Bi-weekly News and Opinion Roundup - April 21, 2022 |
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C&SN summarizes the case of Joshua Atchley et al. v. AstraZeneca UK et al. in which the plaintiffs are using the Anti-Terrorism Act to sue several pharmaceutical and health sector companies that responded to a U.S. government request to provide lifesaving medicines to the Iraqi Ministry of Health (Ministry) during the Iraq war. The plaintiffs argue that the companies aided and abetted terrorism by doing business with the Ministry when it was supposedly controlled by a Shia militia, Jaysh al-Mahdi, a group that the U.S. government chose not to designate as a terrorist entity. Read C&SN’s case summary here. (April 19).
The White House has released its list of priority countries and regions under the Global Fragility Act, legislation designed to center peacebuilding and conflict prevention in U.S. foreign policy towards these priority countries and regions. The priority countries include Haiti, Libya, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, and the priority region is Coastal West Africa, including Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, and Togo. C&SN reports. (April 12).
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A new Brennan Center report looks at counterterrorism practices at the Department of Homeland Security, including its counterterrorism collaborations with state and local authorities and private firms, its travel and immigration screening programs, and its oversight infrastructure. The report also identifies five areas for reform, including “stronger safeguards against profiling; better protections for privacy and free expression; rigorous evaluations of program efficacy; meaningful transparency about data holdings and the implications DHS programs have for civil rights and civil liberties; and more robust internal oversight.” Find the report here. (April 20).
The Global Center on Cooperative Security has an exciting grant opportunity for on-the-ground NGOs in certain countries to apply for capacity building grants to improve financial access systems. It is seeking letters of interest from civil society organizations with experience in countering the financing of terrorism (CFT), security policy, good governance, human rights, principled humanitarian action, financial inclusion and access to financial services, de-risking, network building, advocacy, government and private sector engagement, or related areas. Countries of operation are Cote d’Ivoire, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Tanzania, Togo, and Uganda. The deadline for submitting letters of interest is May 4, 2022. Find more information on submissions here. (March 2022).
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The Muslim Association of Canada (MAC) is challenging an audit by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), arguing that the audit unfounded and tainted by bias and Islamophobia. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports. (April 13).
Representatives of the TechSoup Global Network, a network of NGOs working to facilitate the exchange of mission-critical technology resources locally, discuss civil society needs in Europe given the war in Ukraine and the resulting refugee crisis. Read about their exchange here and watch the full discussion here. (April 11).
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The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which sets anti-money-laundering legal standards for member countries around the world, is moving to evaluate its members’ anti-money-laundering measures on a more frequent basis—shifting from a 10-year cycle to a 6-year one. The Wall Street Journal reports. (April 19).
The Global Center on Cooperative Security held a launch event for its recent report, A Blueprint for Civil Society-Led Engagement in UN Counterterrorism and P/CVE Efforts, which provides recommendations for the United Nations, its Member States and the civil society ecosystem that would enhance the transparency and effectiveness of engagement so that it can be authentic and meaningful. Watch the launch event here and find the full report here. (April 13).
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Patrick Quirk, Senior Director for Strategy, Research, and the Center for Global Impact at the International Republican Institute (IRI), and Lauren Van Metre, Senior Advisor for Peace, Security, and Democratic Resilience at the National Democratic Institute, argue that GFA implementation “can become an integral part of the Biden administration’s strategy for global democratic renewal.” Read their take in Just Security. (April 19).
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Liz Hume, Executive Director of the Alliance for Peacebuilding, unpacks some of the efforts and challenges in supporting locally-led development, specifically highlighting the challenge for local organizations posed by burdensome procurement processes. She calls for “a major culture shift and an overhaul of their [donor] procurement systems, including developing less burdensome, flexible, and longer-term funding cycles, improving accessibility to funding, and targeting outreach towards local organizations to increase their knowledge and use of existing resources and funding.” Read her take on Medium. (April 7).
