This module features teaching notes by former CFR senior fellow Lee Feinstein, the author of Darfur and Beyond, along with other resources to supplement the text. In the report, Feinstein argues that the new UN secretary-general should take the General Assembly's endorsement of responsibility to protect as a mandate and outlines steps the United States and others must follow to bolster UN action.
Authors: David J. Scheffer, Richard H. Cooper, and Juliette Voinov Kohler
The United States needs the ICC to help restore its global credibility, discipline its own decision-making, and strengthen judicial intervention against atrocity crimes.
The White House is pressing for Senate ratification of the Law of the Sea treaty. Some worry it will endanger national security and harm U.S. industry.
The U.S. State Department’s legal adviser says Washington remains concerned about the prosecutorial reach of the ICC but wants to help it pursue some war criminals.
James Jay Carafano of the Heritage Foundation and Gabor Rona of Human Rights First debate the merits of shutting down the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.
Mona Yacoubian, a former intelligence analyst for the State Department, says the special UN tribunal to investigate the assassination in 2005 of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is linked to the politics of Lebanon and Syria, with the Syrians trying to sow enough chaos to prevent the tribunal from ever getting underway.
At the third annual Arthur C. Helton Memorial Lecture, Jan Egeland, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General, discusses his work at the United Nations handling the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
CFR.org’s latest Crisis Guide examines the tragedy in Sudan’s Darfur region. Introduced through a compelling multimedia essay comprised of original and some never-before-seen footage from seven of the world’s leading photojournalists, Crisis Guide: Darfur depicts the human, political, military, and historical realities in the region, and provides links to deeper resources from the Council’s think tank and other organizations around the world.
The release of fifteen British military personnel mitigates one source of tension with Tehran, but questions remain about the chances for nuclear compromise.
Number 21 in Amnesty International’s case sheets on the individual detainees at Guantanomo Bay, Cuba. This case concerns Sudanese national Adel Hamad who was taken at gunpoint from his home in Peshawar, Pakistan on 18 July 2002. Pakistani agents, led by a US agent, took him to a Pakistani prison where he was held for six and a half months before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay via Afghanistan.
Report from the Nieman Foundation of Harvard University that details the efforts by the Los Angeles Times to conduct a parallel investigation to the one being undertaken by the Army's Criminal Investigation Command (CID) into how a small U.S. Special Forces detachment in Afghanistan could be tied to two detainee deaths and two apparent cover-ups in less than two weeks. He says that the cases raise questions about the relatively low number of successful military prosecutions in criminal homicide and prisoner abuse cases and about whether the military is capable of policing itself in times of war.
The Council on Foreign Relations' David Rockefeller Studies Program—CFR's "think tank"—is home to more than seventy full-time, adjunct, and visiting scholars and practitioners (called "fellows"). Their expertise covers the world's major regions as well as the critical issues shaping today's global agenda. Download the printable CFR Experts Guide.
Special operations play a critical role in how the United States confronts irregular threats, but to have long-term strategic impact, the author argues, numerous shortfalls must be addressed.
The author analyzes the potentially serious consequences, both at home and abroad, of a lightly overseen drone program and makes recommendations for improving its governance.
Two experts argue that despite myriad development strategies, only one can succeed in alleviating poverty in India: the overall growth of the country's economy. More