Graz, Austria — The recent advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, that Kosovo’s declaration of independence in February 2008 was legal, was a defeat for Serbia. But it also offered an opportunity for Serbia to start maneuvering out of the impasse into which its intransigence led. There are signs it is taking this chance. Days after the ICJ pronouncement, Serbia’s President Boris Tadic warned parliament that Serbia “must have the best possible relations with the most powerful states of the world, because everything else would lead the state straight to ruin, and its citizens into poverty.” The parliament […]

Sex trafficking is an exceedingly grotesque, highly profitable component of contemporary slavery. In fact, no form of slavery is nearly as profitable, and it can be argued that none is as barbarically exploitive. In the course of 10 years of research across 18 countries, I have directly interviewed more than 500 slaves of all kinds, and some of the most heartbreaking tales I heard were those narrated by women and children who suffered years of sexual enslavement at the hands of traffickers and pimps. Though much has improved as a result of anti-trafficking activism, policy, law, and media coverage since […]

In the post-Cold War world, the rapid social, political and economic transformations associated with globalization have coincided with the continuing spread of HIV/AIDS. In fact, it’s possible to argue that AIDS is both a product and a cause of globalization, understood here as the whole gamut of economic, social, political and epistemological ways in which more and more of the world is brought within similar systems of governance, consumption and imagination. Up to an estimated 14,000 people a day are infected with HIV, and in most parts of the world, infections are increasing more rapidly than are effective responses. In […]

NEW DELHI — Last week’s visit to India by Burma’s military ruler, Gen. Than Shwe, during which several bilateral agreements and treaties were signed, highlighted the tensions in New Delhi’s policy toward the isolated Southeast Asian country. The red carpet welcome that New Delhi accorded to Than sparked protests by Burmese refugees, who in addition to denouncing Than as a murderer and dictator, argued that a democratic Burma would better serve India’s strategic interests. India once openly supported the Burmese democracy movement led by Aung San Suu Kyi. But in the 1990s, it changed course and stepped up engagement with […]