Policy Papers by Women of Color: A New Normal: Redefining National Security Beyond 2020

Fourth Edition May 2021

Policy Papers by Women of Color Redefining National Security A New Normal: Redefining National Security Beyond 2020

WOMEN OF COLOR ADVANCING PEACE, SECURITY, AND CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION

Cover photo of Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins Cover photo from WCAPS photo stock

POLICY PAPERS BY WOMEN OF COLOR, FOURTH EDITION A NEW NORMAL: REDEFINING NATIONAL SECURITY BEYOND 2020

WOMEN OF COLOR ADVANCING PEACE, SECURITY, AND CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION Redefining National Security Working Group

Policy Papers by Women of Color, Fourth Edition A New Normal: Redefining National Security Beyond 2020 May 2021

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Table of Contents Welcome from Ambassador Bonnie D. Jenkins ........................................................................................... 4 Letter from the Editors .................................................................................................................................. 6 Editorial Board .............................................................................................................................................. 8

Security Redefined 1. Lessons from the UK: The Urgent Need to Redefine Security Post COVID-19, by Aditi Gupta and Camilla Molyneux ......................................................................................................................... 10

Health 2. Strengthening Health Systems Strengthens Global Health Security: Prevent. Detect. Respond, by Jennyfer Ambe ................................................................................................................................ 15 3. Maternal Health in Women of Color, by Palmira Mangae, Tausi Suedi, MPH, Christine KiruthuKamamia, MPH and Jennyfer Ambe ............................................................................................. 19

Human Rights and the Role of the State 4. The “War” at Home: Strengthening the U.S. Commitment to Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention as a Matter of National Security, by Pratima T. Narayan, Esq. .................................. 23 5. Strengthening State Role in Reporting Trafficking in Persons Data, by Yewande O. Maraiyesa 28 6. Unpaid Internships: A Lack of Compliance is Harming Our National Security and Our Future, by Nicole M. Anselmo......................................................................................................................... 33

Immigration 7. The Intersection of Climate Change and Immigration: A Humane Approach to Climate Displacement, by Neda M. Shaheen, Esq....................................................................................... 37 8. From Deterrence to Decriminalization: Reimagining How Immigration Violations Are Penalized Under the Biden Administration, by Reema Saleh ........................................................................ 41 9. Seeking Restorative Justice for Immigrants: A Policy Proposal for Permanently Ending Child Separation at the United States-Mexico Border, by Alma Maria Rinasz, M.Ed............................ 46

Terrorism and Counterterrorism 10. Racism in the Digital Age: How Online Radicalization of White Supremacists Became the United States’ Greatest National Security Threat, by Jade Vasquez, MA................................................. 50 11. Terror-management and Intersectionality in National Emergencies, by Cecilia Idika-Kalu . ...... 55 12. Normalizing The Threat-potential of White Supremacy by Nola Haynes ..................................... 59 13. Redefining Counterterrorism, by Cheryl Voisard, Ph.D. .............................................................. 63

Multilateralism and Bilateralism 14. Redefining U.S.-Africa Economic Relations, by Kyla Denwood .................................................. 67 15. “Multilateralism is Back”: Strengthened Multilateral Institutions as a National Security Imperative, by Nabila Jamshed ...................................................................................................... 72 16. On the Need to Reawaken Cultural Diplomacy: A Russianist Perspective, by B. Amarilis Lugo de Fabritz, Ph.D. .................................................................................................................................. 77

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Welcome from Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins Colleagues, It is with great pleasure that I bring you the latest edition of the Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security, and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS) Policy Papers. Looking back to when we began the WCAPS publications, the original goal was to highlight the expertise and the viewpoints of women of color on issues of peace, security, conflict transformation, and foreign policy. It was also to open the door to an opportunity for women of color to be published. What I have observed during my many years in Washington is that it is often challenging for women of color to be published. Many times, I have been asked “how do I get published,” in a space that has left out many women of color. One of the goals of WCAPS is to open doors for women of color that have been closed before. I wanted to ensure we are represented in all the different forums of policy change that exist.

I was happy when we began to work on our first publications in 2019 that led to three simultaneous publications in February 2020. Since that time, we not only published the Policy Papers by Women of Color as an ongoing policy journal, but reports, op-ed, statements, and many other articles by WCAPS members. I am happy to see our members now being sought for writing and publications in the fields of peace, security, conflict transformation, and foreign policy. In so many ways, WCAPS is becoming an organization increasingly relied upon to provide authors, as well as experts, panelists, mentors, speakers, and more. WCAPS is also sought after for its members to join other organizations, and WCAPS members are increasingly in positions and roles that were not previously open to young girls and women of color. Once again, WCAPS and women of color are leading the way.

We will continue to do so.

The articles in this fourth edition of the Policy Papers by Women of Color, focus on the area of work I have called since 2017, “Redefining National Security.” The process for bringing in different voices and perspectives challenges old definitions of national security, and is a fundamental aspect of WCAPS. Many issues traditionally included in the definition of national security do not reflect those that are most challenging and that have a more negative impact on diverse populations, particularly women of color. For example, climate change, infectious disease, food and water threats, illicit trafficking and threats to biodiversity and our oceans are not covered within the traditional definition of military threats, great power competition, and weapons of mass destruction. As such, those issues fail to get the policy attention and funding needed and that failure again impacts vulnerable communities. Focusing on the increasingly thin layer of distinction between global and local issues is imperative if we are to meet the global challenges today as a

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global community. We need to view these challenges holistically and include the security concerns of different populations in the U.S. and around the world.

I cannot tell you what a pleasure it is to engage with women who are represented in this edition.

As with each of our publications, we can so easily showcase the knowledge of WCAPS members and women of color around the world. In addition to the authors, a team of amazing women served as editors and ensured this edition was finalized. It is what I call teamwork. In that respect, I want to thank Heather Hwalek, Heather Ashby, Maritza T. Adonis, Pratima Narayan, and Amber Demery for leading the editing process and also Neda Shaheen for providing final formatting.

I hope that you enjoy this latest edition, and other WCAPS publications and articles that will follow this edition in the future.

Sincerely,

Bonnie D. Jenkins Founder and Former Executive Director Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security, and Conflict Transformation Organizations in Solidarity Redefining National Security Initiative

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POLICY PAPERS BY WOMEN OF COLOR, FOURTH EDITION A NEW NORMAL: REDEFINING NATIONAL SECURITY BEYOND 2020

Letter from the Editors This past year from 2020 into 2021 has been challenging and confusing, but also rewarding. In 2020, WCAPS established the Intersectionality of National Security Sub-Working Group (INSSWG) composed of a phenomenal group of women with different backgrounds, ideas, and experiences, who have each contributed to advancing INSSWG efforts.

The INSSWG is a part of the WCAPS Redefining National Security Working Group and the organization’s broader effort to develop a dialogue on how countries define and fund national security today and how we can promote a definition and direction that is more reflective of the threats facing countries and the international community.

The INSSWG seeks to expand our understanding of the way gender, class, race, as well as social, economic, and political contexts of individuals and groups shape and inform national security. We are not only focused on the U.S., but also look globally at these evolving and intersectional contexts. The aim of national security policy should be to provide a collective security which allows all members of a society to thrive. Only by recognizing how national security policies, ideas, and approaches affect groups differently, and how the particular experiences and identities of individuals from diverse groups influence their relationship to the state and society, can we create a more equitable national security apparatus that can deliver fair outcomes for all.

Together, INSSWG members decided to launch this publication project to amplify the ideas and voices of women of color focused on the intersectionality of national security. The publication contributes to deeper conversations around intersectionality/redefining national security. In the face of trends of rising nationalism and misinformation, as well as the havoc wreaked by the COVID-19 pandemic which has particularly hurt people of color, we remain hopeful that we can chart a brighter future. In that spirit, our theme is A New Normal: Redefining National Security Beyond 2020. For 2021, we see the status quo changing in many ways. As part of the mission for WCAPS efforts to redefine “national security,” rather than returning to normal in 2021, we see an opportunity to rebuild a better system.

We asked the following questions of the individuals who submitted a paper: within your sub-field of national security, what would be the "new normal" you would like to see? What would it take to get there? What are the opportunities available for reform or revolution following the upheavals in 2020?

We could not be more excited to bring you this collection of policy papers from a brilliant group of women of color representing academia, government, non-profits, and other industries. Their essays touch on a range of topics from COVID-19’s impact on people of color, to the January 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection, to maternal health and many more areas. Each policy paper reveals how

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our current understanding of national security needs to be redefined and expanded to be more inclusive of different voices, diverse groups, and bold ideas.

We hope that you enjoy reading the policy papers in this publication as much as we enjoyed working with each writer to bring this to you.

Sincerely, Maritza T. Adonis, J.D., MCIArb Heather Ashby, PhD Amber A. Demery Heather Yang Hwalek Pratima T. Narayan, Esq.

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POLICY PAPERS BY WOMEN OF COLOR, FOURTH EDITION A NEW NORMAL: REDEFINING NATIONAL SECURITY BEYOND 2020

Editorial Board Maritza T. Adonis, J.D., MCIArb Maritza T. Adonis, J.D., MCIArb, Citizen Diplomat, U.S. Lobbyist, Global Advocate, Diplomacy, Diversity, and Political Thought Leader, Global Public Policy and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Executive, and International Arbitration and Faith Entertainment Professional, boasts over 15 years of experience amplifying diversity, equity, and inclusion in leadership, thought, and action across disciplines (ie. religious faiths, women and youth, healthcare, rule of law, diplomacy, performing arts, national security, education, and criminal justice) and geography (ie. North and South America, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, Middle East and Africa). Maritza currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of MTA Visions™ Global CSR & Gov’t Relations firm based in Washington D.C. that offers a full range of services on a project or outsourced basis and/or consulting engagement to nonprofits, IGOs, corporations, civil societies, universities, trade and professional associations, multilateral organizations and related entities seeking to MOVE with profit and purpose, AMPLIFY impact locally and globally, and PROTECT clean interests in sovereign States and on all levels of the U.S. government, including Capitol Hill℠.

Dr. Heather Ashby Dr. Heather Ashby is a foreign policy and national security expert in Washington, D.C. She has worked at the intersection of homeland security and international affairs, and on U.S.-Russia relations at the Department of Homeland Security. In 2014, she received her Ph.D. in Russian and Global History from the University of Southern California with a focus on the relationship between the Soviet Union and the Global South. From 2012-2013 she served as a Boren Fellow in Moscow, Russia, and was named by New America as a Black American National Security & Foreign Policy Next Generation Leader in 2018. She currently serves as the Program Leader for the WCAPS GenZer Program, co-chair for the WCAPS Intersectionality of National Security Sub-Working Group, and a Board Member for the Washington, D.C. chapter of the Women in International Security organization. She has published articles in Foreign Policy and Inkstick.

Amber Demery Amber Demery is a national security analyst with the US Department of Justice where she coordinates with other law enforcement and government agencies on briefings, products, and cases. Within DOJ, she created and chairs a diversity and inclusion group that works with the agency diversity office to increase minority representation in her division. Amber is also a Young Leader with foreign policy research

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institute the Pacific Forum. Prior to entering DOJ, Amber completed a Boren Fellowship from 2014 - 2015 in Japan where she studied Japanese and completed an internship with an Asiafocused human rights organization. She received her Master's degree in International Relations with a focus on Security Studies, Foreign Policy, and Asia from The Maxwell School at Syracuse University, and her undergraduate degree in Psychology at Howard University in Washington, DC.

Heather Yang Hwalek Heather Yang Hwalek is a Program Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She previously served as a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State, most recently as a staff officer to the Secretary of State. She also served as a Political-Military Officer in Tokyo, Japan and as Vice Consul at the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou, China. Prior to her Foreign Service career, she served in the Department of State's Bureau of African Affairs, Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, and Bureau of Diplomatic Security, as well as at the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa. Before college, she spent a year teaching English in rural China. Heather obtained Masters of Art in International Relations at Yale University and her Bachelor of Art in Anthropology at Columbia University.

Pratima T. Narayan, Esq. Pratima T. Narayan is Co-Chair of the WCAPS Human Rights Working Group and a Senior Program Manager with the Global Initiative for Justice, Truth and Reconciliation where she oversees several programs in transitional justice and atrocity prevention, including the Bangladesh-Rohingya Documentation Initiative. Prior to this, Pratima led investigations for the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan. While living in Juba from 2017 to 2020, she conducted approximately 25 missions across South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia to document grave human rights violations. In 2018, she was one of eighteen investigators selected globally to participate in a U.S. Department of State investigation into atrocities allegedly committed against Rohingya communities in Myanmar.

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Lessons from the UK: The Urgent Need to Redefine Security Post COVID-19 Aditi Gupta and Camilla Molyneux The devastation caused by COVID-19 has forced states around the world to reassess what protecting their citizens really means. Moreover, it has reminded us of how our security is increasingly interlinked to that of people elsewhere on the planet. Together, the climate crisis and COVID-19 have clearly illustrated that security policy and resources are too narrowly focused on protecting the state and countering traditional threats - terrorism; great power competition; and nuclear rivalry - through the use of military force. This echoes important lessons from the twodecade-long war on terror, namely that responding to insecurity armed solely with western analysis and overwhelmingly with militarised solutions, may not provide more security. Leaving aside the differences of these challenges, a central commonality is that they disproportionately impact Black people, Indigenous people, and people of colour. Yet, their roles, expertise and agency have been marginalized. This failure to incorporate expertise from the people most acutely facing insecurity has resulted in ineffective policies and responses, undermining stability and security everywhere.

To address these short-comings, in 2021, there is an immediate need for a more comprehensive understanding of security, a more effective division of resources beyond militarised solutions, and for the expertise and knowledge of Black people, Indigenous people, and people of colour to figure centrally in security policy and responses.

Trends of the Post-9/11 Security Landscape: Terrorism as the Primary Security Threat, and a Weakening of the International Rules-based Order One month before the coronavirus hit the UK, it’s security focus, like that of most states, was on countering traditional threats. In a report, the Ministry of Defence trumpeted a rise in military spending of £2bn to £41.5bn by 2020/21, citing the UK’s military force as “the tip of the spear for a resurgent Britain”.1 This figure is more than twice that dedicated to current global emergencies, including climate and ecological breakdown, and hundreds of times more than on pandemic prevention.2

1

United Kingdom Ministry of Defence, UK Defence in Numbers 2019, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/919361/20200227_CH_UK_D efence_in_Numbers_2019.pdf.

2 Government Investment for a Greener and Fairer Economy, September 2019, https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2019/08/Government-Investment-for-a-greener-and-fairer-economy-FINAL-30.08.19.pdf; George Monbiot, “What does ‘national defence’ mean in a pandemic? It’s no time to buy fighter jets,” The Guardian, April 8, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/08/national-defence-corona-pandemic-fighter-jets.

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Over the past two decades, counterterrorism has dominated UK national security policy, and has monopolized debates on how to address security challenges. This despite “an almost constant stream of warnings from experts”, including intelligence services, pointing to links between UK intervention abroad and terrorism at home. 3 The failures of this militarised counterterrorism approach are becoming clear: a recent CSIS report shows that the number of Salafi-Jihadist groups have nearly quadrupled since 2001, with the number of attacks increasing five fold.4 Concurrently, there is a cost to this unproductive approach: an unprecedented number of civilians die in conflict zones today, and protracted instability and low-level violence is making communities and regions more insecure.5 This provides some indication that the significant emphasis on kinetic counterterrorism operations and security force assistance activities that epitomize the post-9/11 era have not had the intended effect.

Currently, the global security environment and the norms by which states operate have taken a dangerous turn, with UK actions at the center. The international rules-based order is increasingly under threat with the rise of ‘grey zones’ of military operations that fall below the threshold of allout war. Today’s operations have seen a move away from large-scale troop deployments, to an increasing reliance on air power and light-footprint covert operations. These have included targeted lethal strikes against individuals outside of armed conflict, Special Forces operations, extraordinary rendition, and even torture. This trend, led by the west, is now gaining traction among other states, such as Turkey and Russia.6 The rise of these limited and often covert operations pose serious challenges to the strength of the international rules-based system, and the vital norms which underpin global stability. The UK’s new ‘Integrated Operating Concept’, launched in September 2020, formalizes fighting below the threshold of armed conflict, eschewing the certainties of international law and blocking avenues for scrutiny and evaluation of actions. 7 The priority is seen as above all to have agility and adaptability against adversaries - but at what cost? Most importantly, we’re seeing a devastating concurrent rise in civilian casualties. During the Second World War, civilians represented 50% of total casualties. By the 1990s, civilians are

Jeremy H. Keenan, “UK Foreign Policy and Intelligence in the Post-Truth Era: Radical Violent Extremism and ‘Blow-Back,’” State Crime Journal 6 no. 2 (2017): 190-213.

4 Seth G. Jones, The Evolution of the Salafi-Jihadist Threat: Current and Future Challenges from the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, and Other Groups (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2018), https://www.csis.org/analysis/evolution-salafi-jihadist-threat; United States Institute of Peace, Preventing Extremism in Fragile States A New Approach, February 2019, https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/2019-02/preventing-extremism-in-fragile-statesa-new-approach.pdf.

5 Tom Brake and Ann Clwyd, “We need to act - 85% of casualties in conflict are civilians,” PoliticsHome, June 14, 2019, https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/we-need-to-act--85-of-casualities-in-conflict-are-civilians; Dr. Kate Ferguson, Preventing While Protecting: The UK’s Protection of Civilians Strategy in review, (England: Protection Approaches), https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/131c96cc-7e6f-4c06-ae376550dbd85dde/downloads/Preventing%20While%20Protecting%20The%20UK%E2%80%99s%20Protectio.pdf?ver=158635790 5700.

6 Can Dundar, “President Erdogan has issued a license to kill,” The Washington Post, December 2, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/12/02/president-erdogan-has-issued-license-kill/.

7 United Kingdom Ministry of Defence, The Integrated Operating Concept (Bristol, United Kingdom: UK Ministry of Defence Crown, September 2020), https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-integrated-operating-concept-2025/the-integratedoperating-concept-2025-accessible-version.

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believed to have accounted for between 80% to 85% of casualties in armed conflict, with the trend intensifying in the 21st century.8 A Step in The Right Direction: From Policy Documents to a Comprehensive, Inclusive Security Strategy Why does our conception of security remain so limited? It’s not for lack of risk assessments and research. For example, successive policy documents from 2010-2015 assessed pandemics as an urgent and tier one risk for the UK (National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies 2010; 9 National Security Strategies 2010 10 and 201511). It’s also not for lack of thinking and initiatives. First, a central commitment to “strengthening the rules-based international order and its institutions” was last enshrined in the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), and has been a central tenet of the UK’s foreign policy for decades. 12 Second, there has been significant investment in understanding and tackling the root causes of insecurity and conflict across Departments. For example, there have been numerous individual initiatives focused on tackling root causes of insecurity and vulnerability and enshrining a long-term human security approach that prioritizes the security of individuals over short-term military gains. This includes resourcing and implementing Human Security 13 as a strategic, cross-cutting government priority, understood as essential to military success; gradual implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals; 14 and initiatives on Preventing Sexual Violence, 15 Freedom of Religious Belief,16 and Women, Peace & Security.17 Sarah Adamczyk, “Twenty years of protection of civilians at the UN Security Council,” Overseas Development Institute, May 21, 2019, https://www.odi.org/publications/11348-twenty-years-protection-civilians-un-security-council.

