Question And Answer
Publications
Articles, publications, books, tools and multimedia features from the U.S. Institute of Peace provide the latest news, analysis, research findings, practitioner guides and reports, all related to the conflict zones and issues that are at the center of the Institute’s work to prevent and reduce violent conflict.
Human Rights Violations: U.S. Foreign Aid for Accountability and Prevention
For two decades, ensuring the U.S. isn’t complicit in gross human rights abuses by foreign police and military forces has rested in significant part on the shoulders of a law devised by Senator Patrick Leahy that bars U.S. foreign aid to individuals or institutions that commit violations. This week, Leahy exhorted more than 130 representatives of government, non-profit groups, international organizations, academia and research institutions gathered at USIP to consider the next step: how U.S. assistance can be used more effectively for both accountability and prevention.
A Year into Taliban Rule, Afghans Face Spiraling Economic, Humanitarian Crises
The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan last year — followed by economic sanctions and other restrictions from the international community — precipitated a dire humanitarian crisis. Afghan women and children, particularly girls, have been hit the hardest. After two decades of hard-won gains, Afghan women have seen their rights evaporate before their eyes and young girls’ dreams for their futures have been squashed. Meanwhile, the country’s economic crisis has left nearly the entire population in hunger, with limited access to health care and other basic needs.
To Build a Unified Resistance and Democratic Myanmar, Discrimination Must End
Early on the morning of Myanmar’s February 2021 coup, Mya Aye, a prominent Muslim activist, was one of the first arrested by the new junta regime. Since then, thousands more have been imprisoned or killed by the regime, including dozens of Muslims, like prominent student leader Wai Moe Naing, and other marginalized minorities who have fought against the military junta alongside other ethnic and religious groups. Although the resistance shares a common enemy in the brutal junta, it has yet to fully embrace a vision for a more inclusive country that overcomes Myanmar’s legacy of ethnic and religious discrimination. To broaden its base of support domestically and internationally, resistance leaders should commit to address structural discrimination against minorities in Myanmar.
Four Ways to Include Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in Atrocity Prevention
Conflict-related sexual violence is not only an indicator of rising atrocity risk — it can also constitute an atrocity crime itself. And while the U.S. government has implemented conflict-related sexual violence response efforts, concurrent international efforts on the issue offer a solid foundation for the United States to go beyond responding to these crimes and toward prevention.
Want more accountability for the Taliban? Give more money for human rights monitoring.
Ahead of the U.N. General Assembly last week, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Afghanistan Richard Bennett released his first report grading the Taliban’s treatment of Afghans’ rights. It was an F. In the past year, the Taliban have engaged in a full-scale assault on Afghan’s human rights, denying women access to public life, dismantling human rights institutions, corrupting independent judicial processes, and engaging in extralegal measures to maintain control or to exact revenge for opposition to their rule. That is one of the main reasons — along with their continued support of al-Qaida and a refusal to form a more inclusive government — that Afghanistan has no representation at the U.N.
Myanmar’s Criminal Zones: A Growing Threat to Global Security
International media and law enforcement are waking up to a new post-COVID trend in transnational crime: the proliferation of criminally run zones in Myanmar and across Southeast Asia, and an explosion of human trafficking for labor in these ungoverned enclaves.
Land, Conflict, and Peace in Colombia
USIP’s Virginia “Ginny” Bouvier discusses the connection between land, conflict and peace in Colombia.
Two Years of the Taliban’s ‘Gender Apartheid’ in Afghanistan
Two years after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the human rights situation in the country is abysmal, with women and girls experiencing the worst of the regime’s policies. There is growing evidence that the Taliban are committing the crime against humanity of gender persecution of women and girls, an assertion Human Rights Watch made in a new report. This summer, the World Economic Forum slated Afghanistan last of the 146 countries it ranked in a study on gender gaps. The scope of the Taliban’s women’s rights restrictions is truly unprecedented.
Afghanistan’s Two Years of Humanitarian Crisis Under the Taliban
The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021 immediately exacerbated the country’s precarious humanitarian situation, leaving millions in need of food assistance and other support. Two years later, the situation remains dire, with Afghan women and girls acutely affected by the Taliban’s draconian restrictions on their daily lives. The international community continues to struggle to find a balance between providing desperately needed aid while also pressuring the regime in Kabul to moderate its hardline policies. While Afghans need emergency assistance, the country will continue to deal with cycles of crises until its deep-seated economic challenges are addressed.
Iranian Human Rights Activist Wins Nobel Peace Prize
The 2023 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Narges Mohammadi, an imprisoned Iranian scientist, journalist and human rights activist, for her principled and persistent campaign against the increasingly repressive regime in Iran. The award also acknowledged the broader Iranian women’s movement, which last year spearheaded the first counterrevolution in history triggered, led and sustained by females, many in their teens. “This year’s Peace Prize also recognizes the hundreds of thousands of people who, in the preceding year, have demonstrated against Iran’s theocratic regime’s policies of discrimination and oppression targeting women,” the Nobel Committee said.