Bridges: The Art of Edgar Endress

Creating Cultural Bridges: The Art of Edgar Endress

by | Oct 15, 2010

Chilean-born Edgar Endress is a Virginia-based artist, professor, and founding member of the Floating Lab Collective. Endress’  work stresses a context-dependent blend of media that both forges and illustrates an integration of art and social engagement. For Endress and his Floating Lab Collective, the opportunities for social interaction afforded by his work are every bit as integral to the performance as whatever audio or visual elements he uses to stimulate them. Endress recently met with Foreign Policy In Focus to discuss his recent work on immigration, his theories of social engagement, and his travels to the Balkans.

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The Spectacle of the Disappeared

by | Oct 7, 2010

Translating a play usually involves only translating the source text’s language while retaining details of periods, characters, names, settings, etc. In the Philippines, a concerted nationalistic effort begun in the late 1960s saw classics of world theater translated into Tagalog.

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Israel-Iran War: Not Inevitable

Israel-Iran War: Not Inevitable

by | Sep 13, 2010

A chorus of pundits has lately been arguing that an Israeli attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities is either inevitable or commendable. Recently, Jeffery Goldberg predicts in The Atlantic that Israeli will strike by next July. Reuel Marc Gerecht, an editor for the Weekly Standard, urges that regional stability calls for Israel wasting no more time in launching a pre-emptive hit. These arguments predictably come from the neoconservative crowd who urged the United States to topple Saddam Hussein as an avenue toward reaching regime change in Iran.

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