Top Features
Strategic Persistence
Report from William Schulz details how the United States can work to help improve human rights in China.Other Democracy & Human Rights Features
June 19, 2009
Slideshow: Pakistan's Internally Displaced People
This slideshow shows powerful images of Pakistan's refugees, telling a story of the issues they're facing and the violence that displaced them.
June 19, 2009
Interactive Map: Fighting Pushes Pakistanis from Their Homes and Threatens Further Instability
Pakistan’s displaced people deserve a close look this World Refugee Day—this interactive map shows how fighting has pushed Pakistan’s people from their homes.
June 19, 2009
Advancing U.S. Security Interests Through Human Rights
A CAP event explores the merits of applying international human rights standards at home.
June 17, 2009
The Power of Justice
William F. Schulz argues in a report for the application of international human rights standards in U.S. domestic practices.
June 17, 2009
Ask the Expert: Bringing International Human Rights Home
Bill Schulz talks about why the United States should apply international human rights standards at home and why is hasn't made an effort to before.
June 3, 2009
What Does a Smaller World Mean for Human Rights?
Twenty years after Tiananmen Square, promoting individual freedom in China is still a challenge, write Nina Hachigian and Bill Schulz.
May 22, 2009
Back on Track to Close Guantánamo
President Barack Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney outlined two very different approaches to Guantánamo yesterday, writes Ken Gude.
May 22, 2009
Weekly Round Up: May 18 - 22, 2009
We supported clean-energy legislation, hosted Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and imagined what America would look like without health reform.
May 19, 2009
A National Strategy for Global Development
Reuben Brigety and Sabina Dewan offer a strategy for protecting America and our world through sustainable security.
May 14, 2009
Obama can't keep torture under wraps
No matter how badly the Obama administration wants it to, torture is not going to go away, writes Ken Gude.
May 11, 2009
Don't Try Bush Officials for Torture
John Bolton is right that Obama should quash Spain's prosecution of Bush officials--just not for the right reasons, writes Ken Gude in the Guardian.
May 4, 2009
Obama Can't Turn the Page on Torture
We need a non-partisan investigation into America's use of torture. Otherwise, it will continue to haunt us, writes Ken Gude on The Guardian's "Comment Is Free" blog.
April 22, 2009
We Have Become Our Enemies
The more we learn about the Bush administration’s torture regime, the more outrageous and inexcusable it becomes, writes Ken Gude.
April 12, 2009
Obama Can Make a Difference in Darfur
President Barack Obama should now move to finally end the crisis in Sudan, rather than to respond to the immediate symptoms. His administration and its new special envoy to Sudan, Gen. Scott Gration, can do that by focusing on three things.
March 9, 2009
More than Words for Women's Rights
On International Women’s Day, governments must recommit to protecting reproductive rights as human rights, writes Jacqueline Nolley Echegaray.
February 26, 2009
Think Again: Thank God for Gitmo!
The punditocracy's attacks on Obama for the decision to close Guantanamo deserve close scrutiny, write Eric Alterman and Danielle Ivory.
February 25, 2009
Why Hillary Clinton Got It Right on China
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's recent comments about human rights in China have dismayed many human rights activists. Might they be overreacting? "Successive [U.S.] administrations and Chinese governments have been poised back and forth on these issues, and we have to continue to press them. But our pressing on those issues can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis, and the security crisis" the secretary told reporters. On what grounds could a responsible observer -- even one devoted to human rights, like myself -- disagree with those observations?
February 24, 2009
Ask the Expert: Three Types of Challenges at Guantánamo
Ken Gude discusses the hurdles that the Obama administration will face as it move along the process of closing Guantánamo by January 2010.
February 19, 2009
Clinton must press China on rights
When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton touches down in Beijing this week she will face an authoritarian Chinese government wringing their hands over a remarkably brazen online petition for human rights and an end to autocratic rule that is circulating among its citizens.
January 29, 2009
Ask the Expert: Working with China on Human Rights
William Schulz on his new report and how and why we should promote human rights in China.
January 15, 2009
Time to Forcefully Oust Mugabe
In the past decade, working as a US diplomat and then as a human rights advocate, I've had the perversely unique opportunity to meet on occasion with one of the longest-serving dictators in the world, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
January 12, 2009
Video: An Iraqi Refugee Story
Experts and Iraqis discuss the dangers that U.S.-affiliated Iraqis face and how to help them.
