Challenges to Democracy: Rewriting Japan’s Article 9
In the recent in-party election held on September 20th, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe secured a historic third term as the Prime Minister of Japan, defeating former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba by an overwhelming margin.[1] Guaranteed executive control of the central government for the next three years, Abe has begun to set his political agenda for […]
1.5 to Stay Alive: IPCC Report Recommends Lower Limit on Global Temperature Rise
The 2015 UN Paris Climate Change Conference named a global temperature rise of 2 degrees celsius as the ultimate boundary that humanity should not cross in its battle against climate change.[1] However, at the time, many scientists, activists, and small island nation representatives argued that 2 degrees of warming was a dangerously inadequate benchmark.[2] According […]
The Thorn in Japan’s Side: Okinawa & The Relocation of the Futenma Base
On August 8th, the governor of Japan’s Okinawa prefecture passed away.[1] A polarizing figure, Governor Takeshi Onaga was well known for leading efforts to reduce U.S. military presence in Okinawa. Most notably, he opposed the relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from Ginowan to Henoko in Nago City.[2] In July 2017, Onaga even […]
The Chinese Imperialist System in the Asian Century
*This article was originally published on April 30, 2017, at 8:52 PM Almost two decades into the 21st century we’re beginning to see a period of dramatic global political and economic uncertainty occurring concurrently with China’s steady and dramatic rise to superpower status. This will be an Asian century. In fact, it will be a Chinese […]
Hope Left for Venezuela
Every day, around 25,000 Venezuelans cross the border, fleeing the economic and political instability of their home country.[1] Jeferson José Gutierres is a Venezuelan who lives with his wife and three children under the stone “C” of a sculpture in the center of the border city, Cucúta, Colombia. The Gutierres family fled instability in Venezuela, […]
What Can We Learn from Cape Town’s Dance with Day Zero?
Flying into Cape Town, the city’s water crisis becomes apparent even before the plane’s wheels touch down. As the sprawling coastal hub comes into view below, framed by craggy mountains on one side and the Indian and Atlantic oceans on the other, the pilot’s voice crackles over the intercom to welcome passengers to “the Mother […]
A Notorious Traffic: A History
It is a sad but inescapable truth about the history of international law—and internationalism more broadly—that much of it is fraught with racism, imperialism, and moral crusading. The counter-human trafficking regime is no exception. The earliest legislative action against human trafficking on an international level was conceived of as the International Agreement for the suppression […]
A Look Back at Kurdistan’s Tumultuous September
On June 7th, 2017, a certain political leader shook the world with a tweet. No, not Donald Trump, but Masoud Barzani, President of the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government. His tweet proclaimed, “I am pleased to announce that the date for the independence referendum has been set for Monday, September 25th, 2017,” thereby launching a bid […]
The New Global Arms Race
International tensions between North Korea and the rest of the world hit a high point this September, when Chairman of North Korea Kim Jong Un sanctioned the launch of a mid-range nuclear missile that flew directly over northern Japan before landing in the Pacific Ocean. For the past several years, North Korean leadership has been […]
The Cost of Freedom in Kurdistan
Spiritual leader Thich Nhat Hanh once said, “If we are free from attachment, we can easily recognize ourselves in other people, in different forms of manifestation, and then we don’t have to suffer.” Hanh’s words are dreams to the Kurdish people, who exist today fragmented, stateless, and in a forced union with Iraq. Against the […]