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Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute, explores the reasons why many countries in the Global South “have bucked Western calls for aid and diplomatic unity” in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, arguing that “The West appears blind to its own hypocrisy and narrow interests in calling for a rules-based order.” Read his take on MSNBC. (April 11).
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Humanitarian aid access has improved slightly in Ethiopia’s Tigray region since a truce was implemented last month, but aid efforts are still falling short of meeting the needs of millions of food insecure people in the region. Bloomberg reports. (April 13).
Fluctuations in the price of food and fuel as a result of the war in Ukraine, combined with a shift in focus among international donors, are exacerbating humanitarian crises in Yemen, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. As Annalisa Conte, the World Food Program’s Geneva Director, expressed when pointing to the necessity of cooperating with Russia on UN aid efforts, “Peace is the precondition to everything else.” BBC reports. (April 12).
The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission held a hearing “on armed conflict, its role as a driver of hunger, famine and starvation, and international humanitarian law.” The hearing highlighted how Russia’s actions in Ukraine appear to be the latest example of the use of starvation as a tactic of war, which is a violation of international humanitarian law. Find an overview of the hearing here and watch the hearing here. (April 12).
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is facing increasingly challenging conditions in Ukraine as it works to provide medical care to those in need. Its staff report that respect for international humanitarian law is eroding. In the besieged city of Mariupol, MSF has lost contact with hospitals, and reports that their last contact with them included reports of high numbers of wounded and concerns about their supplies running out. The Canadian Medical Association Journal reports. (April 11).
Sahar Fetrat, an Afghan feminist activist working with the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, argues that “Humanitarian aid for Afghans and the release of Afghan assets needs to be separated from the politics of recognition and legitimacy for the Taliban.” Read her take in Inkstick. (April 8).
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Russia has shut down Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch’s Russia offices, along with the offices of 13 other international NGOs, citing unspecified violations of Russian law. Responding to the decision, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth said, “Human Rights Watch has been working on and in Russia since the Soviet era, and we will continue to do so… [T]his new iron curtain will not stop our ongoing efforts to defend the rights of all Russians and to protect civilians in Ukraine.” Jurist reports. (April 10).
UN Under-Secretary-General and UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous recently traveled to Moldova to support UN Women’s efforts “to ensure that there is up-to-date data on and analysis of the gender dynamics of the refugee crisis which is critical for supporting humanitarian actors in ensuring a gender-responsive refugee response.” Mirage News reports. (April 11).
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In a recent UN Security Council meeting, Carlos Ruiz Massieu, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative and Head of the UN Verification Mission in Colombia, argued that ending violence and attacks against former combatants, social leaders, and human rights defenders in Columbia is essential to the peace process. “Colombia reminds the world that even an armed conflict of more than five decades, with a painful toll of millions of victims can be resolved through dialogue, laying the foundations for reconciliation and non-repetition,” he said. UN News reports. (April 12).
Liz Hume, Executive Director of the Alliance for Peacebuilding, and Kate Phillips-Barrasso, Vice President of Global Policy and Advocacy at Mercy Corps, who together serve as the co-chairs of the Global Fragility Coalition, welcomed the naming of priority countries and the priority region under the GFA, and offered recommendations for the U.S. government to support the successful implementation of the GFA moving forward. Read their take in Just Security. (April 11).
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Agathe Sarfati, a Senior Policy Analyst at the International Peace Institute, assesses a recent UN humanitarian exemption for Afghanistan, highlighting its value for humanitarian actors as well as persistent challenges in financial access, as banks have remained hesitant to facilitate transactions in Afghanistan in spite of the exemption. Read her analysis on the International Peace Institute Global Observatory. (April 14).
The EU has imposed a fifth round of sanctions on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, including banking sanctions, a port and transport ban, import bans, an export ban, additional designations and amendments to existing sanctions. JD Supra reports. (April 11).
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