9 National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies (London, United Kingdom: Cabinet Office, 2010), https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/211853/nationalriskregister2010.pdf.

10 A Strong Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The National Security Strategy (London, United Kingdom: Cabinet Office, 2010), https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/61936/national-securitystrategy.pdf.

11 National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015: A Secure and Prosperous United Kingdom (London, United Kingdom: Cabinet Office, 2015), https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/478936/52309_Cm_9161_NSS _SD_Review_PRINT_only.pdf.

12 National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015: A Secure and Prosperous United Kingdom (London, United Kingdom: Cabinet Office, 2015), https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/555607/2015_Strategic_Defen ce_and_Security_Review.pdf 13 Ministry of Defence and The Rt Hon Gavin Williamson CBE MP, “MOD to establish Centre of Excellence for Human Security,” April 4, 2019, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mod-to-establish-centre-of-excellence-for-human-security; 14 United Kingdom Cabinet Office, Department for International Development, and Foreign, Commonwealth, & Development Office, Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals, July 5, 2019, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/implementing-the-sustainable-development-goals/implementing-the-sustainabledevelopment-goals--2.

15 Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/implementing-the-sustainabledevelopment-goals/implementing-the-sustainable-development-goals--2.

16 Foreign & Commonwealth Office and Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, “PM underlines UK’s commitment to freedom of religion or belief,” August 22, 2019, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-underlines-uks-commitment-to-freedom-of-religion-orbelief.

17 Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Department for International Development, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Ministry of Defence, and Stabilisation Unit, “UK national action plan on women, peace and security 2018 to 2022,” 8

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However, despite all these efforts, most initiatives remain fragmented, and are highly skewed to favor military responses to almost every urgent issue. To exacerbate this situation, policy responses are almost always rendered incomplete. The UK and its allies develop policies that address the symptoms of conflict rather than its root causes, underpinned by intellectual concepts and political ideologies that neglect the vital role of race, intersectionality, and local expertise in analyzing and remedying current security challenges. This neglect results in political analysis and policy decisions that obscure local realities and are divorced from a proper examination of local, national and regional interests, power dynamics, norms and practices.

A More Effective Response to Security Challenges: The Missing Link Despite central issues across the security and conflict fields such as war, human rights, climate change and development having a disproportionate and negative impact on Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color, their roles and agency have been marginalized by academic and professional gatekeepers of knowledge, expertise, evidence and value. Without proper representation and understanding of how multiple oppressions and inequalities intersect with each other, we fail to respond with an intersectional approach to challenges. This results in fundamentally flawed and incomplete policy analysis that erases vital voices and expertise, and fails to take into account a broader understanding of security that truly benefits all. This failure is seen clearly in the progression of COVID-19 racing through vulnerable conflict areas, and the repeated migration crises knocking at Europe’s borders. The pandemic has reminded us that in the face of global security challenges, cooperation and multilateralism are essential, with the security of all humans increasingly interlinked, exemplified by Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General’s repeated statement that: “none of us will be safe until everyone is safe.”

What rings clear from the hard lessons now being learnt after a year of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, is that claiming something is a priority does not matter if this is not supported by decisive action, adequate resourcing and underpinned by clear strategy. The UK should lead the way in adopting a new, considered security strategy that prioritizes civilian protection, and reinforces overlapping foreign policy and development goals on preventing violent conflict, addressing humanitarian crises, and creating global stability. This strategy should prioritize transparency, opportunities to input into and evaluate policy, and learn lessons openly. A comprehensive evaluation of past operations and streamlining lessons learned, will provide essential insight and help future-proof UK strategy. It should protect and uphold the spirit and letter of the law. It is the best tool we have for protection as well as identifying and remedying mistakes as we learn how to best approach complex challenges. Finally, it must be underpinned by dialogue and knowledge exchange. It is critical that we understand and appreciate the power of February 10, 2021, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-national-action-plan-on-women-peace-and-security-2018-to2022.

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local expertise, knowledge, and initiatives and actively incorporate diverse representation into planning and implementation. By prioritizing local expertise, pursuing a broad, positive conception of security, and utilizing intersectional approaches to security challenges, we will best equip ourselves for the benefit of all.

Aditi Gupta Aditi Gupta is the Deputy Director for the UK Chapter of Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security, and the Director for the AllParty Parliamentary Group on Drones. Aditi leads the Group’s work on keeping the issues around the legality of the use of force, outcomes for civilian protection and obligations when assisting partners high on the Parliamentary agenda. She coordinates efforts across Westminster, Whitehall and civil society to strengthen processes to better protect civilians in conflict, working to ensure that any lessons learned are incorporated in emerging military technology policy. Aditi previously ran the intergovernmental Freedom Online Coalition where, as secretariat manager, she directed a global effort (led by 30 Member States) to improve UN-level cyber policy on Internet freedom. She has created and led training large-scale programmes on cybersecurity and human rights and led projects with the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs to build civil society capacity to engage in cyber policy.

Camilla Molyneux Camilla Molyneux is the researcher at the All Party Parliamentary Group on Drones and an independent researcher and advisor. Her professional experience includes analyses and report writing aimed to inform policy decisions, and on-the-ground qualitative research from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Molyneux’s work has been presented in the UK parliament, at academic conferences, and will be featured in a book on remote warfare (2020). Molyneux is a contributor and advisor to the Imperial War Museum and has been asked to speak at a NATO conference about the future of war. Previously, Molyneux was the Human Rights Officer at the Norwegian Embassy to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain and Oman, where she maintained this key pillar of Norway’s foreign policy, monitored local and regional issues, authoring crossdisciplinary reports for the MOFA, and represented the Embassy at government meetings.

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Strengthening Health Systems Strengthens Global Health Security: Prevent. Detect. Respond.

Jennyfer Ambe, Co-Chair, WCAPS Global Health Working Group “It is not just COVID-19 that is killing people, it is underprivilege, it is lack of access, it’s years of living with health conditions that haven’t been properly managed because of the colour of your skin, or your ethnicity, or your social group.” Dr. Mike Ryan, E.D. of Health Emergencies Programme, WHO. In the last few decades, due to several factors such as deforestation, changes in climate, as well as an increase in direct contact with infected animals, there has been a higher incidence of zoonoses. 1 Transmission of Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID’s) have become statistically higher making it more likely and increasingly prevalent in certain regions. The more widely known epidemics have been: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV, 1981-present)2; Influenza Type A H5N1 which causes the disease known as Avian Flu. H5N1 was first seen in 1997. Mutations in H5N1 were followed with the emergence of the Z strain in 2003. 3 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS 2002-2004); Influenza Type A H1N1, 2009-2010 (Swine Flu); Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Corona Virus MERS CoV, 2012 - present).4 Then the West Africa Ebola Virus Disease outbreak 2014-2016;5 Zika in 20166 and a series of Kivu/Ituri Ebola Outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 2018 -2020.7 This list is by no means complete. Advocates for Health Security have been very vocal for decades, lobbying for the strengthening of health systems globally with the understanding that stronger health systems mean better health care for communities. This will ensure that people are not suffering because they do not have access to a basic human right. 8 Stronger health systems also enable a better response to EID’s in terms of mitigating the spread of the disease. The call by the member countries of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) is for countries to enact policies that are aligned and in partnership with the GHSA. Non-member countries should be encouraged and supported to join the GHSA. Country member states are

1

Adekunle Sanyaolu, "Epidemiology of Zoonotic Diseases in the United States: A Comprehensive Review," Journal of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology 2 no. 3 (2016).

2 HIV.gov, "What Are HIV and AIDS?," June 5, 2020.

3 Niti Mittal and Bikash Medhi, “The bird flu: a new emerging pandemic threat and its pharmacological intervention,” International Journal of Health Sciences 1 no. 2 (2007): 277-83.

4 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,"About Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)," https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/mers/about/index.html.

5 World Health Organization, “Ebola Virus Disease,” https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ebola-virus-disease 6 "Zika Virus," New England Journal of Medicine, Jan 1, 2021.

7 Whole Health Organization, "Ebola Health Update - North Kivu/Ituri, DRC, 2018-2020," https://www.who.int/emergenciesold/diseases/ebola/drc-2019.

8 Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, "Health Is a Fundamental Human Right," World Health Organization, December 10, 2017, https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/health-is-a-fundamental-human-right.

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willing to engage and assist other countries which will enable a healthier and stronger planetary security. 9 Global Health Security Agenda December 27th, 2020 was the first International Day of Epidemic Preparedness. Never before had a day been set aside for epidemic preparedness despite numerous outbreaks and epidemics in recent history. The GHSA is a partnership between approximately 70 countries with representation from all regions of the world, non-governmental organizations and international organizations with a goal of preventing, detecting and responding to global health threats. No nation can stand alone during challenging times when there is an outbreak. The GHSA enables participating countries to work together providing support and collaboration in order to address the health security infrastructure within countries and across regions, since its official launch in February 2014. 10 Many leaders in positions of power and influence may not have understood the importance of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA). However, with the current COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of prevention, detection and responding, and stopping disease threats at the source, has now begun to make an impression on government officials, traditional, religious and political leaders who are not part of the global, scientific community. 11 GHSA: Leadership and participation The baton of leadership for the GHSA was recently passed from the Netherlands to Thailand during the 6th Ministerial Meeting held from the 18th to the 20th of November 2020 in the Kingdom of Thailand. The theme was “Bridging Cooperative Action for Global Health Security.” The meeting was held in person as well as on-line and was a testament to inclusion of delegates from country governments as well as delegates from the non-governmental sector.

Vision for 2024 The GHSA was launched in 2014 in an effort for countries to come together and strengthen the capabilities to fight threats posed by infectious disease. This is done by identifying and tracking the disease through country and global systems. In 2017, the Kampala Declaration extended GHSA’s mandate by 5 years. The framework for GHSA 2024 includes goals and objectives for the years 2019 through 2024. The gaps in health security posed by infectious diseases whether 9

Jennyfer Ambe and R. Osman, "Policy Papers by Women of Color. Shifting the Paradigm: One Health Approach for Planetary Health and Security," Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security, and Conflict Transformation, October 2020, 28-32.

10

Julie E Fischer, Rebecca Katz,Sarah A. Kornblet, Erin M. Sorrell,"Global Health Security Agenda and the International Health Regulations: Moving Forward," Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science 12 no. 5 (September 2014): 231-8.

11 Bonnie Jenkins, “Now is the time to revisit the Global Health Security Agenda,” Brookings Institution, March 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/03/27/now-is-the-time-to-revisit-the-global-health-security-agenda/

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they occur through accidental or deliberate events continues to be a challenge for many countries.

The vision for the 2024 framework will be addressed through the following points taken from the 6th GHSA Ministerial Meeting in the Kingdom of Thailand, November 2020. 12 1.

2.

3.

4.

Gaps will be identified and addressed through a Joint External Evaluation (JEE).

Countries will prioritize 5 technical areas.

Complete the development of a National Action Plan for Health Security.

Change country legislation/ policies to support GHSA.

The JEE is used to assess country capabilities to prevent, detect and respond in a timely manner to health risks in both the animal and human health systems which affect the security of the country.

Some of these risks occur naturally and others are risks that happen due to accidental events. The JEE is conducted in collaboration with different sectors and is voluntary and supported by WHO staff, resources and tools. By identifying gaps, countries are able to strengthen those areas.

The Global Agenda Outlook Building the membership of countries involved in the GHSA is an important task. There are 195 countries in the world of which 193 are United Nations Members States. 13 In the recent past, health security in many countries was not clearly tied to national security but was relegated to Ministries of Health and/or Agriculture due to the nature of EID’s. The current pandemic has shown strong multi-sectoral, all of government and civil society approaches are needed. 14 Policies at the country level should be implementable and enforceable. Countries with weaker health systems can learn from others on how to build capacity, strengthen surveillance, laboratory systems, build better biosafety and biosecurity systems and together countries can also look for some more out of the box approaches to include technology (some low-tech approaches have benefited sub-Saharan countries). Partnerships do not have to be global north/south but can also be global south/south as countries learn from programs and practices that have been successful.

Strengthening Health Systems, Strengthens National Security From December 2019 when the then unnamed virus exploded on the scene making people ill and causing immense loss of life, to date (March 5, 2021) the gaps in responses from different regions have been made worse by the lack of appropriate restrictions and precautions in certain countries/regions (including restriction of global air travel). The devastation from the resulting

Global Health Security Agenda, “Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) 2024 Framework,” November 2018, https://ghsagenda.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/ghsa2024-framework.pdf; Global Health Security Agenda, "Commitments to the Global Health Security Agenda 2024 Targets," Global Health Security Ministerial Meeting 2020, November 2020.

13 Worldometer, "Countries in the World," accessed January 2, 2021.

14 United Nations, “COVID-19 Pandemic Demonstrates Multilateral Cooperation Key to Overcoming Global Challenges, President Stresses as General Assembly Concludes Annual Debate,” United Nations General Assembly 75th Session, 14th & 15th Meetings, September 29, 2020, https://www.un.org/press/en/2020/ga12273.doc.htm.

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loss of life which stands at a global figure of 2,582,55515 at the time of writing, combined with economic losses and exposure of other factors such as racial inequality, discrimination, lack of access to healthcare due to the barriers for certain marginalized groups and the social determinants of health have been debilitating and catastrophic. There is a need for more innovation and insider research without global north funders determining what is needed by individual countries. The use of the JEE evaluations which are provided with support from the WHO will enable countries to examine these gaps, build upon the national plans and increase stakeholder buy-in as well as capacity in those areas.

Strengthening health systems, strengthens global health security and enables access to healthcare, reducing barriers which provides health equity within those systems.

Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS) is a member organization of the Global Health Security Agenda Consortium (GHSAC), “A global consortium of non-governmental stakeholders committed to helping make the world safe and secure from threats posed by infectious diseases,” since WCAPS was launched in 2017. 16 The WCAPS Executive Director, Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins, was part of the government team that launched the GHSA, as well as a founder of GHSAC and founder of the GHSA Next Generation Network.

Jennyfer Ambe Jennyfer Ambe supports education and training in sub-Saharan Africa through a socio-cultural lens to build health equity. She supports Safe Mother and Childhood Research Initiative (SAMOCRI) in Nigeria; Project 1808 in Sierra Leone and Youth Empowerment (#YE254) in Kenya, advocating for women, girls and Community Health Workers. Her current research is focused on challenges surrounding maternal and reproductive health as well as pregnant women and clinical trials. As an Epidemiologist, she has a keen interest in Emerging Infectious Diseases and biosecurity. Jennyfer is Co-Chair for the WCAPS Global Health Working Group.

Jennyfer Ambe is currently on the leadership team of the GHSAC as the co-Chair for Membership Coordination. WCAPS continues to be a strong supporter of the work of the GHSA, as well as its overall goal and mission.

15 16

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, "COVID-19 Map," accessed on March. 6, 2021.

Global Health Security Agenda Consortium, https://ghsacngs.org/.

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Maternal Health in Women of Color Palmira Mangae, Tausi Suedi, MPH, Christine Kiruthu-Kamamia, MPH, and Jennyfer Ambe In the past two months, the Global Health Working Group members identified 3 areas of focus for the incoming Biden and Harris administration: Equity, Maternal and Child Health, and Global Health Security. Members of this team conduct research and work in the area of maternal health, and therefore lend an in-depth analysis and expertise in this area both in the United States and globally. In the context of national security, protecting the maternal health of women of color and ensuring safe births secures America’s future. There are ripple effects a maternal death has on a woman's family, communities, and global prosperity and in communities of color with mounting disparities and inequalities, such losses are further exacerbated leading to long-term social and economic disadvantages.

The World Health Organization places the death of women from preventable pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum related causes in 2017 at 810 women daily, across the globe. Women between the ages of 15-49 years of age continue to die in pregnancy, childbirth, or immediately after giving birth due to direct medical and indirect social causes. While 94% of maternal deaths occur in developing countries, 1 maternal health especially for women of color in the United States is a public health priority.

Women of Color and the Alarming Maternal Health Challenges The United States of America is the only industrialized country with similar maternal mortality statistics akin to low- and middle-income countries. As per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black and American Indian/Alaska Native women in the United States had significantly more pregnancy-related deaths per 100,000 births than did white, Hispanic, and Asian/Pacific Islander women between 2007 and 2016.2 Globally, approximately 295,000 women died during and following pregnancy and childbirth in 2017. These statistics are alarming and clearly illustrate the importance of addressing maternal health nationally and globally.

Maternal health is a multifaceted public health issue ranging from timeliness and quality of care in health facilities, access to care and supportive maternal health services; untreated or poorly managed pre-existing chronic conditions; unfavorable health policies; and complex social determinants of health such as housing, transportation, and food security. Furthermore, studies 1

World Health Organization, Maternal mortality, September 19, 2019, https://www.who.int/news-room/factsheets/detail/maternal-mortality.

2 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Pregnancy-Related Deaths - United States, 2007– 2016, September 5, 2019, https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6835a3.htm?s_cid=mm6835a3_w.

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show that unconscious/implicit bias in health care delivery plays a crucial role in how women of color respond to and access care, adhere to provider medical recommendations, and adopt best practices and behaviors that will reduce the risk of preventable maternal death. 3 These challenges pose barriers to care by decreasing the likelihood of women of color to seek care, adhere to medical recommendations, and adversely affect women’s quality of life, while contributing to the varying comorbidities that result in high maternal mortality rates. Public health leaders and policymakers recognize the urgency to address maternal health and a collective multidisciplinary response is necessary. Most of the current research describes possible causes and implications, and the lack of creative, equitable, and innovative interventions geared towards mitigating maternal mortality.

Policies, Programs, and Options Different states across the US have various maternal health programs and the Biden-Harris administration has a historic opportunity to accelerate state efforts to address maternal health for women of color in the US. Opportunities include: 1. Increasing funds to scale up care coordination among primary and specialty care and women's health evidence-based programs to benefit all women of color; 2. Requiring states or local jurisdictions to increase the allocation of federal funding in neighborhoods and communities with limited resources or infrastructure as this ensures adequate ratios of patients to hospital and clinic facilities; 3. Requiring a diverse workforce; 4. Instituting mandatory training for healthcare professionals and providers on implicit bias as this increases the availability of a competent and culturally sensitive workforce and improves patient-provider communication; 5. Allocating funds for research to develop appropriate programs and favorable policies as research on evidence-based interventions to support maternal health would expand care options.

6. Expanding Medicaid policies to provide preconception health and postpartum care beyond 60 days; and 7. Collaborating with states to protect community assets and resources that benefit women of color.

By implementing these recommendations, better coordination of care for women of color is achievable. Consequently, these investments in maternal health, in the long run, would improve health outcomes, decrease health disparities, and decrease overall healthcare expenditure.

