Essay
A Better Process, a Stronger UN Secretary-General: How Historic Change Was Forged and What Comes Next
In the past, UN secretaries-general were chosen on the basis of a haphazard and secretive process behind closed doors. Yet over the last two years, the UN forged dramatic change and created a more open, transparent, and inclusive selection process. This essay explores why and how reform finally happened, and what comes next.
Securing Protection for De Facto Refugees: The Case of Central America’s Northern Triangle
The Northern Triangle of Central America is one of the most violent regions of the world. However, those fleeing the violence are unable to find adequate protection either within their own countries, in the broader region, or internationally. This essay calls for updating the definition of the term “refugee” under international law, as well as greater domestic recognition of the violence.
Human Rights, Global Ethics, and the Ordinary Virtues
Drawing on research from site-visits to eight countries, this essay explores whether human rights has become a global ethic, and, if so, how the concept of human rights influences or structures private moral decision-making.
Heeding the Clarion Call in the Americas: The Quest to End Statelessness
In 2014, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees launched the #IBelong Campaign to eradicate statelessness by 2024. Given that UN Secretary-General António Guterres and others have identified the Americas as having the potential to be the first region to end statelessness, this essay evaluates the region’s progress towards that goal.
Rethinking the Concept of a “Durable Solution”: Sahrawi Refugee Camps Four Decades On
The Sahrawi people have been housed in refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria since 1975. This essay uses the case of the Sahrawi to illustrate the problematic nature of refugee camps, which are intended to serve a transitional purpose but ultimately become de facto long-term solutions, depriving refugees of their political and social rights indefinitely.
Ending Statelessness Through Belonging: A Transformative Agenda?
The subject of belonging conjures up a realm of emotions. This essay explores statelessness through the prism of belonging, asking whether the United Nations Refugee Agency’s reframing of statelessness as an issue of belonging can be successful in eradicating statelessness globally.
Climate Contributions and the Paris Agreement: Fairness and Equity in a Bottom-Up Architecture
Ethical questions of fairness, responsibility, and burden-sharing have always been central to the international politics of climate change and efforts to construct an effective intergovernmental response to this problem.
Recognition: A Short History
During the past decade there has been a resurgence of interest in the concept of recognition in international theory. Once the narrow concern of social theorists, the concept of recognition is nowadays invoked in at least three different senses in order to explain three different things.
