BY CURTISS SWEZY Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have long played a key role in providing health care in the US. Originally referred to as PVOs, or private voluntary organizations, these charitable hospitals and inner city resettlement homes provided some of the first health and social safety net care for remote and disenfranchised populations from the western [...]
BY RITA CHI-YING CHUNG One outcome of globalization is the increased movement of people by either legal or illegal means. Recently there has been increased media attention to human trafficking that has exposed the clandestine nature of this illegal migration. There are various definitions of human trafficking supplied by the United Nations, the International Organization [...]
BY DAVID R. IRVINE Not far from Stratford, on the river Avon, stands Warwick Castle. This thousand year-old relic is one of Britain’s premier historical attractions. The dungeons and torture chamber, with the rack and press, the thumbscrews and iron maiden, are popular tour stops as visitors ponder the dark barbarity of the age of [...]
BY REUBEN E. BRIGETY II One of the greatest convergences in American foreign policy in the last twenty years has been the recognition of the strategic utility of humanitarian and developmental assistance (HDA). While encouraging, this change is not without concern. The principal question posed by this development is this: How can HDA maintain its [...]
BY FRANCES V. HARBOUR One of the tragedies common in failed and violent authoritarian states is that the police force becomes a significant contributor to humanitarian disaster. An organization that should protect domestic order and human security instead is implicated in human rights violations. When violation is on a scale that provokes international humanitarian intervention, [...]
BY CARLOS E. SLUZKI No less than 20 million of people, escaping wars, civil wars, persecution, ethnic cleansing and the like, are currently living as refugees beyond the borders of their own countries, and a still larger number are living as displaced persons within the boundaries of their country. Their protection is the core mission [...]
BY JO-MARIE BURT One of the most contentious issues facing transitional democracies is the problem of gross human rights violations committed during the previous regime. How should fragile democracies address the question of accountability, given the known deficiencies of their judicial systems; the ongoing power of the torturers themselves and/or those who benefited from their [...]
BY JAMES P. PFIFFNER President George W. Bush proclaimed the official position of the United States on torture on June 26, 2003, the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. “Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right,” he said. “The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture, and [...]