Victoria Efetevbia, Esther Gross, and Alexandria Wilkins, “Reducing implicit bias, raising quality of care may reduce high maternal mortality rates for Black women,” Child Trends, April 25, 2019, https://www.childtrends.org/blog/reducing-implicitbias-raising-quality-care-may-reduce-high-maternal-mortality-rates-black-women.

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Conclusion Maternal mortality and morbidity are of public health significance and must become a priority action for policymakers and healthcare leaders. Access, quality, affordability, and availability of culturally competent health care are key challenges that need to be addressed to mitigate maternal health disparities along the continuum of care. Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security (WCAPS) Global Health Working Group is committed to collaborating with government leaders, partners, and stakeholders—locally and internationally—to do more for mothers by removing healthcare, educational, and economic security barriers limiting women of color to live healthy and productive lives.

Jennyfer Ambe Jennyfer Ambe supports education and training in sub-Saharan Africa through a socio-cultural lens to build health equity. She supports Safe Mother and Childhood Research Initiative (SAMOCRI) in Nigeria; Project 1808 in Sierra Leone and Youth Empowerment (#YE254) in Kenya, advocating for women, girls and Community Health Workers. Her current research is focused on challenges surrounding maternal and reproductive health as well as pregnant women and clinical trials. As an Epidemiologist, she has a keen interest in Emerging Infectious Diseases and biosecurity. Jennyfer is Co-Chair for the WCAPS Global Health Working Group.

Christine Kiruthu-Kamamia, MPH Christine Kiruthu-Kamamia works as a monitoring and evaluation technical advisor in Malawi. Christine has over a decade-long experience working as a public health specialist with a strong interest in HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. She holds an MPH in Epidemiology and BSc in Chemistry.

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Palmira Mangae Palmira Mangae is a program specialist with almost 5 years of experience working in global health alongside varying subject matter experts in public health laboratory systems and science. Palmira holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and is pursuing a Master of Public Health from the University of Maryland, College Park where she has focused her research on black maternal health in the United States.

Palmira has experience and expertise in providing programmatic support for lab systems strengthening initiatives in low-and-middle-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Palmira is passionate about public health and seeks to advocate for policies, programs, and interventions that mitigate health disparities in marginalized groups.

Tausi Suedi, MPH Tausi Suedi is a multilingual global public health policy professional whose passion and career primarily focuses on reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, adolescent, community health (RMNCACH) in marginalized communities mainly in low- and middle-income countries. For five years (2013-2018), she served as the Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health Director at Childbirth Survival International (CSI), a Baltimore-based global grassroots nonprofit. Over the years, she has received several awards for her voice and leadership in advancing CSI’s mission to save lives of women, newborns, children, adolescent girls; strengthen cross-sector collaborations; empower individuals and communities; and for her consistency in advocating at the local and international levels for women, children, and youth in underserved communities.

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The “War” at Home: Strengthening the U.S. Commitment to Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention as a Matter of National Security Pratima T. Narayan, Esq. This policy brief calls on the Biden-Harris Administration to strengthen the United States of America’s human rights and atrocity prevention commitments in response to its leading domestic threat— white supremacist extremism. The U.S. can restore its image and global standing by following through on its diplomatic and multilateral commitments in the areas of human rights and international criminal justice, the equitable enforcement of its laws and educational reform. This paper may be particularly salient for lawmakers, educators, the national security, foreign policy and diplomatic communities. The paper concludes by offering a range of policy recommendations aimed at redefining national security through a human rights lens to address America’s most urgent national security challenge.

January 6, 2021 will be remembered as a stark day in modern American history. People across the world witnessed a deadly mob of right-wing insurgents and white nationalist extremists attack the U.S. Capitol while lawmakers endeavored to certify the results of a free and fair election. The American National Election Studies (ANES) had analyzed data since 2012 which revealed that the decline of whites’ majority status and the election of America’s first black president had challenged deeply entrenched culture norms of absolute white superiority. These developments activated a sense of white consciousness and identity that would have long-term consequences for how the white electorate would relate to the political and social order, especially when stoked by political actors. By 2019, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had already identified violent white supremacy as the “most persistent and lethal threat in the homeland.”

While several pundits maintain the insurrection was not representative of American society, for many people of color, this event signified yet another blow in a continuum of racially motivated violence and dehumanization that predates our nation’s founding. It was also the grand finale in a Trump-era that exhibited several of the risk factors for mass atrocities we typically condemn beyond our borders.1 These symptoms include but are not limited to: identity-based conflict; racial tension; socio-economic inequality; divisive rhetoric and restrictions targeting religious minorities; the proliferation of hate speech; mass separation of children from their parents or deportation; detention and torture; political persecution or repression; the instrumentalization of militias or paramilitary groups; attacks on journalists and other members of the media; the At the time of writing, there are media reports of planned attacks by “white power” activists and right-wing extremists in 50 state capitols and the Presidential inauguration slated for January 20, 2021.

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militarization of law enforcement and excessive use of force; incitement; and arguably, polarization or the absence of transitional justice post-conflict.

In 2005, the United Nations World Summit unanimously affirmed the Responsibility to Protect (“R2P”) which established international norms for States to safeguard their populations from mass atrocity crimes such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, in addition to ethnic cleansing.2 The Secretary-General delivered a report to the General Assembly in 2009, outlining the measures States should take towards effective implementation of R2P, including utilizing recommendations from the Human Rights Council and Universal Periodic Review to meet their obligations.3 The Obama Administration introduced Presidential Study Directive 10 (PSD-10) which identified the prevention of mass atrocities as a “core national security interest and core moral responsibility”. These efforts were succeeded by several measures aimed to promote peace, security and conflict resolution, including the creation of an inter-agency Atrocities Prevention Board (2012), Women, Peace and Security Act (2017), Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act (2018), Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act (2019), Global Fragility Act (2019), U.S. Strategy on Women, Peace and Security and U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability. Still, these initiatives and corresponding attempts to engage transitional justice in upstream atrocity prevention have primarily been used to respond to instability abroad as a national security measure, rather than homegrown threats. This is largely due to a bifurcated approach to atrocity prevention, peace and security in which domestic and foreign policies are generally treated as distinct entities. It was not until 2019 that lawmakers introduced legislation to counter transnational white supremacist extremism and, with the exception of H. RES. 732 which has stalled in Congress, these efforts have still been largely framed in terms of curbing foreign transnational white supremacist groups.4 While the Trump Administration is to be credited for introducing some of the key reforms mentioned above, it was also responsible for the U.S. back-peddling on several multilateral and human rights commitments by leaving the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2017, the Human Rights Council in 2018 and failing to appoint a member to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in 2019. Under President Trump, the U.S. also sanctioned officials from the International Criminal Court (ICC), the first permanent court designed to pursue individual criminal accountability for atrocity crimes and repelled ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s efforts to investigate U.S. conduct in Afghanistan.

United Nations General Assembly, “Resolution Adopted by the General Assembly on 16 September 2005,” United Nations, 60th Session, October 24, 2005, https://undocs.org/A/RES/60/1.

3 United Nations General Assembly, “Implementing the responsibility to protect: Report of the Secretary-General,” United Nations, 63rd Session, January 12, 2009, https://undocs.org/A/63/677.

4 U.S. Congress, Condemning and recognizing transnational White supremacist extremism as a major global threat, H.Res.732, 116th Congress, inmtroduced in the House of Representatives November 22, 2019, https://www.congress.gov/bill/116thcongress/house-resolution/732/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22transnational+white%22%5D%7D&r=1&s=3.

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Further, the U.S. has previously served as a chief negotiator in several core instruments of human rights and international criminal justice. Yet, it never joined most of the agreements it negotiated which has also made it more difficult to compel international oversight. Even where the U.S. has ratified agreements such as the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, without comprehensive national action plans and the political will or resources to give them effect, attempts to introduce transitional justice to promote accountability and unity domestically have been piecemeal.5 On June 5, 2020, 46 United Nations experts sounded an alarm when they issued a joint statement on the systemic racism that persists in the U.S. The same day, a group of 28 Human Rights Council Special Rapporteurs and Working Group members expressed similar concern.6 America’s foreign affairs has always been plagued by its treatment of its indigenous and diaspora communities.

However, as demonstrated by global protests in response to incidents of police brutality in the U.S. this summer, the world has grown weary of our pretense and is more interested in our example.

While America is unequivocally a land of great promise, our exceptionalism cannot and should not extend into human rights and the pursuit of justice if we wish to remain a global leader.

Reimagining national security will require honest reflection about our collective need for reparative healing and transformation that is not only required under international law, but necessary for non-recurrence. We must rejoin the rest of the world in standing up for human rights and unapologetically embrace international efforts to hold the most egregious perpetrators accountable for their transgressions, even if it means our own. Nevertheless, this will require objective reckoning with our past and the recognition that the threat from within we perceive as “domestic terrorism” may verge into the territory of widespread and systematic international crimes when we declare, “never again.”

Policy Recommendations: 1. Return to a policy of multilateralism, serve as an example and global leader by rejoining the Human Rights Council and ratifying core international human rights conventions that monitor compliance with international norms.

2. Reinvigorate and expand the Atrocity Prevention Board to include a focus on domestic and transnational threats such as white nationalist extremism.

3. Reconceptualize the Responsibility to Protect and UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace and Security and related policies to include national threats to peace and security, including to 5

These include formal and informal Holocaust education initiatives, standalone truth commissions, commissions of inquiry or reparations studies.

6 United Nations Office of the High Commissioner Human Rights, “Statement on the Protests against Systemic Racism in the United States,” United Nations, June 5, 2020, https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25927&LangID=E; United Nations Office of the High Commissioner Human Rights, “UN experts condemn modern-day racial terror lynchings in US and call for systemic reform and justice,” United Nations, June 5, 2020, https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25933&LangID=E.

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women and/or members of underrepresented groups, and develop corresponding gendersensitive indicators to monitor effective implementation.

4. Constructively engage with the ICC through cooperating with the Office of the Prosecutor, remove sanctions against ICC officials and support specific prosecutions underway.

Explore options for ratifying the Rome Statute and support the development of the Draft Articles on [the] Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity.

5. During this Administration, introduce comprehensive educational and curriculum reform with a focus on human rights and peace education that centers survivors’ voices and fosters respect for equality, universal rights, global studies and nonviolent conflict resolution.

References: 1. Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. “Atrocity Alert No. 206: United States, Iraq and Sudan,” June 3, 2020.

2. Jardina, Ashley, White Identity Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

3. Kanno-Youngs, Zolan. “Delayed Homeland Security Report Warns of ‘Lethal’ White Supremacy.” The New York Times. October 6, 2020.

4. Kaptan, Senem, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Women, Peace and Security Programme, “UNSCR 1325 at 20 Years: Perspectives from Feminist Peace Activists and Civil Society,” October 2020.

5. Kempe, Frederick, “Op-Ed: The Future of U.S. Global Leadership Depends on How the Nation Addresses Systemic Racism,” CNBC. June 7, 2020.

6. Patinkin, Jason. “‘Warning Signs of Much Bigger Conflicts – Atrocity Alert Issued for United States’ – Interview with Dr. Simon Adams for VOA.” Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, n.d.

7. Smith, Jeffrey, and Richard Ashby Wilson. “Researchers on Atrocity Prevention Warn: US on Path to Widespread Political Violence,” June 10, 2020.

8. United Nations General Assembly and Security Council, A/74/964-S/2020/501, “Report of the Secretary-General on Prioritizing Prevention and Strengthening Response: Women and the Responsibility to Protect,” July 23, 2020.

9. Van Schaack, Beth, Atrocities Prevention & Response: A Good Governance Blueprint (December 17, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3751095.

10. Watson, Maya. “The United States’ Hollow Commitment to Eradicating Global Racial Discrimination.” American Bar Association, January 6, 2020.

11. Ziv, Ronen, Amanda Graham, and Liqun Cao. “America First? Trump, Crime, and Justice Internationally.” Victims & Offenders 14, no. 8 (November 17, 2019): 997–1009.

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Pratima T. Narayan, Esq. Pratima T. Narayan serves as Co-Chair of WCAPS Human Rights Working Group. She is a Senior Program Manager with the Global Initiative for Justice, Truth and Reconciliation where she oversees several programs in transitional justice and atrocity prevention, including the Bangladesh-Rohingya Documentation Initiative and other projects in Sudan and Sri Lanka. Pratima co-administers the Christine Loudes ATLAS Mentorship Programme for women in public international law and is a member of the Justice Rapid Response Expert Roster, the American Society of International Law and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Prior to this, Pratima led investigations for the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan. While living in Juba from 2017 to 2020, she conducted 25 missions across South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia interviewing hundreds of survivors to document grave human rights violations. In 2018, she was one of eighteen investigators selected globally to participate in a U.S. Department of State investigation into atrocities allegedly committed against Rohingya communities in Myanmar. Pratima has also held various positions with the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali (MINUSMA), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization International Bureau of Education in Geneva, Switzerland. In addition to working as an attorney with corporate law firms in New York, Pratima has successfully counseled internally displaced persons and asylum-seekers in Greek migrant camps, South Africa and Japan. A Bronx native, she began her career representing families in eviction prevention cases with the Legal Aid Society in 2002.

Pratima holds a J.D. from Boston University School of Law and a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University. She also earned a postgraduate diploma in Education from the Open University of Tanzania. Pratima is admitted to practice law in New York State and speaks English, Spanish and French.

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Strengthening State Role in Reporting Trafficking in Persons Data Yewande O. Maraiyesa Human trafficking is a complex criminal activity that requires efforts from every individual, local, state, and federal entity. One such effort has been undertaken every year, for twenty years now, by the U.S. federal government through the annual global Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report. The report has been and continues to be, a critical tool in bringing governments to the table and encouraging them to prioritize combating human trafficking. 1 While the report has served to raise awareness, spark dialogue, spur action, and create a system of accountability 2 globally, more work must be done domestically. The uncertainties surrounding the true scope of human trafficking in the U.S. indeed make it harder to prevent the crime, provide adequate protection for victims (and would-be victims), and ultimately prosecute perpetrators.

These uncertainties can be mitigated through the publishing of an annual domestic TIP report that follows the global model and attempts to bring public awareness to the realities of trafficking in individual states. The contents of these reports can provide a clearer picture of human trafficking in the U.S. as a whole and bolster current anti-trafficking efforts at the state and federal levels.

Encouraging stronger state roles in gathering and reporting more data can usher in a new normal which sees the nation working to seriously address and mitigate the effects of human trafficking.

This can ultimately create an environment where the crime no longer persists and the norm of remaining idle while humans are deprived of their basic rights and liberties ceases to exist.

Global Impact Human trafficking is a gross social ill, afflicting the lives of countless individuals around the world.

In 2000, the U.S. enacted the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (TVPA) to protect the victims of modern-day slavery and ensure the just and effective punishment of traffickers.3 This Act also authorized the establishment of the State Department’s TIP Office 4 and mandated the annual TIP reports.5

U.S. Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, “2020 Trafficking in Persons Report,” https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-trafficking-in-persons-report/.

2 Ibid.

3 Linda S. Hammond-Deckard, “Human Trafficking 101 for Law Enforcement,” The Police Chief Magazine 81, July 2014. https://www.policechiefmagazine.org/human-trafficking-101-for-law-enforcement1/?ref=494b03a8f80f879c134ad7ada8378f85.

4 U.S. Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, “International and Domestic Law,” https://www.state.gov/international-and-domestic-law/.

5 U.S. Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, “2020 Trafficking in Persons Report,” https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-trafficking-in-persons-report/.

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The reports have been a means to encourage serious and sustained efforts to eliminate severe forms of human trafficking worldwide. Following the release of the first report in 2001, several governments immediately took steps to prevent trafficking, prosecute traffickers, and protect victims. Countries deemed partially or fully non-compliant with the Act’s minimum standards also began to engage with the U.S. to reduce trafficking. 6 For example, in 2014, the U.S. Embassy in Chile organized an ongoing anti-trafficking working group comprising NGOs, international organizations, and foreign embassies and raised the profile of human trafficking within Chile and allowed civil society to participate in the government’s development of a national action plan. Additionally, in 2019, U.S. Embassy Banjul in The Gambia worked with the Gambian government and multi-sector stakeholders to implement Gambia’s national action plan to combat human trafficking which includes training government and private sector actors and raising awareness.7 “Tier 3” countries (considered the worst offenders due to their lack of trafficking laws, and efforts to comply with minimum standards) have also significantly increased their efforts. South Korea, for example, had moved from Tier 3 to Tier 1 after making extraordinary attempts to eliminate trafficking immediately after the publication of the 2001 report. 8 Domestically…

Under U.S. federal law, human trafficking involves the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for commercial sex acts and or labor services by use of force, fraud, or coercion. 9 Additionally, child sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a child under 18 years of age for commercial sex acts. This is important to note because: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A CHILD PROSTITUTE. Approximately 300,000+ young people in the U.S. are considered at-risk of sexual exploitation.10 The true scope of human trafficking in the U.S. is unknown, but it is estimated that between 18,000 and 20,000 victims are trafficked into the U.S. every year. In 2019, 11,500 situations of human trafficking were reported to U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline (NHTH). Still, human Suasn W. Tiefenbrun, “Updating the Domestic and International Impact of the U.S. Victims of Trafficking Protection Act of 2000: Does Law Deter Crime?” Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law vol. 38 no. 2 (2007), https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/jil/vol38/iss2/4/.

7 U.S. Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, “2020 Trafficking in Persons Report,” https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-trafficking-in-persons-report/.

8 Suasn W. Tiefenbrun, “Updating the Domestic and International Impact of the U.S. Victims of Trafficking Protection Act of 2000: Does Law Deter Crime?”

9 “Federal Law,” National Human Trafficking Hotline, n.d., https://humantraffickinghotline.org/what-human-trafficking/federallaw.

10 James Pasley, “20 staggering facts about human trafficking in the US,” Business Insider, July 25, 2019, https://www.businessinsider.com/human-trafficking-in-the-us-facts-statistics-2019-7?utm_source=copylink&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=topbar.

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trafficking activities are notoriously underreported. 11 For the U.S. to better capture and understand the scope of trafficking within its borders, individual state roles in reporting data must be bolstered so that the most appropriate and effective anti-trafficking efforts may be pursued.

Recommendation/Conclusion The TIP Reports have highlighted the challenges faced (and progress made) by governments worldwide in addressing human trafficking and as such encouraged and fostered a myriad of ways by which governments can consistently address these challenges and maintain their progress in compliance with anti-trafficking legislations.

While all states and territories have anti-trafficking criminal statutes, 12 the U.S. can further improve its efforts at home by publishing an annual domestic TIP report. The first step to achieving this is mandating this domestic report in the next reauthorization of the TVPA. Doing so will guarantee that states assume their legal responsibility to provide the necessary data and confront human trafficking with bold action.

Taking into consideration the complexities of trafficking activities, preparing this report will allow states to allocate serious time and manpower to gather data and address their respective needs in combating trafficking within their borders. It may also help identify where and how the federal government and other agencies can intervene to help fill gaps or further support states’ antitrafficking efforts.

