Global Initiatives

International Law

Integrating Rule of Law: New Solutions to the Global Displacement Crisis

By Paula Rudnicka

With a record 65 million people currently displaced within and across national borders, and displacement becoming increasingly prolonged, forced migration cannot be addressed solely as a short-term humanitarian problem. Nor, in our interconnected world, can any country pretend to solve the problem by merely tightening its borders. Meeting the modern challenges of migration and displacement will require new, humane solutions. Arising from an issue paper and a conference “When People Flee: Rule of Law and Forced Migration,” the ABA Rule of Law Initiative has developed policy recommendations and a framework of four rule of law approaches to inform the drafters of two new global compacts on migrants and refugees, the U.S. government, and a range of humanitarian and development actors.

UNESCO

The State Department announced Oct. 12 that the United States will withdraw from the United Nations Educational, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at the end of 2018, citing U.S. concerns about “mounting arrears at UNESCO, the need for fundamental reform in the organization, and continuing anti-Israel bias at UNESCO.”

Human rights panel worries about Trump policies; lauds activism of lawyers in response

What is the impact of President Donald Trump’s “America First” approach to human rights and other issues? That was the subject of the program “International Human Rights: Law and Policy in the Trump Administration” held at the ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago.

U.S. Commerce official says legal community has role in export control reform