#Democracy

Everyone seems shocked and discouraged by the outcome in Copenhagen. They shouldn’t be. We must control emissions. So why wasn’t there a deal that made everyone happy? Because that’s the nature of multilateral negotiations, with scores of parties with scores of interests. They are always, always like this, as anyone who has studied them knows: […]

Elections are events that always garner attention. Whether its to see how a particular politician will fare, what direction a country may be headed with its policies, or as a barometer of corruption, elections are covered by the world media regardless of where they occur. Unfortunately, there are places where election coverage can only achieve […]

At almost the same time that the World Health Organization (WHO) released a report lamenting the many barriers that women face to accessing health care, the United States Congress threw up another such barrier in the form of the Stupak amendment blocking access to abortion.  Fittingly, the WHO report noted that “The obstacles that stand […]

After over a decade of delay, it seems that Karadzic will be tried in absentia.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food’s, Prof. Olivier De Schutter’s, second presentation to the UN General Assembly.  The interactive dialogue that followed Prof. De Schutter’s presentation is an excellent example of how the Special Procedures system of the UN Human Rights Council allows for greater […]

    While it is no secret that racism lives on in the United States, it was nonetheless shocking news that a justice of the peace in Louisiana had refused to marry an interracial couple because he doesn’t “believe in mixing the races that way.”  Keith Bardwell, the justice of the peace in question, has […]

  In a strange legal loophole, American companies—including those that receive government contracts such as Halliburton—can require their employees to sign contracts waiving their right to bring a civil trial against fellow employees that rape or otherwise sexually assault them. This egregious loophole was first spotlighted when Jamie Leigh Jones, a former contractor for one-time […]

Not to pick on West Africa this week, but another human rights drama is currently unfolding in Guinea, where the military opened fire with live rounds into a crowd of 50,000 pro-democracy protesters on Monday.  While the military government claims that only 57 people were killed, mainly due to trampling, local rights groups are placing […]

Uganda has made headlines this past week for violent clashes in the capital city of Kampala over development, property rights, and the traditional Buganda king. The unrest is unusual for Uganda, but highlights growing discontent with the government of Yoweri Museveni. The cause of the clashes was a planned trip by the Buganda king, King […]

Governments and religions around the world remain intensely interested in what women, but not so much what men, are wearing in public. On September 6, 2009 I wrote about the proposed parliamentary ban on the public wearing of the niqab in France. On September 8, media outlets lit up with discussions of the recent trial […]

France’s center-right and left political parties are coalescing around a controversial issue: the idea of a national, parliamentary ban on the niqab.  Proponents of the ban cite the threat of Islamism to France’s position as a secular state, and argue further that the niqab is both a symbol of and an act of the oppression of […]

A court in Kazakhstan sentenced a prominent human rights activist to four years imprisonment for manslaughter yesterday in a case that many observers believe was politically motivated.  The charges against Yevgeny Zhovtis stem from a car accident in July where Zhovtis hit and killed a man while driving his car.  However the initial forensic exam […]