Reports will include states’ trafficking profiles and summaries of their efforts to prevent human trafficking, prosecute traffickers, and protect victims. Recommendations will outline how the state has assessed its areas of improvement and may also call upon external entities to provide further support. As with the global report, states will then be ranked, by federal authorities, utilizing the three-tier ranking system to indicate how compliant states are with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking laid out in the law.13 The federal government currently collects state and local data on human trafficking investigations through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program.14 This Program may be expanded to collect and consolidate state reports for publication. The Secretary of State, (Secretary of the

Polaris, “Myths, Facts, and Statistics,” https://polarisproject.org/myths-facts-and-statistics/.

Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. “Executive Summary,” 2020 Trafficking in Persons Report: United States, https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-trafficking-in-persons-report/united-states/#report-toc__execsummary.

13 U.S. Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, “2020 Trafficking in Persons Report,” https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-trafficking-in-persons-report/.

14 U.S. Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. “Executive Summary,” 2020 Trafficking in Persons Report: United States, https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-trafficking-in-persons-report/united-states/#report-toc__execsummary.

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12U.S.

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Commonwealth or Lieutenant Governor in some states), may serve as the entity responsible for ensuring the timely submission of a state’s report to the UCR Program. **If you or someone you know is a victim of human trafficking, call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or text “BeFree” to 233733** References: 1. Aronowitz, Alexis, Theuermann, Gerda, and Tyurykanova, Elena. Analysing the Business Model of Trafficking in Human Beings to Better Prevent the Crime. Vienna, Austria: OSCE Office of the Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, May 2010. https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/c/f/69028.pdf 2. “Federal Law,” National Human Trafficking Hotline, n.d., https://humantraffickinghotline.org/what-human-trafficking/federal-law 3. Hammond-Deckard, Linda S. “Human Trafficking 101 for Law Enforcement.” The Police Chief Magazine 81, July 2014. https://www.policechiefmagazine.org/human-trafficking101-for-law-enforcement1/?ref=494b03a8f80f879c134ad7ada8378f85 4. Polaris. “Myths, Facts, and Statistics.” https://polarisproject.org/myths-facts-andstatistics/ 5. U.S. Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. “2020 Trafficking in Persons Report.” https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-trafficking-inpersons-report/ 6. U.S. Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. “2020 Trafficking in Persons Report: United States.” https://www.state.gov/reports/2020trafficking-in-persons-report/united-states/#report-toc__exec-summary.

7. U.S. Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

“International and Domestic Law.” https://www.state.gov/international-and-domestic-law/ 8. Pasley, James. “20 staggering facts about human trafficking in the US.” Business Insider, July 25, 2019, https://www.businessinsider.com/human-trafficking-in-the-us-factsstatistics-2019-7?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=topbar.

9. Tiefenbrun, Suasn W. “Updating the Domestic and International Impact of the U.S. Victims of Trafficking Protection Act of 2000: Does Law Deter Crime?” Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law vol. 38 no.2 (2007).

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Yewande O. Maraiyesa Yewande has been working in an administrative capacity with Partners of the Americas, a non-profit organization working in development across the Americas, since she began as the President’s Office Intern. She is also a Volunteer Outreach Advocate (and most recently Resident Coordinator) with FAIR Girls, an organization that provides intervention and holistic care to female survivors of human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of children. Yewande obtained her M.A. in Global Affairs, International Security from the American University in Cairo (2019) and her B.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara (2017).

Yewande’s personal and professional purists, primarily focus on anti-human trafficking and victim outreach efforts. Her long-term goal is to work in this field back home in the West African region.

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Unpaid Internships: A Lack of Compliance is Harming Our National Security and Our Future Nicole M. Anselmo When an internship is offered without a full wage, it automatically eliminates applicants who do not have robust financial support systems, entrenching structural class, gender, and racial barriers. 1 Despite heightened scrutiny of this practice during the Covid-19 pandemic, many organizations within the field of international affairs, national security, human rights, and peacekeeping are offering unpaid positions. These unpaid internships frequently do not meet legal guidelines set forth by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)— designed to safeguard interns from abuse. Upon closer examination, these policies contribute to severe immediate and long-term societal harms, which in turn, impact our national security. More than ever— especially in the midst of the Capitol Hill insurrection and ongoing instability surrounding the 2020 US election, early career professionals and interns are thinking about how institutions either support or neglect their dignity, equity, safety, and security, and which institutions are making appropriate changes. 2 This paper seeks to inform a wide range of organizations involved in national and international security— from think tanks to non-governmental organizations (NGOs)— about the current nation-wide crisis of unpaid internships. Recommendations for organizations and interns are provided throughout but are summarized in the conclusion. The following are considered: 1) economic and legal incentives; 2) productivity incentives; 3) diversity, equity, and realities of the job market; and 4) branding.

Economic and Legal Incentives A paid team reduces the risk of breaching the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). 3 The “primary beneficiary test” emphasizes how a fair wage— not ‘exposure’ to an industry or person— is to be traded for essential ‘work products.’4 The FLSA discourages this specific power dynamic because the "economic reality" of the relationship is the primary consideration. An unpaid intern should

Derek Thompson, “Unpaid Internships: Bad for Students, Bad for Workers, Bad for Society,” The Atlantic, May 10, 2012, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/unpaid-internships-bad-for-students-bad-for-workers-bad-forsociety/256958/; Patricia Guadalupe, “No paid internships? Group’s cash stipends help young Latinos during coronavirus pandemic,” NBC News, January 6, 2020, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/no-paid-internships-group-s-cash-stipends-helpyoung-latinos-n1232790.

2 Elsa B. Kania, “The United States Can’t Stay a Great Power Without Beating Threats at Home,” Foreign Policy, January 7, 2021, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/07/united-states-great-power-china-domestic-threats-capitol-mob/.

3 Department of Labor, “Fact Sheet #71: Internship Programs Under The Fair Labor Standards Act,” January 2018, https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/71-flsa-internships.

4 National Council of Nonprofits, “Interns: Employee or Volunteer,” https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/toolsresources/interns-employee-or-volunteer; FindLaw, “Unpaid Internship Rules,” https://www.findlaw.com/smallbusiness/employment-law-and-human-resources/unpaid-internship-rules.html; Unpaid Interns Lawsuit, “Unpaid Intern Lawsuit,” https://www.unpaidinternslawsuit.com/cases.

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not “displace” a potential hire by performing routine tasks primarily for the organization’s profit or benefit. There needs to be significant "clinical [or] hands-on training [similar to what would be] provided by an educational institution." Common violations include using the internship as a trial period and withholding educational experiences the intern is expressly seeking. Many interns are recent graduates in their early to mid-twenties, relying on savings or multiple part-time jobs in lieu of parental support and/or costly student loans; they incur relocation costs, and frequently receive no additional skills, certification, or class credit, risking violation of the FLSA. 5 Productivity Incentives Paid internships lead to better results. Paid interns are legally permitted to work on a wider array of projects and activities and demonstrate greater resilience. 6 Many paid internships quickly evaporated during the pandemic, as job offers were rescinded and delayed. While there are benefits to remote work, remote unpaid internships are isolating, exhausting, and less effective at providing opportunities to network, learn, and make an impression.

Diversity, Equity, and the Realities of the Job Market Pay gaps created by unpaid internships are responsible for inequity and incompleteness in the international and national security space.7 The glaring reality is that unpaid internships are increasingly a privilege required in the field. While operating on the margins, a $600 medical emergency can easily consume two-months of full-time earnings from an insufficient ‘stipend.’ 8 In Washington, D.C. San Francisco, and New York City, underemployment— or overcrowding due to the abundance of unpaid labor— is linked to generational wealth, gender, and racial inequality. The influx of overqualified, temporary unpaid interns disrupts the welfare of long-term residents. The spillover and advanced gentrification of historically diverse neighborhoods makes it harder for workers to accumulate enough hours to outweigh their travel expenses into the city and advocate changes in workplace conditions.9 Similar to the plight of rust-belt cities in rural America, the opportunity-flight spurred by Covid-19 and the transition to remote-work was

Paris Zangeneh, “Internships in International Criminal Justice Institutions,” OpinioJuris, July 31, 2020, http://opiniojuris.org/2020/07/31/internships-in-international-criminal-justice-institutions/.

6 Department of Labor, “Fact Sheet #71: Internship Programs Under The Fair Labor Standards Act”; Tabitha Sanders, “Get to Know NTI: Spring 2020 Interns,” Nuclear Threat Initiative, April 29, 2020, https://www.nti.org/analysis/atomic-pulse/get-knownti-spring-2020-interns/.

7 Derek Thompson, “Unpaid Internships: Bad for Students, Bad for Workers, Bad for Society”; Leah Matchett, “Today’s Political Science Isn’t Built for Women: Here’s how it could be better,” Inkstick, September 14, 2020, https://inkstickmedia.com/todays-political-science-isnt-built-for-women/.

8 Elliott Kozuch, ““Report Shows LGBTQ People are More Likely to be Victims of Interpersonal Violence During COVID-19,” Human Rights Campaign Foundation, June 25, 2020, https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/report-shows-lgbtq-people-are-morelikely-to-be-victims-of-interpersonal-vi.

9 New York University, “Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation's Capital,” https://www.nyu.edu/washington-dc/academics/special-programs/welcome-to-chocolate-city.html; Sarah Shoenfeld, “The history and evolution of Anacostia’s Barry Farm,” D.C. Policy Center, July 8, 2019, https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/barryfarm-anacostia-history/.

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extreme.10 The impact of this spillover and subsequent flight is so large that, according to Brookings, “this past March, housing sales in Washington, D.C. essentially fell off a cliff.” 11 Branding A number of organizations that do not pay their interns combat serious and devastating issues, including mass atrocities, illicit trading, and CBRN weapon proliferation. While not as grave, unpaid labor presents a problem that exists as a pervasive norm in politics, national security, human rights, and international affairs. 12 Economic hardships will continue to plague this generation of future leaders, as well as the next. 13 Organizations unaware of the negative externalities unpaid internships pose will look increasingly out of touch with social and economic realities. As many entities ‘name-and-shame’ nations and individuals for irresponsible activities, unpaid internships are increasingly being frowned upon, given the inherent contradiction in values and mission. 14 Recommendations A paid-internship policy is a stepping stone for correcting inadequate levels of diversity in the field of international affairs and national security, by creating an inclusive environment for new ideas involving policy at the highest levels. Until possible, organizations should reduce the number of hours spent on unpaid, non-educational work, rather than restricting eligibility based on class credit. Interns should be surveyed to make sure the content and nature of their work passes the FLSA ‘primary beneficiary test.’ Partnering with language institutes or other educational bodies offering training or certification is advised, as it provides direct, measurable benefit to interns. As for interns, it is important to remember that financial security and mental health come first. Pay Our Interns offers an intern relief fund.15 They are responsible for overturning unpaid internships on Capitol Hill and are pushing for the same result in the White House. There are some truly positive attributes that come with having a fully-paid team and a diverse array of voices articulating

Jason Segedy, “Gentrification: What it Means in the Context of the Rust Belt,” Cleveland Scene, December 18, 2017, https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2017/12/18/gentrification-what-it-means-in-the-context-of-the-rust-belt; Fresh Air, “ 'Hillbilly Elegy' Recalls A Childhood Where Poverty Was 'The Family Tradition,'” National Public Radio, August 17, 2016, https://www.npr.org/2016/08/17/490328484/hillbilly-elegy-recalls-a-childhood-where-poverty-was-the-familytradition.

11 Jenny Schuetz, “COVID-19 is already affecting the Washington, D.C. real estate market,” Brookings Institution, May 12, 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/05/12/covid-19-is-already-affecting-the-washington-d-c-real-estatemarket/.

12 Heather Hurlburt and Tamara Cofman Wittes, “The case for gender diversity in national security,” Brookings Institution, July 10, 2019, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/07/10/the-case-for-gender-diversity-in-national-security/.

13 David Yaffe-Bellany, “Another Casualty of the Coronavirus: Summer Internships,” New York Times, May 27, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/22/business/coronavirus-summer-internships.html.

14 Human Rights Watch, “Our History,” https://www.hrw.org/our-history#; Michael J. Gaynor, “43 percent of internships at forprofit companies don’t pay. This man is helping to change that,” Washington Post, January 15, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/his-quest-to-get-interns-paid-is-paying-off/2019/01/11/93df2b2a-ff2a-11e883c0-b06139e540e5_story.html; Middle East Institute, “Leadership Development Program,” https://www.mei.edu/getinvolved/internships.

15 Pay Our Interns, “About Us,” https://payourinterns.org/.

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a nexus of security perspectives. The work this community does around the world can only be strengthened by comprehensive, responsible, and timely reform.

Nicole M. Anselmo Nicole Anselmo is a consultant for the Middle East Institute’s Frontier Europe Initiative and co-producer of the podcast, UnfairNation. She is a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Awards Finalist to Kazakhstan and holds a B.A. in International Relations from Miami University. She has studied extensively in Italy, Finland, and the Russian Federation, focusing on human rights law, nuclear and arms proliferation, and conflict-security studies. She plans to become a human rights lawyer, specializing in security studies and on Russia, Central Asia, and the MENA region.

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The Intersection of Climate Change and Immigration: A Humane Approach to Climate Displacement Neda M. Shaheen, Esq. Persons impacted by climate change do not fit within the standard definition of a “refugee,” as provided in the Refugee Convention, and there is disagreement on whether they should be titled climate or environmental refugees, migrants or displaced persons.1 The international community's disagreement on how to define climate-displaced persons highlights issues regarding the legal and political mechanisms used to address those impacted. 2 The International Organization for Migration has explained that the term “climate refugee” is still used, “in part, for lack of a good alternative.”3 However, the term “refugee” specifically refers to the Refugee Convention’s definition of individuals with a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.” 4 The categorization of refugees also relies on crossing an international border, while most climate-displaced persons are internally displaced and do not cross international borders at all. 5 For example, in 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed the Gulf Coast of the United States and displaced over a million people, leaving almost two million Americans homeless.6 However, evacuees did not seek refuge in Mexico but with family and friends around the country. 7 To incorporate climate-displaced persons into the existing refugee definition would be extremely difficult; and so a globally uniform terminology must be created along with new legislation to address climate-displaced persons worldwide.

Climate change and immigration safeguards have been severely undermined by the Trump Administration. Trump and his team pushed a false narrative denying scientific fact, despite the reality that the United States will have to face the human cost of how climate change and immigration policies interact. Climate change will inevitably cause population movements, as Elizabeth Keyes, “Environmental Refugees? Rethinking What’s in a Name,” North Carolina Journal of International Law 44 no. 3 (2019): 461 and 465; Brittan J. Bush, “Redefining Environmental Refugees,” Georgetown Immigration Law Journal 27 no.

3 (2013): 553, 563-66; Kara K. Moberg, “Extending Refugee Definitions to Cover Environmentally Displaced Persons Displaces Necessary Protection,” Iowa Law Review 94 no. 3 (2009): 1107, 1113-1117.

2 Hossein Ayazi and Elsadig Elsheikh, Climate Refugees: The Climate Crises and Rights Denied, Othering & Belonging Institute, University of California Berkeley, December 2019, https://belonging.berkeley.edu/climaterefugees.

3 Oli Brown, Migration and Climate Change, International Organization for Migration (IOM), April 2008, https://olibrown.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/2008-Migration-and-Climate-Change-IOM.pdf.

4 United Nations Office of the High Commissioner Human Rights, “Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees,” art. 1, Jan. 31, 1967, 19 U.S.T. 6223, 606 U.N.T.S. 267; Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees art. 1(A)(2), July 28, 1951, 189 U.N.T.S. 137, 152.

5 Barney Thompson, “Climate Change & Displacement,” United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, October 15, 2019, https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/stories/2019/10/5da5e18c4/climate-change-and-displacement.html. (“Even when people are displaced solely by the effects of climate-related disasters and natural hazards and cross international borders, they do not generally become refugees under the definition of the 1951 Refugee Convention”); Oli Brown, Migration and Climate Change, pg. 14.

6 Oli Brown, Migration and Climate Change, 12, 18.

7 Ibid, 23.

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climate events (i.e. floods, hurricanes and typhoons, etc.) are sudden and will force populations to move. Threats brought forward by climate change challenge “global security, territorial sovereignty, health security, food security and environmental security,” and must be addressed to create a new normal that values the human cost of climate change, particularly on climatedisplaced persons.8 The Trump Administration’s attacks on immigrant populations, dismantling of the asylum system, and heightened use of inhumane immigration enforcement practices, in addition to strenuous measures that have been added to the immigration system, have created excessive barriers to legal immigration.9 At the same time, the Trump Administration’s attacks on climate change has allowed them to roll back environmental protection regulations and withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. 10 U.S. regulations for climate change have become non-existent or ineffective, shocking many climate advocates, scholars and scientists. 11 Yet, sea levels continue to rise and are estimated to displace as many as thirteen million people in the United States by the end of this century, forcing states like Florida, Louisiana, New York and New Jersey, to resettle persons seeking higher ground. 12 The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (GCSORM) (adopted by 164 countries—not including the U.S.) called on countries to prepare and prevent the need for climate displacement by supporting those forced to relocate.13 The intersection of climate change and migration requires comprehensive solutions to the multidimensional challenges exacerbated by worsening climate patterns, severe weather events, natural disasters and other forms of environmental degradation.14 As climate conditions worsen, the issue of climate migration cannot be ignored.

In 2019, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report and strategy plan 15 that expressed deep concern about the Trump Administration’s adversity to climate change and migration while calling on the U.S. Department of State (DOS), the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to respond to issues related to climate change, including migration. The GAO found that the Obama Administration cited

8

International Bar Association Presidential Task Force on Climate Change Justice and Human Rights, Climate Change Justice & Human Rights Task Force Report, July 2014, https://www.ibanet.org/PresidentialTaskForceClimateChangeJustice2014Report.aspx.

9 Elizabeth Keyes, “Environmental Refugees? Rethinking What’s in a Name,” 461, 478-9.

10 Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Dec. 12, 2015, T.I.A.S. No. 16-1104.

11 Jonathan Lovvorn, “Climate Change Beyond Environmentalism Part I: Intersectional Threats & the Case for Collective Action,” Georgetown International Environmental Law Review 29 no. 1, 2016.

12 Oliver Milman, “‘We’re moving to higher ground’: America’s era of climate mass migration is here,” The Guardian, September 24, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/24/americas-era-of-climate-mass-migration-is-here.

13 The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCSORM), United Nations, Obj. 23(39)(b), July 13, 2018.

14 John Podesta, “The Climate Crises, Migration and Refugees,” Brookings Institute, July 25, 2019, https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-climate-crisis-migration-and-refugees/.

15 U.S. Government Accountability Office, Activities of Selected Agencies to Address Potential Impact on Global Migration, GAO 19-166, January 2019, https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-19-166.

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climate change as a “top strategic risk,” while the Trump administration was “no longer providing missions with guidance on whether and how to include climate change risks in their integrated country strategies.” The GAO warned that “without clear guidance, States may miss opportunities to address climate change as a potential driver of migration.”

