human rights

From Standing Rock to Yanacocha: Criminalizing environmental activism in the Americas.

The peace process in Colombia faces several challenges. One of which is a recalcitrant military institution preoccupied about its future—considering its dismal human rights record—if an accord is reached.

Small towns and cities in Washington State may seem like unlikely places for abuses by the Border Patrol, but that is what has emerged there as the agency's presence in the U.S.-Canada borderlands has grown dramatically over the last several years. The situation presents significant challenges for the wellbeing of families and communities in the area, and for civil and human rights more broadly.

On May 3, World Press Freedom Day, the U.S. government condemned a litany of countries for the dangerous conditions in which journalists work. But Honduras was noticeably excluded from any official scrutiny. It seems safe to conclude that World Press Freedom Day is little more than a parade of double standards set by the United States, with media outlets serving as willing abettors.

Mexico's Senate and Chamber of Deputies unanimous approval of a law to alleviate the damage and suffering experienced by victims of state and criminal violence may turn out to be of enormous importance. It officially recognizes victims who have heretofore been seen simply as collateral damage in the war against illicit drugs, and official and organized crime.

Mexico’s Senate and Chamber of Deputies unanimous approval of a law to alleviate the damage and suffering experienced by victims of state and criminal violence may turn out to be of enormous importance. It officially recognizes victims who have heretofore been seen simply as collateral damage in the war against illicit drugs, and official and organized crime. 

While a miscarriage of justice over the trial of Jean Claude Duvalier is currently occurring in Haiti, the United States is busy resuscitating its worn and failed case against another former Haitian President, Jean Bertrand Aristide.

While a miscarriage of justice over the trial of Jean Claude Duvalier is currently occurring in Haiti, the United States is busy resuscitating its worn and failed case against another former Haitian President, Jean Bertrand Aristide.

The recent announcement that former Haitian dictator Jean Claude Duvalier will stand trial for corruption charges related to his embezzling of millions of dollars, but not for his role in the murder, disappearance and torture of thousands during his presidency has sparked outrage throughout Haiti and from human rights advocates across the world.

This past September 19, in a federal civil court in Hartford, Connecticut, former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo—now a resident of Connecticut and an economics professor at Yale—was charged with crimes against humanity for the 1997 killing of 45 unarmed members of the Tzotzil Maya ethnic group, in the Chiapas village of Acteal.

Criminality and corrupt authoritarian politics have a tendency to blend, especially when large sums of money are available to grant impunity to certain citizens. Over the past three weeks, for example, Mexicans have witnessed a number of deliberate attacks—whose obvious foretelling was conspicuously ignored by state authorities—on political activists.

The Mexican president in the Dock? Well, not yet, but charges of "crimes against humanity" were filed last Friday in the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands against President Felipe Calderón, the Secretaries of Mexico's Army, Navy and Public Safety, and notorious drug trafficker Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán.