Human Rights

Like baseball great Yogi Berra, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had his own struggles with the English language, one of his best malapropisms was the coining of the term “unknown unknowns.” Rumsfeld was trying to make a valid point about the uncertain security situation at the time in Iraq – that there were unexpected contingencies that simply could not be prepared for; unfortunately for him (but perhaps fortunately for us), that thought came out as “unknown unknowns.”

[read Part 1 here]

Invocation of the “Ceased Circumstances Cessation Clause”: Is Rwanda Fundamentally Altered Enough?

by Harry W.S. Lee. Originally published by our partner site, World Policy Blog.

In a prison-issued white sarong, the artist enters, blinded by a black bag over her head, stumbling her way on tiptoes, her legs trembling from hunger and fear. On the floor, she struggles to devour rice and the water through the black bag, venting out heavy gasps, punctuating with groans—a disturbing sight almost too private to be public.

Recently two of my colleagues at The Mantle asked why the international community was not intervening in ongoing humanitarian crises in different parts of the world.

It is no secret that in this new era of intra-state conflict, rape has increasingly become used as weapon of war. Sadly, the women of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) know this all too well. This past week a new report was released in the American Journal of Public Health, which takes an in-depth look at rape statistics in the DRC. The article reports some incredibly staggering numbers.

Why the post-Communist transitions of Eastern European governments hold some surprising lessons for the fledgling democracies in Egypt and Tunisia.

At the time it seemed like an act of cynical political calculation and a sign of his wavering commitment to human rights: President Obama's decision last fall to suspend the enforcement of a new law that would halt military aid to a handful of nations that employ child soldiers; but in light of the ongoing situation in Egypt, perhaps there's evidence that the criticism was unwarranted.