Though the United States has created a temporary response to forced migration, these are just that, temporary. For example, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) exists for persons who have come to the United States and are unable to return home due to civil conflict or natural disasters.16 TPS entitles TPS Holders to work authorization, but lacks other features of immigration mechanisms, and does not provide a pathway to permanent residence or citizenship. 17 For example, in 2012, the United States granted work visas to Haitians following the 2010 Haiti earthquake; however, this measure is meant to expire and does not include a framework for all natural disasters. 18 Senator Ed Markey recently introduced the Global Climate Change Resilience Strategy (GCCRS), defining a “climate-displaced” person as, “any person who, for reasons of sudden or progressive change in the environment that adversely affects his or her life or living conditions is obliged to leave his or her habitual home, either within his or her country of nationality or in another country; is in need of a durable resettlement solution; or whose government cannot or will not provide such durable resettlement solution.’’ 19 The bill suggests amending 8 U.S.C. 1221 to add a new section specifically regarding climate-displaced persons, and notes that nothing in the proposed section “may be construed to affect the United States commitment to the United States Refugee Admissions Program.”20 This bill would define climate-displacement and establish a governmentwide framework for climate change policy, which is a necessary step forward.

New legal frameworks and strategies are imperative to creating a global movement that can adequately protect climate displacement in the United States and abroad. After rejoining the Paris Agreement,21 the Biden Administration must also work with the global community to develop a uniform terminology to address climate-displaced persons in order to create comprehensive and internationally cooperative plans encompassing the goals of climate and immigration advocates in this field. The Biden Administration must also work with the global community to create bilateral, regional and international agreements that can build on existing mechanisms to recognize climate displacement within immigration and climate frameworks. Lastly, Congress must review and pass legislation, like the Global Climate Change Resilience Strategy, that targets climate displacement Elizabeth Keyes, “Unconventional Refugees,” American University Law Review 67 no. 1 (2017): 89, 107-110.

Ibid.

18 International Organization for Migration, Outlook on Migration, Environment and Climate Change, IOM, 2014, 57, https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/mecc_outlook.pdf.

19 U.S. Congress, Global Climate Change Resilience Strategy, S. 2565, 116th Congress, Sec. 3, introduced in Senate September 26, 2019, https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/s2565/text 20 U.S. Congress, Global Climate Change Resilience Strategy, S. 2565, 116th Congress, Sec. 8, introduced in Senate September 26, 2019, https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/s2565/text 21 United Nations, Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Dec. 12, 2015, T.I.A.S. No. 16-1104.

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and amends the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act to offer climate-displaced persons a pathway to citizenship.

The impact of climate change is already evident and will continue to exacerbate population movements. The responses and challenges cannot be disconnected from an inevitable occurrence, which must be adequately addressed for a new normal moving forward.

Neda M. Shaheen, Esq Neda M. Shaheen is a human rights attorney in Washington, D.C. At WCAPS, Neda advocates to advance women of color in the fields of peace, security and conflict transformation, and manages all WCAPS projects and programs. Neda also Co-Chairs the WCAPS Southwest Asia and North Africa Working Group and the Young Ambassadors Program. Neda previously volunteered as the National Director of Arab American Engagement on the Biden for President Campaign, is a 2020 DNC President Fellow, and leads Team DC at Arab America. Prior to WCAPS, Neda represented Arab and Muslim asylum seekers and refugees, political prisoners and other human rights defenders in discrimination and immigration cases at the American-Arab AntiDiscrimination Committee, after her time at the United Nations Security Council in New York, where she conducted legal compliance of state security strategies. Neda is from Ohio and earned her Juris Doctor and Certificate in International & Comparative Law at DePaul University College of Law in Chicago, Illinois, after graduating from The Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Art in English and a minor in Studio Art in Columbus, Ohio. During law school, Neda was very active in Cheriff Bassiouni's International Human Rights Law Institute, where she conducted field research on the rule of law in Senegal and Kenya for reports to the UN Treaty Body Committees.

She also served as a JD AmeriCorps and Pro Bono Assistant for the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR), supporting Somali and Sudanese torture survivors. Neda is admitted to practice law in the State of Ohio and is fluent in Arabic.

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From Deterrence to Decriminalization: Reimagining How Immigration Violations Are Penalized Under the Biden Administration Reema Saleh In his first hundred days in office, President Biden has committed to reversing the devastating migration policies of the Trump administration. These hardline border and migration measures have done irrevocable damage to refugees and asylum seekers, but simply reversing them is not enough. Immigrant and refugee rights activists tell us time and again that even previous policies were inadequate, and because of this, we must critically examine our desires to return to normal.

To revolutionize migration policy for the future, we must ask ourselves: Are the existing strategies intended to deter migrants from crossing the border effective? And are they worth the cost?

This paper seeks to examine the flaws in how unauthorized border crossings have been criminalized under the Trump, Obama, and Bush administrations and provide actionable measures for President Biden to champion humane and sensible migration policies along the Southern border. Ultimately, this administration must work towards decriminalizing border crossings through executive action and legislative change.

Understanding How Unauthorized Entry Violations Are Prosecuted Operation Streamline Most border entry-related prosecutions stem from a 2005 partnership between the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security called Operation Streamline. Under the jurisdiction of Section 1325 of the federal code, criminal charges are brought against people apprehended crossing the border without authorization.1 Before, border patrol agents voluntarily returned first-time border crossers to their home countries or removed them through the civil immigration system – reserving prosecution for those with criminal records or multiple entry violations. Operation Streamline removed that discretion by requiring prosecution of all unauthorized border crossings.

American Immigration Council, “Prosecuting People for Coming to the United States,” January 10, 2020, https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/immigration-prosecutions; National Immigration Forum, “Fact Sheet: Operation Streamline,” September 1, 2020, https://immigrationforum.org/article/fact-sheet-operation-streamline/.

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By increasing prosecutions of border entry, policymakers hoped they would serve as a deterrent to crossing the border. In practice, however, the criminalization of unauthorized entry overburdens federal judges, prosecutors, and public defenders while placing migrants at risk. 2 Under this initiative, the government has conducted group prosecutions, with an extreme lack of due process and adequate counsel. 3 With 99 percent of defendants in unauthorized entry and reentry cases pleading guilty, many are rushed through the criminal process.4 A conviction on these grounds has the potential to expedite removal proceedings and some require the defendant to forego asylum claims or other immigration protections.5 While DHS claims that these individuals can pursue protection claims while they serve their criminal sentences or after their release, advocacy groups report numerous instances of this right being violated.6 As Operation Streamline expanded, the number of people prosecuted for entry-related offenses increased heavily, with prosecutions jumping by 252 percent between Fiscal Year 2007 and 2008. 7 Large numbers of entry prosecutions continued under the Obama administration.

Deterrence Policies Under the Trump Administration In April 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions further prioritized entry-related prosecutions, issuing a “zero-tolerance” policy that required each attorney’s office to prosecute all DHS referrals of entry violations.8 Zero-tolerance saw their breaking point, but even under past administrations, entry and reentry convictions have had devastating effects on immigration cases and can make it impossible for an individual to ever receive asylum or permanent residency. Additionally, a criminal conviction can make individuals a higher priority for deportation. 9 While asylum seekers cannot be criminalized for border crossings, many with legitimate asylum claims are not able to argue them before deportation. Since its implementation, the number of prosecutions for unauthorized entry drastically increased, reaching an all-time high of 106,312 in Fiscal Year 2019.10 Deterrence policies are unlikely to stop asylum seekers, who consistently become entangled in the immigration detention system despite their right to cross a border being protected under international law. Although the number of total migrants apprehended at the border is near its Caitlin Dickerson, “Some Democrats Want to Decriminalize Illegal Border Crossings. Would It Work?,” The New York Times, July 31, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/us/border-crossing-decriminalization.html.

3 Jason De Leon, “Deported,” in The Land of Open Graves (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015), 107–45.

4 Ibid.

5 American Immigration Council, “Prosecuting People for Coming to the United States,” January 10, 2020, https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/immigration-prosecutions.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 Jessica Zhang and Andrew Patterson,“The Most Prosecuted Federal Offense in America: A Primer on the Criminalization of Border Crossing,” Lawfare,” July 25, 2019. https://www.lawfareblog.com/most-prosecuted-federal-offense-america-primercriminalization-border-crossing.

10American Immigration Council, “Prosecuting People for Coming to the United States.”

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lowest levels since the 1970s, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reports that more people sought asylum from the Northern Triangle region between 2013 and 2015 than in the past fifteen years combined, and this influx has not lowered since.11 With the surge of asylum seekers coming from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, this system of migration management is fatally irresponsible.

Questioning the Effectiveness of Deterrence Many studies have brought even the purported successes of deterrence strategies into question.

While migration from Mexico decreased in 2008, we should not assume that it was the result of increased deterrence. 12 Between 2005 and 2009, researchers found that the 2008 recession was a larger factor in deciding whether to cross the border.13 In interviews, numerous attorneys and judges questioned if migrants understood how Operation Streamline worked, which would be essential for effective deterrence. Criminalization does not serve as the deterrent that policymakers hope, and with a higher proportion of migrants fleeing conflict zones and humanitarian crises, they put people at unnecessary risk.

In a 2015 report, the Inspector General of Homeland Security declared that the program increased the workload for border patrol agents, but that they could not prove it had any effect on the number of border crossings. Additionally, it estimates that in the first ten years of the program, incarceration costs alone topped seven billion. 14 The court-related costs and judicial resources associated with Operation Streamline amount to millions of dollars each year. Additionally, the emphasis on prosecuting entry offenses meant devoting valuable resources away from smuggling and human trafficking.15 Decriminalizing Border Crossings For years, deterrence strategies along our Southern border have been generating unprecedented caseloads, diverting resources away from serious crimes, and violating the due process of defendants. Because of this, I recommend that President Biden direct DHS to process entry violations through civil removal mechanisms. Additionally, we must end the policies associated with Operation Streamline, but rather than leave border entry violations up to the discretion of prosecutors, we must focus on decriminalizing border crossings entirely. For this reason, I

Stacey Pollard, “PERSPECTIVE: Why Deterrence Is Not the Answer to Reducing Asylum-Seeking Migrant Flows,” Homeland Security Today, January 18, 2019, https://www.hstoday.us/subject-matter-areas/border-security/perspective-whydeterrence-is-not-the-answer-to-reducing-asylum-seeking-migrant-flows/.

12American Immigration Council, “Prosecuting People for Coming to the United States.”

13 Joanna Lydgate, “A Review of Operation Streamline,” Berkeley Law, Assembly-Line Justice: A Review of Operation Streamline, January 2010, https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/Operation_Streamline_Policy_Brief.pdf.

14 John Burnett, “The Last ‘Zero Tolerance’ Border Policy Didn’t Work,” National Public Radio, June 19, 2018, https://www.npr.org/2018/06/19/621578860/how-prior-zero-tolerance-policies-at-the-border-worked.

15American Immigration Council, “Prosecuting People for Coming to the United States.”

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recommend coordinating with Congress to draft legislation repealing Section 1325, which currently classifies the act of unauthorized entry as a misdemeanor.

Unauthorized entry is among some of the most heavily prosecuted crimes today, even before the implementation of "zero-tolerance" policies. With the repeal of Section 1325, the decriminalization of border crossings would be classified as a civil violation instead of a criminal offense. Instead, DHS may place someone in removal proceedings or levy fines, individuals would not be charged with a crime for being in the U.S. without lawful authorization. 16 Similar to other immigration violations, DHS would bring civil removal actions and will ensure that a migrant who enters the country without authorization will not be imprisoned, prosecuted for a federal crime, or obtain a criminal record. At the same time, ceasing the criminal prosecution of unauthorized entry will unburden federal courts and allow them to refocus their resources on other priorities.

Looking Forward Under the Biden administration, we expect to see a reversal of the devastating migration policies that have marked Trump’s presidency. We cannot understate these changes because they will have immediate and lifesaving impacts on immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. But we must not be content with rolling back immigration restrictions to that of the Bush and Obama eras.

Replacing Operation Streamline and repealing Section 1325 is not the silver bullet to fix our immigration system. Over the next year, government officials must also create more pathways to citizenship, increase our capacity to adjudicate asylum claims, and establish coalitions to address the root causes of migration. President Biden’s migration policy plans for the next few years are promising in this regard, but I urge this administration to reevaluate the role of past entry criminalization policies and eliminate them. For the sake of human security, we must abandon our traditional definition of border security and the deterrence strategies that come with it.

Reema Saleh Reema is currently a Boren Scholar pursuing Arabic language studies and public service work. She works part-time with Freedom House, where she assists with human rights research and supports program advocacy. She recently graduated from the University of Chicago with degrees in Public Policy and Creative Writing. There, she cofounded the Partnership for the Advancement of Refugee Rights and received honors for her thesis exploring the impact of internet messaging technology on how refugees navigate asylum and Jessica Zhang and Andrew Patterson, “The Most Prosecuted Federal Offense in America: A Primer on the Criminalization of Border Crossing.”

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reintegration. She is an editor on the Root of Conflict Podcast and The Overseas Dispatch.

Additionally, she has her published political writing in the Chicago Foreign Policy Journal and UC Berkeley Human Rights Review and her creative works in a variety of literary magazines. She has a breadth of professional experience in policy advocacy, refugee assistance, and social service work. In the past, she has worked with the Department of State, the African Diaspora Network in Europe, Advocates for Youth, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council. She is aspiring towards a career in human rights or humanitarian aid policy.

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Seeking Restorative Justice for Immigrants: A Policy Proposal for Permanently Ending Child Separation at the United States-Mexico Border Alma Maria Rinasz, M.Ed. The United States government is no stranger to separating children from their families. During the times of slavery, children and mothers were routinely separated, 1 and with the 1819 Civilization Fund Act the federal government sanctioned the separation of First Nation children from their parents and communities. The recent COVID-19 pandemic further revealed the negative impacts of child separation through the execution of the “zero tolerance” policy carried out by the Department of Homeland Security at the United States-Mexico border under the Trump administration. We cannot change the past misdeeds of a federal government that has allowed injustices to be institutionalized in policy. This paper offers an overview of family separation and its negative impacts, providing recommendations that the Biden administration can take to create new policies.

The History of Family Separation in the United States of America Xenophobia, racism and a blatant disregard for human rights sit at the core of each and every policy that allows child separation. Politically driven language used by Trump administration officials2 to justify enforcing immigration policies like “zero-tolerance” illustrates how institutionalized xenophobia has come to be at the heart of the practice of separating children from their parents. As illustrated in the documentary directed by Ava DuVernay, 13th, institutionalized racism negatively impacts marginalized and economically vulnerable people. In the instance of immigration policy, those negative impacts are a decline in mental health, family cohesion, and economic hardships.

Negative Implications of Family Separations at the U.S.-Mexico Border Mental Health

DaNeen Brown, “‘Barbaric’: America’s cruel history of separating children from their parents,” The Washington Post, May 31, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/05/31/barbaricamericas-cruel-history-of-separating-children-from-their-parents/.

2 Jennifer Howe and Mohammed Ziny, “Congress and Immigration Policy: Use of Moral Language Surrounding the Trump Presidency,” in President Trump’s First Term: The Year in C-SPAN Archives Research, Volume 5, edited by Robert X. Browning, (West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 2020), 103-128.

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The detrimental and negative impacts on the mental health of children who are separated from their families will impact generations to come. United States history is full of examples of violent policies and institutionalized abuse that has led to generational trauma as is the case in the aforementioned examples of slavery and forced separation of First Nation children, as well as in the Mexican Repatriation (the removal of Mexican Americans) during the Great Depression.

According to Physicians for Human Rights, both children and parents who experienced family separation have experienced severe psychological trauma, stating that “it may take several years and may require rigorous psychological and social support for children to overcome such trauma.”3 Some of the children’s symptoms are: anxiety, panic, racing heart, shortness of breath, and headaches, and emotional and mental anguish. 4 As one six-year-old child recounted “Every night I would go to bed alone, I was sad, and I would cry to myself.” 5 Human Rights Two historical examples that addressed human rights violations that can serve as case studies are the post-World War II Nuremberg Trials and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in postapartheid South Africa. The Nuremberg Trials, though military in nature, held leaders accountable and created a precedence in international law. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission allowed for the victims of gross human rights violations to give their testimony, offering restorative justice.

The human rights aspect of the “zero-tolerance” immigration policy should not be ignored.

Physicians for Human Rights concluded that “the U.S. government’s treatment of asylum seekers through its policy of family separation constitutes cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment and... constitutes torture.”6 Children being forcibly separated from their parents is a blatant violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which was signed in 1977 and ratified in 1992.

Recommendations Policies can only ever be as good (or bad) as the people enforcing them and there has never been a greater need for empathetic, humane government officials than in our post-COVID-19 world.

Government sanctioned kidnapping cannot and should not continue, under any circumstance.

Habbach, Hajar Habbach, Kathryn Hampton, and Ranit Mishori, “You Will Never See Your Child Again: The Persistent Psychological Effects of Family Separation,” Physicians for Human Rights, February 25, 2020, https://phr.org/our-work/resources/you-will-never-see-your-child-again-the-persistentpsychological-effects-of-family-separation/ 4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

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Offering a plan of restorative justice to immigrants is the first step towards changing immigration policies for the future. The policies that Federal Government can implement to both hold policy makers and leaders accountable and offer restorative justice to the individuals and communities impacted by family separations are as follows: 1. Provide lifetime mental health services to the children and families impacted by the “zero tolerance” policy.

2. Offer pathways for families separated from their children to impose liability on government officials who were directly involved in the act and provide monetary compensation up to and or equal to a set number of monthly payments until the child turns 18 and receive lifetime access to mental health services and programs for the victims of child separation.

3. The Administration should conduct research of the reunification process and publish the findings to the public where it should be housed in Smithsonian as a reminder that forced separation is a human rights violation and this cannot and should not be permitted by a democratic society.

4. The Biden Administration should issue an executive order banning all family separation policies, and direct all agencies to incentivize States to follow suit via community grants.

5. The Department of Homeland Security should create a new policy and practices that take into account that security violations will not be met with human rights violations but will be dealt with according to international and national laws.

Conclusion The polarization of attitudes towards immigration have allowed for human rights violations to be portrayed as “law enforcement” by Trump officials while ignoring the negative mental health implications to the most vulnerable of the population at the border.7 Carrying out the above recommendations will allow the United States to set a precedent as a country that upholds its international agreements in the human rights arena. Additionally, taking action will allow the Biden Administration to allow for the country to witness the importance of holding ourselves accountable for our actions. Finally, it will begin a new era of respect for children’s rights and grant them and their families the dignity they deserve. The new normal for United States immigration policy should be firmly rooted in the values we espouse as a democratic nation in the pledge of allegiance: liberty and justice for all.

Jennifer Howe and Mohammed Ziny, “Congress and Immigration Policy: Use of Moral Language Surrounding the Trump Presidency.”

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Alma Maria Rinasz, M.Ed. Born and raised in Rochester, New York, Alma Maria Rinasz moved to Latin America to pursue a career in international education after completing an undergraduate degree in International Relations at the Jesuit university, Canisius College, in Buffalo. Becoming a sustainable development entrepreneur Alma saw first hand the impact of immigration and security on communities in Mexico and Latinx communities in the United States, prompting her to write a book for the children of Mexican immigrants. In 2017 Alma accepted a social impact and innovation role in Mexico City and returned to education to teach computer science, technology and English language arts at the K-12 level while obtaining a graduate degree in Education and Teaching from the School of Psychology at the Universidad Michoacana San Nicolás de Hidalgo. An Edie Windsor Coding Scholar, Alma completed a coding boot camp in 2019 and currently works as a developer advocate and volunteers with the Cybersecurity NonProfit as the cybersafety outreach program manager. Alma is focusing her efforts on transitioning into a cybersecurity role where she can use her teaching and international experience to bring better information security training, awareness and advocacy programs to life. In her spare time Alma manages the social media accounts for Curtis “Wall Street” Carroll helping to create financial education content for BIPoC communities. Additionally Alma parents three humans and one cat.

You can learn more about Alma and her work by visiting www.amrinasz.com

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Racism in the Digital Age: How Online Radicalization of White Supremacists Became the United States’ Greatest National Security Threat Jade Vasquez, MA In 2020, the United States experienced a racial reckoning not seen since the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Millions of people around the country marched through their cities to protest systemic police violence against Black and Brown communities, after the murders of three African Americans – George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery – sparked international outrage.

As Black Lives Matter activists organized online to build a multiracial movement for justice, white supremacists with opposing goals were using the same social media platforms to incite a race war.

In the United States, right-wing extremist violence has reached an all-time high since the September 11 attacks, as seen in the tragic events of Charlottesville, the Tree of Life synagogue, El Paso, and most recently, the January 6 riots on Capitol Hill. White supremacist and far-right extremist groups, such as Proud Boys, Q-Anon, and Neo-Nazis, have been able to amplify their racist messages and coordinate violent attacks on US soil through online hate groups and disinformation campaigns. These groups use social media platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and far-right platforms, such as Parler and Gab. In order for the US government to protect its citizens from extremist domestic violence, it must fully acknowledge the threat that white supremacy poses to American democracy and national security. The federal government must mitigate the impact that these dangerous groups have on society by developing mechanisms that monitor and meaningfully address disinformation campaigns and hateful content online. This includes pressuring social media companies to routinely take down falsehoods and conspiracy theories that incite violence and passing legislation that holds domestic terrorists and those that embolden them accountable, including members of law enforcement, the military, and the US government itself.

Recognizing White Supremacy as a Global and Domestic Terror Threat White supremacy, the belief that the white race is inherently superior to other races and that white people should have dominance over people of other races, 1 has deep roots in American history, culture, and institutions that date back to the days of slavery. Since the abolition of slavery, white reactionaries determined to preserve the racial hierarchy have developed new methods to oppress Black and Brown people, from brutal lynchings to Jim Crow to mass incarceration. The subjugation of communities of color come in many forms, involves many stakeholders, and 1

Merriam Webster, s.v., "White supremacy,” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/white%20supremacy.

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threatens the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of all people. In her book, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, Kathleen Belew calls on the American public and government to recognize the current white power movement as something broader than a single group or individual. It encompasses a wider range of ideologies and operates simultaneously in public and underground, from the Christian church to private computer message boards.2 Belew argues that understanding the history of “white power activism–” the pursuit of an all-white nation through violent and nonviolent means– is essential in preventing future violent attacks in the United States and providing vital context to nation’s contemporary politics. 3 She states that lack of public understanding, effective prosecution, and state action have allowed white power activism to continue and expand over the last few decades, becoming more violent and more mainstream in recent years.

Although Belew’s book was published two years before the halls of Congress were breached by rioters intending to “capture and assassinate elected officials in the United States government,” 4 her arguments remain significantly relevant in 2021. The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing; 2015 shooting of nine Black worshippers in a church in Charleston, South Carolina; deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia; and 2019 mass shooting of two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, are all evidence that white supremacist extremist violence is not a series of isolated incidents, but a popular movement that, with the help of social media, has expanded its reach beyond US borders. Federal lawmakers must first call this violence for what it is: racially motivated terrorist attacks. The dangers of ignoring this serious issue far exceeds the political backlash US representatives may receive for acknowledging it. They must treat racism and white supremacy as threats to national and international security, and pass laws that allow prosecutors to charge domestic terrorists similarly to foreign terrorists. Lastly, the US government must also acknowledge that its military, law enforcement, and many of its elected officials have a white supremacy problem and root it out by initiating investigations into service members and officers with ties to online hate groups and holding members of government who perpetuate violence legally and criminally accountable.

Monitoring Disinformation Online and Taking Down Hate Speech The internet and social media have fundamentally changed the way governments and non-state actors wage war on their enemies. With 72% of Americans receiving their news online, social media has become a central environment for conflict by transforming the speed, dissemination, and accessibility of both true and false information. 5 Disinformation, or the distribution of false 2

Kathleen Belew, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018), 8.

3 Ibid, 239.

4 United States of America vs. Jacob Anthony Chansley. MJ 21-05000 CR21-00003-RCL (2021), http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2021/images/01/15/5-main.pdf.

5 Nic Newman et al., “Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2019,” Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2019): 118.

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information with the intent to deceive and mislead targeted audiences, 6 is an old propaganda tactic from the Cold War7 that has evolved in the digital age. Social media companies have reduced the authority of trained journalists by allowing ordinary people to present false information as news without the traditional scrutiny and review that traditionally trained journalists would undergo.8 The economic models of social media also facilitate the spread of disinformation because posts with false or misleading content often attract more clicks, generating more advertisement revenues for online companies.9 For example, according to a former Facebook employee who focused on political advertising, the online platform’s business model “exploits our data to let advertisers aim at us, showing each of us a different version of the truth and manipulating us with hypercustomized ads.”10 As a result, Facebook has enabled campaigns and other political organizations to spread false and debunked information on its website, which has ultimately contributed to the dangerous polarization and radicalization of internet users in the United States and abroad.

In March 2019, Special Counsel Robert Mueller released a report that stated that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in a “sweeping and systematic fashion,” by developing a disinformation campaign on social media to provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States. 11 The idea that a foreign adversary could exploit existing racial divisions in the United States to shape the outcome of democratic elections reinforces the idea that racism and white supremacy make Americans more vulnerable to security threats, both foreign and domestic. US inaction in addressing Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections set a dangerous precedent for our democracy, and has incentivized other dangerous actors, from foreign adversaries to domestic right-wing extremists, to disrupt our democratic processes. A New York Times article reported that US political operatives and individuals “angry and frustrated with life” used the same playbook developed by Russian trolls to mislead and stoke fear among the American electorate during an election year. 12 The federal government must collaborate with social media companies to take down content that incites violence and mitigate the online radicalization of white supremacists. However, Facebook, Google, and Twitter have demonstrated that they are incapable of self-regulating their platforms to prevent extremist violence. Therefore, Congress must also establish strict and clear regulations for social media companies that minimize legal grey zones and set international norms to monitor hate speech without infringing on citizens’ democratic freedoms. Lastly, the US government must James Pamment et al., “Countering Information Influence Activities: The State of the Art,” Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, v. 1.4, (2018): 43.

7 See: “Operation Infektion: Russian Disinformation: From Cold War to Kanye,” The New York Times, November 11, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/opinion/russia-meddling-disinformation-fake-news-elections.html.

8 James Pamment et al., “Countering Information Influence Activities: The State of the Art,” 43.

9 Ibid, 44.

10 Yaël Eisenstat, “I worked on political ads at Facebook. They profit by manipulating us,” The Washington Post, November 4, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/11/04/i-worked-political-ads-facebook-they-profit-by-manipulating-us/.

11 Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III, “Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election,” vol. 1, March 2019, https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf.

12 Isabelle Niu, Kassie Bracken and Alexandra Eaton, “Russia Created an Election Disinformation Playbook. Here’s How Americans Evolved It,” New York Times, October 25, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/25/video/russia-us-electiondisinformation.html.

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update federal election campaign laws to make false statements about a political opponent on social media illegal, which would deter political campaigns from deliberately spreading falsehoods through digital advertisements and would strengthen the democratic process.

Enforcing Legal Accountability for Government Officials The most disconcerting aspect of the recent terrorist attack in Washington, DC is that many people who incited or took part in the mob riots were members of government who had sworn an oath to serve and protect Americans. From Q-Anon conspirators in Congress to rogue law enforcement agents, a significant number of government officials have been radicalized online through disinformation campaigns and are active members of hate groups on Facebook. 13 According to an NBC News report, “Former and current members of law enforcement agencies and the military appear to have participated in [the] chaos in Washington, alarming lawmakers on Capitol Hill and Americans nationwide.”14 In stark contrast to the heavy military and police presence during last summer’s racial justice protests, the DC Capitol Police and US military on January 6 were illequipped and ill-prepared for the publicly- coordinated attack by armed insurrectionists, who were committed to overturning the 2020 presidential election results and disenfranchising the Black and Brown voters of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Furthermore, as armed militia groups marched through the Capitol, the President of the United States and members of Congress inflamed the tensions by telling rioters to “fight like hell” and additionally tweeted the whereabouts of the Speaker of the House.15 Local, state, and federal legislators and policymakers must investigate their police forces, retired and active members of the military, and their colleagues in government for their participation in the Capitol Hill riots and their role in the widening threat of domestic extremism. There must be serious legal consequences for citizens and government officials attempting to overthrow a democratically elected government, including criminal prosecution and removal from the force or governmental office. This includes federal lawmakers invoking Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which would disqualify federal and state officeholders who “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding office again.16

Conclusion Michael German, “Hidden in Plain Sight: Racism, White Supremacy, and Far-Right Militancy in Law Enforcement,” Brennan Center for Justice, August 27, 2020, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidden-plain-sightracism-white-supremacy-and-far-right-militancy-law.

14 Janelle Griffith and Phil McCausland, “Law enforcement and the military probing whether members took part in Capitol riot,” NBC News, January 12, 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/law-enforcement-military-probingwhether-members-took-part-capitol-riot-n1253801.

15 Lauren Boebart, Twitter post, January 6, 2021, 2:18 p.m., https://twitter.com/laurenboebert/status/1346898958900199429.

16 U.S. Const. art. XIV, § 3, https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-14/.

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In September 2020, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that racially motivated violent extremism cases accounted for the majority of the bureau's work on domestic terrorist threats.17 However, the Senate did not pass legislation in the following weeks or months to address the growing white supremacist extremist threat and prevent future attacks on the homeland. On January 6, 2021, thousands of right-wing extremists who had been radicalized online answered the call of a sitting US president to stage a coup by storming into the US Capitol as Congress members certified the 2020 election results. In order for the US government to protect its citizens from extremist violence on American soil, it must admit that this country has a white supremacy problem, and it must hold perpetrators of domestic terrorism accountable. It must regulate social media companies, so their platforms are no longer inundated with dangerous conspiracy theories and hate speech. It must also investigate and prosecute members of government who incite or participate in this violence. In 2021, the three branches of government must finally come together to pass and enforce legislation that effectively counters institutional racism, online disinformation campaigns, and violent overthrows of American democracy.

Jade Vasquez, MA Jade is a public policy professional with research, data analysis, program management, and community organizing experience. She is a multi-linguist (English, Spanish, French) committed to finding innovative solutions to education, housing, immigration, international development, national security challenges. Jade earned her M.A. in Global Policy from the University of Texas at Austin's Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) School of Public Affairs, where she specialized in Security, Law, and Diplomacy. She was an active member of the University's research community, serving as a Graduate Fellow for the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy (CSRD) and the Center for Health and Social Policy (CHASP).

She completed the Clements Center for National Security's Graduate Portfolio Program, which gave her the opportunity to develop an interdisciplinary expertise in security studies and take courses with a range of national security experts on counterterrorism, nuclear proliferation, and cybersecurity issues. Jade received her B.A. in International Relations and Spanish from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. She spent a full year studying Spanish, culture, politics, and economics in Spain, Ecuador, and Peru.

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Threats to the Homeland: Statement before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, 116th Congress, September 24, 2020, (Statement of Christopher Wray, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation), https://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/worldwide-threats-to-the-homeland-092420.

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Terror-management and Intersectionality in National Emergencies Cecilia Idika-Kalu Understanding people’s experience of terror management with an intersectionality lens is useful to capture how their class, race and gender connect to shape their unique experience. Terror Management Theory is based on people’s biological predisposition to self-preservation as selfaware beings and defines behavior when faced with existential threats. The foreboding knowledge of mortality, especially under threat, results in anxiety which is at the core of terror-management.

The threat to life, livelihood and potential citizenship triggers that need for self-preservation in the Covid-19 pandemic. Because of the multiple threats from the pandemic and related economic crises, people will build culture which helps them minimize terror. This gives them a shared symbolic context that signifies meaning, order, and stability. 1 The idea of terror management posits that, to reduce the potential for anxiety, humans rely on a shared meaning system, which allows them to feel a sense of personal value (i.e., self-esteem).2 Studies in Terror Management Theory have shown that people cope with terror by using pro-social strategies, like reaching out and affirming their family and community relationships.3 Governments and other institutions can support vulnerable communities in their response by advancing pro-social strategies in a “bottomup” approach. This will work with already existing community platforms for engagement that support diverse groups of people.

The Covid-19 pandemic was designated a national emergency in accordance with section 1135 of the Social Security Act (SSA) in March 2020. This problem of unprecedented proportions emerged and escalated around the world rapidly. The United States is one of the nations that has borne the brunt of this epidemic the most. The pandemic and the disparate racial impact that has unfolded in the United States has been acknowledged, albeit not exhaustively. An intimate look at the lives of those affected by the management of the pandemic in context will provide better understanding of the intersectionality involved. In navigating the healthcare and immigration systems, race, class and gender overlap to create a fresh dimension of social dilemmas. The experience of many people of color, coping with the threats to their lives and livelihood in this pandemic begs carefully

Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, Sheldon Solomon, “A Terror Management Theory of Social Behavior: The Psychological Functions of Self-Esteem and Cultural Worldviews,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology Vol 24, edited by Mark P. Zanna (Netherlands: Elsevier Inc., 1991), 93-159.

2 Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, Sheldon Solomon, “The Causes and Consequences of the Need for Self-esteem: A Terror Management Theory,” in Public Self and Private Self, edited by R. F. Baumeister (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1986), 189–212.

3 Stanley Gaines Jr Robin Goodwin, and Michelle Willson, “Terror threat perception and its consequences in contemporary Britain,” British Journal of Psychology 96 (2005): 389–406; Leonie Huddy, Nadia Khatib, and Theresa Capelos, “Trends: Reactions to the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001,” Public Opinion Quarterly 66 no. 3 (2002): 418–450; Schuster, M. A., Stein, B. D., Jaycox, L. H., Collins, R. L., Marshall, G. N., Elliott, M. N., et al., “A National Survey of Stress Reactions after the September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks,” New England Journal of Medicine 345 (2001): 1507–1512.

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considered solutions. Coordinated mechanisms to redefine national security must meet the needs of the diverse population represented in the United States. They must address the details of how race, class and gender intersect to shape the lives of migrant women in the Covid-19 pandemic.

The intersectionality across identities and how it defines people's experiences of the crises in the United States should inform the redefinition of national security.

Research has shown the uneven distribution of morbidity and mortality among races and the colorblind public health response. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data shows African Americans, who are 13% of the US population, make up 26% of Covid-19 cases, 31% of hospitalizations, and 23% of deaths. 4 Bridging this gap in health inequalities in the US requires radical reforms in the healthcare system and society. This will call for an intersectional approach to research, putting the needs of communities of color among priority needs with a broad strategy covering the social determinants of health. Legislation has been useful so far, with the passing of the following: First, the Covid-19 Racial and Ethnic Disparities Task Force Act of 2020 (HR 6763/S 3721), which creates a multi-disciplinary task force providing medical supply allocation recommendations to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The second is the Health Equity and Accountability Act (HEAA) of 2020 (HR 6637), which provides a policy framework with funding to bridge health gaps for individuals facing lack of care. It was introduced by the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. In summary, more can be done.

Relationality and the Interaction of “Dimensions of Oppression” By reason of class or socioeconomic status, race and immigration status, many have limited access to Covid-19 testing and treatment. Where it is available, they cannot afford it because of the cost, and fear of “public charge.” The public charge rule has the potential of causing a denial of their immigration residency application. This is especially where they are found to have benefitted from any state-funded program including insurance for healthcare. They will therefore bear the concerns of not knowing their Covid-19 health status, or not getting adequate care in silence. In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the issues with high cost of healthcare, societal class and the disparate racial impact of the pandemic has its costs on people. The fear of implications from their immigration status in accessing social services like Medicare create fear, secrecy and increased infection. These dimensions of how the pandemic affects people is associated with increasing fatality rates and mental health problems.

Studies have compared FEMA stated goals, to the outcomes in the fallout of the Covid-19 crises.

The pandemic compelled a system-wide “whole of government” response, but the result was

Marisa K. Dowling, MD, MPP and Robin L. Kelly, PhD, MA, “Policy Solutions for Reversing the Color-blind Public Health Response to COVID-19 in the U.S.,” JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association 324 no.3 (2020): 229-230.

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fragmented, and the relative strength of response was weak.5 These relative qualities are referred to as “coherence” and “coordination” by disaster management scholars, and in this case, both are lacking.6 The objective possible solutions to the multi-faceted problems faced by people of color will leverage on terror-management mechanisms. It will also employ an intersectional appraisal of how they are affected by the pandemic. President Joe Biden unveiled the “American Rescue Plan,” a legislative proposal designed to strengthen the economy, reduce inequity and cater to the sustainable improvement of the nation’s financial health. This plan disaggregates how $1.9 trillion will be used to solve some of America’s problems. To do so effectively it must show a detailed plan for catering to the most vulnerable facing existential threats from the pandemic.

Recommendations 1. The role of the policy sciences in comprehending the pandemic and how narratives, scientific expertise and emotions influence policy decisions is important. There is an urgent need for the diversification of policy perspectives that should shape policy on disasters in national security. The current perspectives in the Covid-19 crises are narrowed down to three main narratives, they are: first, the success trajectory (pre-emptive action by banned flights). Second, the failure trajectory (rise in Covid-19 case rates) and third, the mixed trajectory (success in bringing down rates but hospitals still overwhelmed). 7 Components of the policy sciences that are less studied, and should be highlighted in narratives are, intersectionality and survival mechanisms. These are the ways different class, gender and race intersect and amplify the challenges people face in society. Understanding how they survive by building shared meaning, community and culture for resilience is key. It will inform alternative narratives that are applicable beyond the delivery of Covid-19 vaccines to wider issues of public health beyond the pandemic.

2. Despite interagency collaboration, administrative fragmentation and decentralization convolutes implementation of policy. This makes it tough for those that need medical and social care the most to access the help they need. FEMA should be able to access critical health and human services directly and without delays. Administrators at the state and local governments look to them for direction. Clearly defined frameworks that make care and provision accessible in an equitable way across social divides is required. An example is healthcare and childcare passes for single heads of household, recognizing their identity and social status. This recognizes the peculiar needs of single parents and single heads of household in balancing time for gainful work with care for their children.

Federal Emergency Management Agency, “Whole-of-America response to COVID-19,” March 29, 2020, https://www.fema.gov/news-release/20200328/photos-whole-america-covid-19-response.

