I have a couple of posts on other web platforms that blog readers may find interesting. For regular readers, the posts won’t be new, but they’re a valuable mechanism for widening the conversation on broadening, strengthening, and smartening international human rights advocacy:
- As I’ve discussed in a prior post, an emerging coalition of human rights advocates have called for the implementation of a non-consensual, cross-border aid delivery operation in South Kordofan and Blue Nile. The New York Times‘ “Room for Debate” blog hosted a discussion on conflict resolution and humanitarian relief in Sudan. I had the privilege of participating in the online forum, which included perspectives from John Prendergast, Andrew Natsios, and representatives from Girifna and Oxfam. In my piece, I identify the strategic and moral hazards of military intervention in Sudan’s border regions, contextualize the operation within Sudan’s internal political instability, and propose a set of non-coercive policy alternatives, focusing on leveraging external, non-Western pressure, and facilitating forceful diplomacy with moderate actors in the NCP administration. For additional, complementary perspectives on Sudan human rights policy, see the forum contributions from Georgetown’s Andrew Natsios, Oxfam’s El Fateh Osman, and Girifna’s Dalia Haj Omar.
- Over at the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs (which my roommates edit), I posted a piece on the role of the global South in the “responsibility to protect” doctrine’s evolution. I’ve harped on the global South’s increasingly important R2P contributions, but this piece’s publication is particularly timely: the UN General Assembly has initiated informal dialogues on Brazil’s “responsibility while protecting” principle, and the RwP concept will figure prominently over the next few months in a variety of South-South, regional, and bilateral diplomatic fora. In my piece, I clarify South-South relationships’ potential contributions to R2P’s operationalization, particularly as pertains to the state capacity-building mandates of the doctrine’s first two pillars. Also, it’s worth noting: a nascent body of literature on R2P in the global South has emerged over the past six months. Over the next couple of days, I’m going to take a look at this literature, its normative implications for Western human rights advocacy, writ large, and the possibilities for progress on doctrinal operationalization. Watch this blog, as they say.
daniel solomon 