January 12, 2009
Operation Safe Haven Iraq 2009
New report from Natalie Ondiak and Brian Katulis presents an action plan for airlifting endangered Iraqis linked to the United States.
December 23, 2008
Expanding the Meaning of Rights
In pronouncing health care a right, President-elect Obama took an enormous step in the direction of re-framing one of the most contested domestic issues in a way that has profound implications for a wide variety of other issues.
December 22, 2008
Joe Moakley’s Legacy is Global Justice
The complaint filed Nov. 13 in the Spanish High Court against the former president of El Salvador and 14 former members of the Salvadoran military charging complicity in the 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests is a reminder that good deeds by members of Congress may bear fruit even decades after those members are gone.
December 10, 2008
The Torture Myth
On Human Rights Day, Cory Davia fact checks common arguments for torture and explains why torture is ultimately a moral issue.
December 10, 2008
Celebrating 60 Years of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an astonishing achievement exactly because it is universal and a declaration, writes William Schulz.
November 25, 2008
New Era for Human Rights
Bill Schulz offers five steps the new administration can take to signal a new era in human rights policy for the United States.
October 31, 2008
Bolstering Domestic Human Rights
CAP event features a new blueprint recommending changes to help the new government monitor human rights in the United States.
August 13, 2008
A Global Imperative
Report outlines a progressive approach to U.S.-China relations in the 21st century.
August 1, 2008
The Three Ds: Defense, Diplomacy, and Development
Sen. Biden convenes a panel featuring CAPAF expert Reuben Brigety to discuss the U.S. military's involvement in global aid and development.
July 22, 2008
26 Million and Growing
Interactive map shows the rising number of internally displaced persons worldwide, and Natalie Ondiak offers a three-step plan for addressing the issue.
July 7, 2008
Torture Is a Moral Issue
People of faith in the United States have been working for years to eliminate harsh interrogation techniques and believe it violates theological principles.
June 25, 2008
Holding War Criminals Accountable
Gayle Smith and other experts testifying at Senate subcommittee hearing discuss why we need legislation outlawing crimes against humanity.
June 23, 2008
From Nuremberg to Darfur: Accountability for Crimes Against Humanity
CAPAF Senior Fellow Gayle Smith testifies to Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on crimes against humanity.
June 23, 2008
How to Close Guantanamo
Ken Gude outlines a five phase plan for closing Guantánamo safely and in a way that reinforces American values and the rule of law.
June 11, 2008
New Day, New Way
New report, co-chaired by Gayle Smith, outlines a U.S. foreign assistance strategy for the 21st century.
May 22, 2008
Ask the Expert: Myanmar
Sally Steenland on why, despite, notional sovereignty, the United States should offer humanitarian assistance to Myanmar.
April 17, 2008
Sounding the Alarm on Abyei: An ENOUGH Report
A new ENOUGH report states that immediately addressing the deteriorating situation in Abyei should be a priority for U.S. peacekeeping.
April 14, 2008
CAP Hosts Human Rights Conference
Albright and Moreno-Ocampo headline the Samuel Dash Conference on Human Rights, hosted by CAP and Georgetown University Law Center.
April 8, 2008
The Future of Human Rights
U.S. commitment to human rights should reflect the best of American tradition, says a new book edited by CAP's Bill Schulz.
March 20, 2008
Getting Serious About Ending Conflict and Sexual Violence in Congo
ENOUGH's Rebecca Feeley and Colin Thomas-Jensen lay out steps for policymakers to use to end sexual violence in Congo.
March 13, 2008
Think Again: Catch-22 Revisited: The Bush Administration and the Public’s “Right to Know”
While primaries and scandals distract the media, the Bush administration's defense of torture doesn't get the attention it deserves.
March 11, 2008
Russia's False Choice
Russia's choice between full democracy and stability is a false one, writes Spencer Boyer on The Root.
March 6, 2008
Human Rights in the Congo: Testimony of ENOUGH's Colin Thomas-Jensen
ENOUGH Policy Advisor Colin Thomas-Jensen testifies before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus Briefing on the Congo.
March 3, 2008
R2P, The ICC, and Stopping Atrocities in the Real World
The U.N. “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine has the capacity to protect, but it can only work with significant political will.
February 26, 2008
Kosovo: What's at Stake?
February 11, 2008
Iraq's Displacement Crisis and the International Response
Experts discuss ongoing efforts, urge better cooperation, and press for more assistance and responsibility for the crisis and its response.
January 30, 2008