6 David P. Carter and Peter J. May, “Making Sense of the U.S. COVID-19 Pandemic Response: A Policy Regime Perspective,” Administrative Theory & Praxis 42 no. 2 (2020): 265-277.

7 Paul Cairney, David P. Carter, Deserai A. Crow, Anna P. Durnová, Tanya Heikkila, Karin Ingold, Allan McConnell, Daniel Nohrstedt, Diane Stone, and Christopher M. Weible, “COVID-19 and the policy sciences: initial reactions and perspectives,” Policy Sciences 53 (2020): 225–241.

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3. The relative strength of FEMA’s “whole of government” response can be improved by using a terror management lens to approach it. Plans by the government to turn around current outcomes in the pandemic, like the “American Rescue Plan” should account for intersectionality in people’s lives. Narratives around shared meaning systems that allow people to feel a sense of personal value, fairness and hope should be part of policy and deployed in practice. Engaging communities, platforms and social groups that aggregate the voices reflecting our diversity, in its entirety will multiply the power of our response in crises.

Cecilia Idika-Kalu I am a Global Studies Ph.D. Candidate in the University of Massachusetts-Lowell’s Political Science Department. My research is at the intersection of security, gender, and human rights, and my current research focuses on gender participation and group ideology of rebel groups in sub-Saharan Africa. This project seeks to understand how women's participation in rebel groups is shaped by the group’s ideology and socio-economic contexts. It also investigates terror management mechanisms and sense-making in women’s experiences with rebel groups. I teach courses in Comparative Politics, African Politics and Gender Studies in the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. I am a Civic Action Project Policy Fellow and received my graduate degree from Pittsburg State University, Kansas. I have previously worked as a Development consultant and in my free time, I enjoy reading, travelling and watching movies.

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Normalizing The Threat-potential of White Supremacy Nola Haynes, MDiv, Doctoral Candidate On January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol was attacked by Americans believing the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent. Who were the attackers or as President-elect, Joe Biden, referred to them as, insurrectionists? Why did Americans claiming to be patriots and protectors of democracy decide to risk their lives and futures to become threats to national security? To answer this complicated question, understanding the identity of the January 6, 2021 attackers from an intersectionality perspective is helpful.

In light of the real-world problem of increased domestic terrorism in the U.S, the threat-potential of white supremacy as a layered ideology must be understood through an intersectionality lens.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) defines domestic terrorism as, “Violent criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of political, religious, social, racial or environment nature.” 1 Domestic influences that motivate this type of homegrown terrorism is an example of how intersectionality is applied in a national security context. In the United States, racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and homo/transphobia drives domestic terrorism ideology. Whereas, with global terrorism, religion, ethnicity and anti-Western sentiment drive their terroristic agendas. This is a key distinction because policy prescriptions must address the deeply embedded racial fissuring in the United States. January 6, 2021 exposed racism as a key pressure point, which makes the country vulnerable to more domestic and foreign attacks. This insecurity caused by racial instability raises this problem to the level of national security.

Intersectionality as an analytical tool helps explain how various categories of difference, or identity work in tandem to shape worldviews of terrorists while simultaneously highlighting the identities of target populations. Intersectionality offers a thick analysis of identity because it traces each category’s relationship to the power of the state through policies and laws. For example, Sampaio (2015) traces the current thread of nationalism and anti-Latinx sentiments to September 11, 2001.2 The creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) along with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was an outgrowth of American nationalism. The point here is to show how intersectionality does more than name a structural problem like racism. It reveals its relationship to existing policies and laws that uphold structural bias against target populations.

Why is intersectionality useful for understanding January 6, 2021 through a national security lens?

There are three ways in which intersectionality is helpful when analyzing January 6, 2021: a) The Federal Bureau of Investigation, “What We Investigate,” https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/terrorism.

Anna Sampaio, Terrorizing Latina/o Immigrants: Race, Gender, and Immigration Politics in the Age of Security (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 2015).

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identity of the insurrectionist must go beyond the nomenclature of white supremacist.

Understanding what shaped their worldview helps explain the radicalization process. b) By having a clearer view of the radicalization process and triggers, an intersectionality analysis can assist governmental agencies with dismantling financial enablers and social media networks that supports the layered ideology of white supremacy. c) Intersectionality explains how identity as a category of difference becomes a category of threat.

The last point explains how the identities of target populations, such as Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities become threatening to the ideology of white supremacy.

Wolfers (1952), describes how national security is meant to address material, military threats in addition to ideologies that support attacks against the United States. 3 As with the current and looming foreign policy threat-potential of nuclear proliferation, white supremacy ideology is the imminent threat-potential to the security and stability of the United States.

How can a new normal be achieved? Creating a new normal must involve normalizing identity bias as an existing and escalating national security threat. The intersectional identities of the January 6th attackers must be understood in relation to power structures that support identity bias through policies and laws, such as profiling. Incorrectly profiling, or non-profiling emboldened the January 6, 2021 attack of the United States Capitol. What identity-based policies supported a military-style presence for Black Lives Matter protests on June 2, 2020 at the Lincoln Memorial, yet ignored public planning on social media platforms of an insurrection that lead to five confirmed deaths along with a related suicide? This thicker analysis goes beyond labeling and attempts to answer, a) who the targets were and b) why they attacked.

Rebuilding a better system requires the might of the national security community to attack this security problem similarly to global terrorism and state-sponsored terrorism. There are public calls for the creation of domestic terrorism laws, while the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights along with 135 organizations argue that Congress focus on oversight and appropriations authority to hold law enforcement accountable, versus creating more counterterrorism laws that can have negative impacts on BIPOC communities.4 This legal debate speaks to the way in which intersectionality targets the role power structures play in supporting, continuing and advancing racial disharmony. This cycle creates cultural instability and social, political and economic insecurity for target-populations. This reality impacts the domestic and global health, wealth and reputation of the United States during a critical time of democratic backsliding.

Arnold Wolfers, “National Security as an Ambiguous Symbol,” Political Science Quarterly 67 no. 4 (December 1952): 481502.

4 The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, “Leading Civil Rights Organizations Oppose Creation of New Domestic Terrorism Legislation,” January 19, 2021, https://civilrights.org/2021/01/19/leading-civil-rights-organizations-opposecreation-of-new-domestic-terrorism-legislation/#.

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Taken together, intersectionality provides a thick analysis of identity that says when identity and ideology converge, someone’s race, ethnicity or religion becomes a threat, which falls within the mandate of national security to protect against. A policy suggestion is to strengthen and utilize the 50 plus federal statutes that exists for prosecuting domestic terrorism. The trail of the living, Boston Bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, also provides precedent for how the state can charge January 6, 2021 attackers.5 A legal suggestion is to close loopholes that threaten the sole identity-based, constitutional protection of strict scrutiny. Similarly, the Immigration Nationality Act or HartCeller Act of 1965 is also vulnerable to identity-based, national security and foreign policies such as the 2017 and 2020 Travel Bans. Intersectionality holds power structures accountable for its role in constructing negative policies and laws that view categories of difference, or identity as threats to core American values.

Nola Haynes, MDiv, Doctoral Candidate Eboni ‘Nola’ Haynes is a Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Pepperdine University in California. Nola’s work focuses on national security, foreign policy, intersectionality and public law. Nola is proficient in issues around state sponsored terrorism, cybersecurity challenges, nuclear policy reform, the formalization of the National Security Act (1947), strict scrutiny, established by Korematsu (1944) and the Immigration Nationality Act, also the Hart-Celler Act (1965). Nola is a mixed-methods researcher and conducts survey-based studies with R-based, statistical analysis. In addition to Nola’s academic career, she sits on two academic boards, the Foreign Policy Board of the American Political Science Association (APSA) along with the International Studies AssociationWest (ISA) Executive Board. In addition, Nola was selected to participate in the inaugural WestExec Advisors Diversity Mentoring Program, a partnership with the Diversity in National Security Network and is an active member Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security (WCAPS).

Nola is a unique national security scholar, in that, she has a rich background in communications and is deeply committed to diversity and inclusion work. Nola worked with First-Generation community college students at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and recently completed a four-year appointment of coordinating a Predoctoral Institute for First-Generation students interested in getting PhDs in Social Sciences at the University of Southern California (USC). Nola’s commitment to social justice and equity within high education is also evident in the WBUR Newsroom, “The 30 Charges and Verdicts Against Dzhokar Tsarnaev,” WBUR News, May 15, 2015, https://www.wbur.org/news/2015/01/05/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-charges. Dzhokar Tsarnaev was charged with relatable offenses to the January 6, 2021 such as “Conspiracy, Possession of a Firearm, Conspiracy to maliciously destroy public property, Interfering with commerce…”

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interfaith work she did during the Boston Bombings while attending Harvard Divinity School. At Harvard Divinity School, Nola combined advocacy, language and research by spending time in Nicaragua researching the intersections of gender, religion and civil war. As a Black woman in the national security and foreign policy space, Nola is committed to increasing diversity within the field writ large along with advocating for equitable foreign policy that privileges diplomacy, coalition building and peacekeeping. Nola is a bridge between the tech savvy, social media generation with more traditional realist-based International Relations methods and theories.

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Redefining Counterterrorism Cheryl Voisard, Ph.D. As the United States contemplates an exit strategy from its “forever wars” in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, and grapples with domestic terrorism, it is clear that its counterterrorism policy will need to shift in order to keep up with new political realities. A policy that undervalues or ignores the contributions of women as perpetrators of violence, for example, undercuts U.S. interests and concedes a strategic advantage to terrorist organizations. Indeed, if U.S. counterterrorism strategy continues to be gender neutral, overemphasize kinetic1 resources, and focus only on the violent aspects of extremism, it runs the risk of being incapable of protecting the homeland from damaging attacks. A reimagined U.S. counterterrorism strategy must mainstream gender into its analysis, utilize all instruments of national power and influence, and broaden its concentration beyond recruitment and radicalization to incorporate the conditions that give rise to and further perpetuate extremism. Failure to implement such an approach will leave the U.S. vulnerable to terrorist attacks against Americans and U.S. interests at home and around the world.

The U.S. spends a considerable amount of its counterterrorism resources on targeting active terrorist cells. Yet, despite decisive U.S. military victories over many of these groups, instead of seeing their demise we have seen their resurgence and proliferation, as well as the expansion of their footprints to other regions around the world. This is attributed to the decentralized nature of violent extremist organizations (VEOs) and their capability to quickly reconstitute themselves after defeat. But it is also because membership in VEOS is quite protean and includes a whole list of actors that go far beyond what U.S. strategy would traditionally define as terrorists. Many in their ranks are women who may be combatants, or facilitators of violence through the information they share, the money they raise, and the people they recruit. And oftentimes these members are located far away from the center of gravity, and thus not harmed when the cell headquarters is destroyed.

A new kind of counterterrorism strategy, therefore, requires a nimble national security apparatus that can quickly adapt and respond to the changing threat landscape and can engage at multiple points with the enemy. Below are three recommendations for transforming U.S. counterterrorism policy.

Recommendation 1. Mainstreaming Gender into U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy Despite all of the research documenting women’s engagement in VEOs, current U.S. counterterrorism strategy does not expound upon gender nor does it have a gendered approach when attempting to combat violent extremist ideology and its resonance. Further, research suggests Kinetic power refers to the traditional instruments of war such as guns, bombs, and bullets. This is opposed to ‘soft instruments’ of power such as diplomacy and economic sanctions.

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that not having a gendered approach to violent extremism could allow female fighters to evade counterterrorism efforts and cause even more harm to U.S. interests.

Ironically, VEOs do have an implicit gender strategy for targeting both women and men. For example, Al-Qaeda and ISIS will provide social services, food distribution, and health care to poverty-stricken communities because they recognize that it is the woman who typically spends money on her children’s and household’s well-being. They calculate that if they can “win the woman over” then they will have an opening into the heart of the community. Paradoxically, VEOs also target vulnerable men by tailoring their recruitment strategies and tapping into gender dynamics and gender inequalities. Right-wing extremist groups in this country for example, promote notions of masculinity that are hyper-aggressive and hyper-violent, all the while aggravating even further frustrations around male identity that depend on the subjugation of women. Therefore, U.S. policy must mainstream gender in its counterterrorism initiatives by taking into account both men’s and women’s interest and motivations. U.S. policy also should at every available opportunity highlight the hypocrisy in the VEO messaging and overtly challenge the gender norms of VEOs in its information campaigns by appealing to more peaceful norms of masculinity, and more empowered forms of femininity.

Recommendation 2. Utilize All Instruments of National Power in Counterterrorism Strategy If the U.S. has incorrectly envisioned the type of actors that it is fighting, then it should also reconsider the kinds of weapons that it is using; and appreciate that it is warring in entirely different domains than in previous conventional wars. Many of today’s terrorists use laptops instead of tanks, and cell phones instead of assault rifles – while never leaving their homes. They are also employing non-military sources of power such as propaganda, culture, economic development, intelligence, in tandem with their military power to threaten the U.S. and its allies.

Consequently, the U.S. should augment its toolkit when engaging with VEOs to include nonkinetic weapons such as information, financial, legal and economic instruments. Hence, when VEOs promise communities justice, governance, employment, stability and security, all the while portraying themselves as “champions of the community,” the U.S. interagency2 can counter these half-truths and falsities with its own information campaigns, humanitarian and development portfolios, and programs that disrupt the flow of terrorist financing.

Recommendation 3. Broaden the Focus of Counterterrorism Strategy to Include an Individual’s Experiences Before and After Joining a VEO Finally, current U.S. counterterrorism strategy narrowly focuses on an individual’s experience in a VEO at only one point in time, when in reality there are several stages of involvement within the 2

The US interagency in this case refers to all of national security agencies and departments of the US government who have a mandate to combat terrorism.

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organization. A woman engaging with a VEO can be a seeker, a recruit, or an ex-affiliate; and at any point on this pathway she can decide to stay in the phase where she is in, continue further, or to disengage from the group altogether. Most U.S. policy is focused on the “recruit” phase and only targets individuals who have already been radicalized and committed violence. However, this approach fails to consider events that lead the seeker into joining the VEO, or what experiences she might have after leaving the group as an ex-affiliate, that might contribute to her reradicalization. Appreciating what took place before and after an individual participates in a VEO can provide important clues to understanding why individuals are motivated to join and remain in VEO. This in turn can better inform counterterrorism strategy on how to sever links between terrorist organizations and their participants.

Broadening our understanding of VEOS to include the experience of seekers and ex-affiliates will also help start the conversation on what to do with U.S. citizens who are captured on the battlefield as VEO affiliates. Currently, there is no unified policy between the U.S. and its NATO allies on this issue, and this is very short-sighted. To illustrate, a terrorist that is captured in Syria most likely will find herself living in a detention center under squalid conditions and without childcare.

Being trapped in this environment makes her more likely to view the state as illegitimate and become re-radicalized. Even more disturbing, her children may become part of a new generation of VEO leaders.

Conclusion This paper highlighted several problematic areas and omissions within current U.S. counterterrorism strategy. For national security departments and agencies, the proposed recommendations are an opportunity to shift their focus and broaden their understanding of complex issues such as women’s agency. Far too often, troupes of women engaging with VEOs portray them as apolitical and non-violent, not having a voice or opinions, and not having radical politics. This is simply not true, and detrimental to degrading VEO threats. These recommendations also highlight the need for using a whole-of-government approach when engaging with VEOs and the importance in considering the motivations to join and remain in a VEO. As VEO threats continue to evolve, it will become even more important for counterterrorism policy to tackle all of these issues with more than platitudes, but with real resources.

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Cheryl Voisard, Ph.D. Cheryl Voisard has worked as a Foreign Service Officer at USAID for 10 years where she has served in some of the world’s most fragile states including South Sudan, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. She recently returned from the USAID/Senegal Mission where she served as the Power Africa Team Leader and currently, she is a War College student at U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies. Cheryl earned a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in Development Sociology from Cornell University.

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Redefining U.S.-Africa Economic Relations Kyla Denwood The United States has a history of well-intentioned but ineffective policies and programs towards Africa. Previous U.S. foreign policy featured well-meaning “signature” programs, such as Clinton’s African Growth and Opportunity Act, George W. Bush’s President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, Obama’s Power Africa, and Trump’s Prosper Africa. All have been deemed successful in improving trade, health and expanding infrastructure across the continent. However, tides are changing, and Africa has been experiencing a period of unprecedented economic growth that has led to increased innovation, entrepreneurship, and human capital. Since 2000, economic policies and business environments in Africa have improved significantly. With the transition of the Biden administration, now is an opportune time to redefine the future of U.S.-Africa economic relations to reflect the continent’s rapid transformation. To continue U.S. geostrategic priorities like combating insecurity and managing a rising China, it is necessary for the Biden administration to improve economic relations with Africa and evaluate the continent like the economic powerhouse it is set to become.

Africa is the fastest urbanizing region on the planet, with five of the top seven fastest growing economies in 2019. Rapid globalization and urbanization have resulted in a digital revolution. For example, phone subscriptions in Africa increased from less than 2 per 100 people in 2000 to 75 per 100 people in 2017. Information and communication technologies are enabling business environments across the continent and enhancing the quality of education, skills training, and entrepreneurial spirit. The advancements can be witnessed in Africa’s new technology industry: the number of tech hubs across the continent grew by nearly 50 percent during 2019 and has led to this period known as Africa’s Tech Generation.

Additionally, the continent is experiencing a sizable demographic shift. Africa is currently the world’s youngest continent with almost 60 percent of the population under the age of 25. The United Nations projects that the population of sub-Saharan Africa will double by 2050. This rapid population growth and urbanization will cause an increase in demand for goods and services.

Fortunately, the continent is working to produce enabling environments for trade. Set to begin in January 2021, the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) intends to create the world’s largest free trade area across 55 African countries and 1.2 billion people. New digitalization, urbanization, and population growth will create more economic opportunity for Africa and more opportunities for U.S. private sector engagement.

Other countries are beginning to take notice of Africa’s bolstering economies. From 2010 to 2016, more than 320 embassies were opened in the region. Moreover, foreign entities are increasingly hosting summits with African heads of state to foster interaction between government, business,

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and civil society. On the other hand, the Trump administration adopted a largely disinterested stance on Africa policy, demonstrated by a decrease in African foreign direct investment, very few regional visits with African heads of state and the “Muslim” travel ban that denied U.S. entry to nationals of several African countries, including Africa’s biggest economy, Nigeria. While the U.S. has lessened involvement with Africa during the past four years, China has taken the opposite approach. In 2017, the country became Africa’s largest trading partner while the U.S regressed to third, trailing the European Union. China has also emerged as the largest creditor to Africa, granting the country significant economic and political leverage as the continent moves towards a debt crisis. The U.S. has lost advantages in Africa as evidenced by the continent’s diversifying sources of foreign direct investment, a shift in key trading partners, and increased diplomatic representation of other countries. To keep up with China and other foreign entities vying for attention from African countries, the U.S. must begin rebuilding economic relations with the continent.

