In responding to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of war in cities, it is crucial to pay attention to every individual death, injury, and incident of destruction and also to indirect harm to the collective population and its shared spaces—to the very fabric of the city.
The city as a unit is the expression of a sum greater than its parts: homes, centers of community and culture, roads to work and school, infrastructure and architecture, and the people living there; it is both political and politicized.
In one of the most dramatic moments in international legal history, advocates for South Africa argued before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israel’s resort to and conduct of war in Gaza violates the Genocide Convention.
It is difficult to predict at this stage the impact of South Africa’s application to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) charging Israel with genocide over its response to Hamas’s October 7 attack and massacre.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1 indicates the obligation of universal solidarity as a foundation for human rights: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”
On July 28, 2022 the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voted—by a count of 161 in favor, with 8 abstentions—that living in a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a human right. Building on the similar declaration by the UN Human Rights Council (UN HRC)...
Minority ethnic and religious groups and women in Afghanistan have led the movement for democracy and human rights. Discrimination and violence against these groups in Afghanistan are not new. But under the new Taliban regime, they suffer the most. The human rights...
Ernesto Verdeja This year marks the seventieth anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 by a world traumatized by the horrors of World War II....
Borja Paladini Adell and Carolina Naranjo With much more development than in other peace accords, the Colombian Final Agreement includes a series of transversal and differential aspirations, principles and criteria of an equitable character that reflect a human...
David Cortright is the Director of Policy Studies and the Peace Accords Matrix at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. The Trump administration will face one of its most difficult foreign policy tests in Syria, with a high likelihood of...
Jennifer Mason McAward is associate professor of law at the University of Notre Dame and director of the University’s Center on Civil and Human Rights. I’m often asked what the difference is between civil and human rights. My response is that they are, in large part,...
Perin Gurel is Assistant Professor of American Studies and Concurrent Assistant Professor of Gender Studies at the University of Notre Dame. The global and local fronts of our endless “War on Terror” intersect around the suspect figure of the Muslim. What might this...
David Cortright and Kristen Wall The U.S. is set to withdraw the bulk of its forces from Afghanistan by 2014. This transition period is fraught with risk for Afghan women, many of whom have benefited during 10 years of improved access to education, health care, and...
The Afghan Women’s Network The Afghan Women’s Network is a non-partisan network of women and women’s groups working to empower Afghan women and ensure their equal participation in Afghan society. This post summarizes the Network's presentation at the NATO Summit in...