Human Rights Pulse
December 16, 2019
Website that shares human rights news and information. Good place to find current happenings.
Author: Mr. Lakhaney
TOK Teacher
China’s new Silk Road could actually boost U.S. GDP, study argues
December 1, 2019
Despite assuming zero direct involvement of the U.S. in the BRI, “the U.S. gains from the boost to world GDP are such that in absolute terms.” In fact, the researchers argued that “the U.S. is the second largest beneficiary. Our calculations suggest that the BRI will leave US GDP in 2040 $401 billion higher, a boost of 1.4%.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-new-silk-road-us-192303366.html
The Responsibility to Protect
December 1, 2019
REVISITING HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION
The international community in the last decade repeatedly made a mess of handling the many demands that were made for “humanitarian intervention”: coercive action against a state to protect people within its borders from suffering grave harm. There were no agreed rules for handling cases such as Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo at the start of the 1990s, and there remain none today. Disagreement continues about whether there is a right of intervention, how and when it should be exercised, and under whose authority.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2002-11-01/responsibility-protect
China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Where it goes and what it’s supposed to accomplish
November 30, 2019
Economic powerhouse is investing billions of dollars in infrastructure projects around the world.
China is financing hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure projects — including ports, roads, bridges, railways, power plants, telecommunications networks and much more — in partnering countries throughout Asia, Africa, Europe and beyond.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/china-belt-and-road-cbc-1.5372916
The twilight of the WTO: The trading system’s referee is about to leave the field
November 30, 2019
One way of thinking about the world’s trading system is as a sports match featuring a sprawling, brawling international cast of players, each with their own tactics and tricks. The game works best when there is a referee, and for nearly 25 years a group of seven judges at the World Trade Organisation (wto) has done the job. But on December 11th this body will cease to function, because America is blocking new appointments to it. The referee’s departure will make cross-border commerce unrulier and, in the long run, invite an anarchy that would make the world poorer.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/11/28/the-trading-systems-referee-is-about-to-leave-the-field
Inequality could be lower than you think
November 30, 2019
Now some economists have re-crunched the numbers and concluded that the income share of the top 1% in America may have been little changed since as long ago as 1960. They argue that earlier researchers mishandled the tax-return data that yield estimates of inequality. Previous results may also have failed to account for falling marriage rates among the poor, which divide income around more households—but not more people. And a bigger chunk of corporate profits may flow to middle-class people than previously realised, because they own shares through pension funds. In 1960 retirement accounts owned just 4% of American shares; by 2015 the figure was 50%.
THE XINJIANG PAPERS
November 25, 2019
Last month, a State Department official testified before a Senate committee that Chinese authorities have “indefinitely detained at least 800,000 and possibly more than 2 million Uighurs, ethnic Khazaks and other members of Muslim minorities in internment camps” since April 2017. What foreign reporting has been possible in Xinjiang — which Beijing has subjected to a draconian lockdown — has revealed a vast network of “reeducation centers,” barbed-wire-ringed compounds and factories that have housed possibly more than a tenth of the region’s population of Uighurs, a Turkic Muslim minority.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/01/09/cone-silence-around-chinas-muslim-gulags/
To Drive Down Insulin Prices, W.H.O. Will Certify Generic Versions
November 14, 2019
Myanmar Genocide Lawsuit Is Filed at United Nations Court
November 11, 2019
Gambia, on behalf of Rohingya Muslims, opens an international dispute with Myanmar in an effort to have the country’s leadership tried for genocide.
The court’s 15 judges rarely deal with genocide. Based in the stately Peace Palace in The Hague, the Court of Justice was set up by the United Nations to rule on disputes between nations. It acts more like a court of appeal, focusing on questions of international law, such as disputes over borders or disagreements over international conventions.
Protest Movements: The Global Revolts from the Margins
November 11, 2019
During the past nine months, there have been major episodes of civil unrest in several countries across the globe. Focusing mainly on the recent mass protests in Iraq, Lebanon and Chile, this briefing draws on the concept of “revolts from the margins” to explain these events.
An IB Global Politics Site 