After my first semester of graduate school, I went to visit my parents over the winter holidays in Huntsville, Alabama, where they moved when I was in college in Texas. I went to go work out in their small community gym one day, and I met an older man who asked me a question that frustrated me but one probably shared by many Americans. It went something like this: “Why do you care so much about addressing poverty and social problems in other countries, when there are so many poor, homeless, hungry and ailing people here at home, in the United States?” I don’t remember what I said at the time, but I don’t remember it being a particularly enlightening or inspiring answer. This is one of those questions that, on the surface, seems overly simplistic but a sufficient answer to which is actually quite involved. I would start by saying that, as a country, an isolationist policy does not work (or will harm us) in an interdependent world. That is, our economic well being and national security depends on not only our success, but the success of almost every other country in the world…
So, given that we are concerned about problems in other parts of the world…
Why the U.S. Should Join the International Criminal Court (ICC): Coming Soon
Foreign Assistance Justification: Coming Soon
Foreign Assistance Reform: Coming Soon
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq: Coming Soon
International Trade: Coming Soon
Poverty:
“What causes hunger in the world in which we live? It is not a lack of food… If you can’t buy food, you’re likely to go hungry – no matter how much food there is in the country. It really is concerned with poverty. And so you have to remove that vulnerability that comes from poverty.” – Amartya Sen
Rule of Law and Governance: If anyone has asked you what the rule of law is, you’ve probably laughed and then paused and pondered. The very term leads you to think that the answer is so obvious that only the most deft wouldn’t understand what it means, when in fact countries from Norway to China proclaim that they have this thing called the “rule of law,” as they define it.
Human Rights:
