Human Rights Archive

When Air Force One touched down at Yangon’s Mingaladon Airport on Nov. 19, Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Myanmar. Though the visit only lasted six hours and was bookended by longer stops in Thailand and Cambodia, it was critical not only for maintaining Myanmar’s momentum toward reform but also for solidifying its place in the U.S. regional strategy in Asia. Despite the symbolism, the Obama administration insisted that the president’s visit was not intended as a premature “victory lap” to celebrate Myanmar’s reforms, as critics claimed it risked being perceived, but only to sustain a […]

After a successful appeal at a United Nations tribunal, Croatian national hero Gen. Ante Gotovina, who led a 1995 offensive to retake a region of Croatia from Serbian militant control, was acquitted of war crimes last week. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia reversed the convictions of war crimes and crimes against humanity against Gotovina and Mladen Markac, a more junior general. Gotovina’s conviction in 2011 had dealt a blow to the image of Croatians as victims, rather than perpetrators, of the atrocities committed during the breakup of Yugoslavia. The successful appeal now provides Serbs with another example […]

When assigning homework exercises for a survey course that I teach on American foreign policy, I tell my students that no matter how strong the arguments they use to defend their positions, if they neglect to examine how demographic trends will affect their proposals, they will get an F. What is true for my students is true for global policymakers: Demographic trends will shape our future in a much more profound sense than most of the developments we see on the front page of the New York Times. Four major demographic trends in particular will shape the global security landscape […]

On Monday, Musallam al-Barrak, a prominent opposition leader in Kuwait, was arrested after making comments critical of Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, ruler of the Persian Gulf state. The arrest comes against a backdrop of heightened tensions in Kuwait. The Arab Spring uprisings have worsened relations between Kuwait’s ruling family and the elected parliament, and in recent weeks a set of electoral reforms expected to diminish the power of the opposition has been met with violent protests. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a research fellow and Kuwait expert at the London School of Economics, told Trend Lines that al-Barrak’s arrest threatens to […]

In recent years, democratic legitimacy has become a requirement for wielding power in an increasing number of countries. Populations that endured years of dictatorship now demand the right to elect their leaders. In a growing number of cases, however, politicians with authoritarian tendencies have found a way to game the system, extending their rule, seemingly indefinitely, while technically preserving their claim to democratic and constitutional lawfulness. The most remarkable aspect of this new trend is how well it works, and how much it seems to be spreading. Politicians in places as different and distant as Venezuela and Russia have successfully […]