RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Spring 2008, Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement
Although disasters are quick to strike, their consequences can be long to remedy and can linger on for months and years. The extend to which their effects increase inequalities in life and society is a question of how governments and humanitarian actors integrate human rights into their disaster preparedness and response. The Brookings-Bern Project has just published a new field manual designed to accompany the Inter-Agency Standing Committee's Operational Guidelines on Human Rights and Natural Disasters and intended to help people in the field to understand the human rights dimensiosn of disaster response. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Roberta Cohen, May 05, 2008, Washington Post
Hunger should know no politics, as President Ronald Reagan declared to justify food aid to Ethiopians starving under a brutal communist regime in the 1980s. Therefore South Korea's criticism of North Korea's human rights record need not prevent its providing food and fertilizer to hungry people in the North. Read More
BOOK
Cheng Li, May 01, 2008
In China’s Changing Political Landscape, leading experts examine the prospects for democracy in the world’s most populous nation. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Peter W. Singer, Spring 2008, Air and Space Power Journal Espanol
Peter Singer discusses Child Soldiers. (Spanish) Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Elizabeth Ferris, April 29, 2008, International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Global Communications Forum
There are unprecedented challenges for humanitarian actors today, demonstrated by the fine line between promoting humanitarian principles and advocacy. In this statement to the Global Communications Forum of the International Federation of the Red Cross/Red Crescent, Brookings expert Elizabeth Ferris examines these challenges and discusses ways to address them while maintaining key humanitarian principles. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes, April 28, 2008, The New Republic
The Supreme Court recently handed down a decision upholding as constitutional the specific mixture of drugs by which thirty states put condemned prisoners to death. In this piece, Ben Wittes writes about the Supreme Court's failure to rationalize its decisions about cruel and unusual punishment. Read More
PAST EVENT
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Washington, DC
On April 23, the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement hosted the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, for an address on the growth in scale, scope and complexity of global mobility and its effects on refugees. Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) provided brief remarks and introduced High Commissioner Guterres. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Cheng Li, April 10, 2008, The Diane Rehm Show
China recently announced thwarted terrorism plots as protests against the country's hosting of the Olympics continue across the world. China expert Cheng Li joined Diane Rehm to discuss these issues and others facing the August games in Beijing. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Roberta Cohen, April 2008, Foreign Service Institute
Essential to the careers of many U.S. Foreign Service Officers, public affairs staff and officers of AID is an understanding of international human rights issues. Many if not all will be posted to countries with questionable human rights records. Therefore, the subject of integrating human rights concerns on into U.S. foreign policy decision-making, argues Brookings expert Roberta Cohen, is not just an academic exercise but a real and serious business that will involve everyone posted abroad. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Spring 2008, The Brookings Institution-University of Bern Project on Internal Displacement
The Brookings-Bern Project is a unique example of a partnership between a research institute and the United Nations. In this report, the Project presents its work from 2007 and discusses the challenges in the field of internal displacement that lie ahead. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes, April 05, 2008, The New Republic
The Justice Department recently released John Yoo's 2003 "torture" memo to Congress. Questions remain on what to do with the people the military and the CIA interrogated brutally in 2002 and 2003, writes Ben Wittes, and how the CIA should handle such people in the future. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Jeffrey A. Bader, March 31, 2008, Online NewsHour Forum
Jeffrey Bader answered questions regarding recent unrest in Tibet in an Online NewsHour Forum. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Jeffrey A. Bader, March 25, 2008, PBS NewsHour
Jeffrey Bader joined NewHour to discuss the recent uptick in unrest across Tibet following protests against Chinese government rule of the region. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Khalid Koser, March 14, 2008, Workers without Borders: Rethinking Economic Migration, Maastricht Graduate School of Governance
Almost every country on earth is affected by international migration, which is inextricably linked with other important global issues, including development, poverty and human rights. Some migrants are exploited and their human rights abused, integration in destination countries can be difficult, and migration can deprive origin countries of important skills. For these reasons and more, as Brookings expert Khalid Koser argues, migration matters. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Walter Kälin, March 13, 2008, United Nations Peacebuilding Commission
Resolving internal displacement—and preventing future displacement—is inextricably linked to achieving lasting peace. On one hand, unresolved problems of displacement may cause instability and thus threaten peacebuilding efforts. On the other hand, durable solutions, particularly return, cannot be achieved for IDPs as long as there is a lack of security, property is not restored, and conditions for sustainable solutions are not in place. Read More