The U.S. must undertake a more active role in economic policy towards Africa. Below are a few suggestions the Biden administration should consider when reshaping the country’s economic policy choices: Key Recommendations 1. Educate the U.S. private sector about the business opportunities that exist with private sectors in Africa As African economies grow, the business environment becomes more sophisticated. However, U.S. companies are uninformed about investing in African private sectors, perhaps due to the negative economic and social stereotypes associated with the continent. This explains why U.S. trade remains low in the region at about 2 percent of all U.S. foreign investment in 2020. As highlighted previously, the demographic transition in Africa has led to burgeoning populations with expanding middle classes. Since these populations have diverse and increasing needs coupled with limited ability to manufacture consumer goods locally, imports are increasing. The U.S. government should work with private companies to engage sectors in Africa that align with U.S. comparative advantage and coincide with U.S. national security goals, like agribusiness, media, and finance.

The U.S. government should commit time and energy to facilitating industry dialogue between U.S. and African markets. Regular sector-focused roundtables would bring stakeholders together, encourage knowledge-sharing, and foster collaborations. Additionally, the U.S. should initiate plans for free trade agreements with African countries as well as with the newly established AfCFTA. Government agencies would be able to effectively advance business and economic relations with African private sectors.

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2. Diversify the foreign service The U.S. Foreign Service should utilize the growing African diaspora in the U.S. as a liaison to promote economic credibility and support American ideologies on the continent. Between 2002 and 2018, the proportion of African Americans working at the State Department fell from 17 to 15 percent, and the proportion of African Americans in the foreign service increased from only 6 to 7 percent. The incoming administration must intentionally develop a culture of inclusion for the growing Afric an diaspora. As of 2015, there were 2.1 million African immigrants living in the United States, a dramatic increase compared to the past few decades. The U.S. government should involve this diaspora in the formation and execution of African policy. This could include partnering with organizations like the African Diaspora Network to recruit African immigrants in the administration and increase the number of African Americans in the foreign service. Diversifying the Foreign Service will lead to improved diplomatic communications strategies that better facilitate economic discussions for U.S. and African consumers.

3. Advocate for a debt restructuring strategy While business is booming for African economies, the continent is currently experiencing a major debt dilemma. About 40 percent of the continent is facing unsustainable debt burdens. Along with the unprecedented shock of the Covid-19 pandemic, declining commodity prices, and a slowdown in the domestic economy, Africa will soon encounter a debt crisis. China is the single largest creditor to the continent and, as of 2018, has around 20 percent of all African government debt on its books. The magnitude of the debt grants China special leverage in the debt relief debate as well as geopolitical leverage in the region.

The U.S. government should encourage and assist U.S. private sector creditors in debt restructuring negotiations. Debt restructuring would create an efficient fiscal boost, and ultimately, increase American productive capacity by resolving savings imbalances. Additionally, the U.S. should push for a temporary hold on debt repayment options for all African countries until the economic downturn subsides. In last spring’s G-20 meeting, member countries passed the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) for this specific purpose. However, the DSSI covers only bilateral debt, only through mid-2021, and only for the poorest African economies. The U.S. government must revisit and advocate for a more inclusive and sustainable debt repayment policy. These recommendations would allow African economies to reallocate funds to pandemic relief efforts, improve the U.S. economy, and slowly work to lessen China’s geopolitical hold.

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References: 1. Coulibaly, Brahima Sangafowa. “Looking Forward: US-Africa Relations.” Brookings Institution, March 27, 2019. https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/looking-forward-usafrica-relations/#footnote-7.

2. Ekeruche, Mma Amara. “Africa and the Need for a New Debt Restructuring Architecture.”

Istituto Per Gli Studi Di Politica Internazionale, July 24, 2020. https://www.ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/africa-and-need-new-debt-restructuringarchitecture-27026.

3. Hruby, Aubrey. “Escaping China's Shadow: Finding America's Competitive Edge in Africa.” Atlantic Council, September 2017. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wpcontent/uploads/2017/09/Escaping_Chinas_Shadow_web_0907.pdf.

4. Hruby, Aubrey. “It's Time for an Africa Policy Upgrade.” Foreign Policy, November 30, 2020. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/11/30/united-states-africa-policy-biden/.

5. Kariba, Felix. “The Burgeoning Africa Youth Population: Potential or Challenge?” Cities Alliance, July 30, 2020. https://www.citiesalliance.org/newsroom/news/cities-alliancenews/burgeoning-africa-youth-population-potential-or-challenge/.

6. Kazeem, Yomi. “The biggest trends in African tech and startups in 2019.” Quartz Africa, December 31, 2019. https://qz.com/africa/1777241/the-biggest-trends-in-african-techstartups-and-innovation-2019/.

7. Leke, Acha, and Landry Signé. “Spotlighting Opportunities for Business in Africa and Strategies to Succeed in the World's next Big Growth Market.” Brookings Institution, January 11, 2019. https://www.brookings.edu/research/spotlighting-opportunities-forbusiness-in-africa-and-strategies-to-succeed-in-the-worlds-next-big-growth-market/.

8. Mitchell, Jason. “IMF: African Economies Are the World's Fastest Growing.” fDi Intelligence, October 17, 2019. https://www.fdiintelligence.com/article/75841.

9. Moore, Gyuda, and Bogolo Kenewendo. “Meet the World's Largest Free Trade Area.”

Foreign Policy, November 13, 2020. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/11/13/afcfta-freetrade-africa-economics/.

10. Murphy, Theodore. “Biden's Priority in Africa Should Be Debt Relief.” Foreign Policy, November 12, 2020. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/11/12/debt-relief-africa-financingchina-sdr/.

11. “The new scramble for Africa.” The Economist, March 7, 2019. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/03/07/the-new-scramble-for-africa.

12. U.S. Department of State. Additional Steps Are Needed to Identify Potential Barriers to Diversity. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, 2020.

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Kyla Denwood Kyla Denwood is a senior undergraduate student at Tulane University where she is pursuing a dual degree in International Development (B.A.) and Economics (B.S.) to understand the role of the private sector in promoting social change. Her research and career interests lie at the nexus of international education, social innovation and social entrepreneurship, and economic development.

She has been fortunate to pursue relevant opportunities in Kenya, Paraguay, the United Kingdom, and New Orleans. Inspired by her international experiences, Kyla began researching the effects of social capital on youth unemployment in sub-Saharan Africa for her Senior Honors Thesis. She is currently an intern with the American Academy of Diplomacy and aspires to pursue a career in international development.

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“Multilateralism is Back”: Strengthened Multilateral Institutions as a National Security Imperative Nabila Jamshed Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, then President Joe Biden’s pick for United States Ambassador to the United Nations, said in her Wilmington address, “Multilateralism is back.

Diplomacy is back.”1 The contemporary multilateral system, with the United Nations as its cornerstone, has turned 75 in a year that has many similarities with the world of 1945, when a new set of global governance mechanisms were forged from the experience of the complex international challenges of World War II and Nazism in Europe. COVID-19, climate change as a vector of conflict, and the borderless nature of WMD proliferation and terrorism, have presented a similar need for strengthened global management of risk.

National security is as much a function of borders as it is of borderless-ness. Modern transnational security risks are emerging from civil wars. Fourth industrial revolution technologies, autonomous weapons delivery systems, conflict triggered by climate change, and global terrorist networks, have created conditions of a cooperation imperative for countries.

Strengthened multilateral institutions and mechanisms, both ad-hoc coalitions and specialized inter-governmental organizations with regular funding pipelines, must be an integral part of national security. For the US, strengthened multilateralism will be an effective instrument in the arsenal of long-term national security. It is not a substitute for bilateral diplomacy but can create efficiencies by enabling systems to process functions of international cooperation. The fact that the 2019-2020 budget for UN Peacekeeping, credited with peacebuilding successes in Namibia, Liberia, Timor-Leste and other regions, is estimated at less than half of one percent of global military expenditures is evidence of these efficiencies.2 These efficiencies are particularly evident in the fundamentally international challenge of terrorism and violent extremism, in providing a broader range of responses, including sanctions and peacekeeping. Both require coalition building, in negotiating new rules for an emerging landscape of new risks (climate change) and technologies (lethal autonomy), in countering global

France 24, “'America is back', says Biden as he introduces new national security team,” November 24, 2020, https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20201124-america-is-back-says-biden-as-he-introduces-new-national-security-team.

2 Elizabeth Cousens and Lise Morjé Howard, “Multilateralism in the National Interest,” Lawfare, October 18, 2020, https://www.lawfareblog.com/multilateralism-national-interest; United Nations Peacekeeping, “How We Are Funded,” https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/how-we-are-funded.

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catastrophic events like COVID-19, and in the cost-effective maintenance of international systems to manage disputes and maintain stability. Some of these are highlighted below: Counterterrorism and non-proliferation: Multilateral counterterrorism mechanisms help build capacities of developing countries in preventing terrorist activity, establish norms of information exchange, and help build common understandings of what constitute terrorism. Platforms like the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact are particularly relevant in building state capacity.3 UN Security Council Resolution 2396has internationalized practices like monitoring biometrics, Passenger Name Record (PNR) data, and watchlists. 4 Coordinated approaches to law enforcement in the EU and intelligence sharing have been effective in helping security agencies prevent future attacks. The prevention of violent extremism (PVE) as an integral part of counterterrorism is undertaken by programmes like the UN Plan of Action on PVE, and the UNESCO initiative on PVE and education. 5 Supporting these multilateral instruments allows the United States to have a more permanent and multipronged global effort in place, striking at the roots of terror at every level.

Sanctions, Peacekeeping, and diversifying security responses: The Responsibility to Protect norm, the UN Security Council, and political committees of treaties like the Chemical Weapons Convention allow states to (a) choose from a broader range of responses, such as multilateral intervention or peacekeeping, and (b) mobilize support for instruments like economic sanctions.

By strengthening mechanisms that can prevent mass atrocities and humanitarian crises, the United States will bolster prevention as a national security strategy, and devolve more responsibility to a greater number of, and better placed, actors.

Cost-effective security strategies: The regular maintenance of peace and reconciliation functions, including community dialogue, disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration, and protection of civilians, is carried out cost-effectively by multilateral mechanisms like peacekeeping missions.

UN led and coordinated security activities have contributed towards a 40 percent decline in conflict in the last 30 years.6 For 2020-21, the total budget for UN Peacekeeping is $6.58 billion across 12 operations, while Brown University estimates that in the 2020 fiscal year, the United States spent/obligated $6.4 trillion on war operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. 7 United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism, “UN Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact,” https://www.un.org/counterterrorism/global-ct-compact.

4 “After the Caliphate: A New Global Approach to Defeating ISIS,” keynote by Nathan Sales, Brookings Institution, April 30, 2019, https://www.brookings.edu/events/after-the-caliphate-a-global-approach-to-defeating-isis/.

5 Eric Rosand, “Counterterrorism and the UN: The rise and hapless fall of American leadership,” Brookings Institution, July 20, 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/07/20/counterterrorism-and-the-un-the-rise-and-hapless-fall-ofamerican-leadership/.

6 María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, “The Importance of Multilateralism and the Role of the UN General Assembly in the Maintenance of International Peace and Security,” (speech, Oman, January 23, 2019), United Nations, https://www.un.org/pga/73/2019/01/23/the-importance-of-multilateralism-and-the-role-of-the-un-general-assembly-in-themaintenance-of-international-peace-and-security/.

7 Including Congressional war appropriations, war-related increases to the Pentagon budget, homeland security; foreign assistance, and veterans’ care.

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Addressing human security as a vector for national security: Armed conflicts and transnational security threats emerging thereof have intersectional causes, with linkages to multidimensional poverty, poor local governance, and resource insecurity. In 2011, the UN Environment Program told us conflicts across the Sahel were linked to changing climatic conditions. Coordinated humanitarian and development responses, through multilateral inter-governmental aid agencies can strike at the complex triggers of conflict and aid delivery and development support by creating cost-effective supply chains, training personnel to deliver development programming, and informing needs mapping through analysis on the ground. Today, the UN successfully provides food and assistance to 100 million people in 88 countries every year, supplies vaccines to 50 percent of the world’s children, and assists 50 countries a year with elections. 8 These are critical security functions that the United States and other countries can carry out regularly and routinely through multilateral processes.Multilateral climate action as a security strategy: Lancet has called climate change a new form of bioterrorism. 9 A 1 percent temperature rise raises the chances of a civil war to 4.5 percent in the same year.10 In Mali, studies showed how flooding in 2019 led to depletion of grazing land, bringing pastoralists in conflict with farmers.11 Global climate change cannot be resolved at the national level and will need shared commitments through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement. The United States can accelerate both the achievement of its own climate commitments, and catalyze security through climate action by building greater multilateral support for the global Sustainable Development Agenda for 2030 and strengthening the processes that can implement this work globally.

The global human rights agenda: Multilateral institutions are custodians of international law on key risk mitigation issues, like human rights, prevention of genocide, as well as the mechanics of what merits international collective military action, peacekeeping, or sanctions. By having a strong voice and seat at these forums, a state is able to shape these rules, thus mitigating risks everywhere.

Rules based technology framework: Multilateral arms control treaty organizations can play an important role in negotiating new rules for future weapons technologies, artificial intelligence, cyber defense, and issues like lethal autonomy. Regimes like the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the Implementation Support Unit of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), do more than just work on disarmament and non-proliferation. These “smart regimes” have evolved dialogue processes and built a wealth of experience on operationalizing the management of destructive technologies “The Nobel Peace Prize for 2020,” October 9, 2020, https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2020/press-release/.

“Climate Change – the New Bioterrorism,” The Lancet 358 issue 9294, November 17, 2001, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(01)06763-0/fulltext.

10 Marshall Burke, Solomon M. Hsiang, and Edward Migues, “Climate and Conflict,” Annual Review of Economics vol. 7 (August 2015): 577-617.

11 International Committee of the Red Cross, “When Rain turns to Dust: Understanding and Responding to the combined impact of armed conflicts and the climate and environment crisis on people’s lives,” International Committee of the Red Cross, 2020.

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and materials. Their existing models have lessons and guardrails to offer for new hybrid technologies, WMD events with fallouts the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the weaponization of artificial intelligence which is as contentious now as the CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear) family of weapons were at their genesis.

Reinvigorating dialogue on intractable and regional conflicts: A Carnegie Endowment model proposes the Middle East version of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe with groupings focused on cooperation in science and humanitarian affairs. 12 Multilateral processes allow for separation of dialogue on economic relations, separate from the challenging issues at the heart of conflict. Regional coordination mechanisms like IGAD have successfully supported peace agreements in Africa, and the African Union’s engagement with peacekeeping has lessons for regional multilateral peacebuilding.

Operationalizing global values like legitimacy: The multilateral order created at the end of World War II was a means of operationalizing values such as the guarantee of fundamental human rights. From the national security standpoint, multilateral engagement helps operationalize values like legitimacy (international support) and democracy (institutionalizing consultation on global issues like terror in an inevitably globalizing world).

The U.S. National Security architecture seeks to defend not only the people and territories of the United States, but the values that underpin the national edifice – freedom, democracy, and preserving human dignity. International consensus building is an effective way to guarantee the perpetuation of these fundamental values.

There is a need for both universal forums like the UN, and the technical specialization of smaller groups like arms treaty bodies, free trade agreements, security coalitions, and regional development banks. COVID-19 showed us the value of global response systems. The next global shock after COVID-19 could be a global security risk – a WMD or cyber-war. National security will need the defenses of international collective security and stable, regularly funded, functioning multilateral organizations to respond.

Daniel C. Kurtzer and Aaron David Miller, “Multilateralism and U.S. Policy in the Middle East,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, December 14, 2020, https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/12/14/multilateralism-and-u.s.-policy-in-middleeast-pub-83437.

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Nabila Jamshed Nabila Jamshed is an international security and global governance professional currently working with the United Nations. She has previously served as a political analyst with multilateral agencies and the UN in The Hague, in India, and with the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in South Sudan. With a Master’s degree in Global Governance and Diplomacy from the University of Oxford, Nabila joined the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague during the organisation’s work on chemical disarmament in Syria, for which it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

She has also worked for the United Nations Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organisation, on peace and sustainability, and with the Asian Development Bank on regional cooperation in South Asia. While with the UN, she co-authored the UN Environment Programme and UNU’s Inclusive Wealth Report for 2014.In her most recent assignment with UN Peacekeeping, Nabila was posted to Juba, South Sudan, where she worked with the Joint Mission Analysis Centre during the conflict of 2016, on security and crisis reporting and analysis. She has delivered multiple TEDx and Hague Talks on the business of war, authored papers and articles on international security issues, and specialises in the UN’s work on preventing conflicts, crisis response, and outlawing weapons of mass destruction.

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On the Need to Reawaken Cultural Diplomacy: A Russianist Perspective B. Amarilis Lugo de Fabritz, Ph.D. As we look at the transition to a new administration, it is vital that our national security policy not disregard the importance of cultural diplomacy in creating a more secure international atmosphere for the United States. A particularly significant example of this is the importance that a robust cultural outreach to Russia has in promoting our national security interests, as well as facilitating our understanding of possible Russian actions in the global sphere.

Vladimir Putin has solidified his power since 2000 by putting cultural diplomacy and the expansion of Russian cultural influence at the forefront of what has constituted a joint domestic and foreign policy. Vladimir Putin took power in 2000 as Russia stood in a seemingly diminished international position following the fall of the Soviet Union. In short order, he developed a set of domestic and foreign policy imperatives that prioritized the growth of Russian culture as an influencer. The easier to understand implications of these priorities developed internally as Putin prioritized improvements to the standards of living for the majority of Russians. Putin’s administration has unquestionably significantly improved the standard of living for everyday Russians, from the expansion of highway systems to facilitating private travel by car – a rarity during the Soviet period, to improving access to a wide selection of consumer goods, to implementing a multi-year plan for the improvement of regional cities to promote demographic growth. All of these have emerged with one ideological goal in mind: increasing Russian’s pride in Russian culture and making it possible for the Russian population to envision their culture as globally influential in the twenty-first century.

This has affected foreign policy in significant ways. Putin has engaged in a foreign policy that leverages the importance of culture and cultural policy. He has expanded the system of communications with the Russian diaspora by investing in a significant network of mass media outlets to keep Russians connected to the Russian motherland. Most visible among these is the Russian television network RT1 – formerly Russia Today – which broadcasts in English, French, German, Arabic, Spanish, and Russian, as well as Sputnik Radio.

Since his assumption to power, Putin has invested significant time and effort in leveraging other forms of cultural power to increase Russian influence at a global scale. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security observed: “…Russian influence actors will continue using overt and covert methods to aggravate social and racial tensions, undermine trust in U.S. authorities, stoke political

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RT, “About Us,” accessed January 2, 2021, https://www.rt.com/about-us/.

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resentment, and criticize politicians who Moscow views as anti-Russia…Russian actors will attempt to undermine national unity and sow seeds of discord that exploit perceived grievances within minority communities, especially among African Americans. Russian influence actors often mimic target audiences and amplify both sides of divisive issues to maximize discord, tailoring messaging to specific communities to “push and pull” them in different ways. The Russian government promulgates misinformation, threats, and narratives intended to incite panic or animosity among social and political groups…” 2 All these threats emerge from the realm of culture. Analysis of Russian involvement in the 2016 elections points to how Russian influence derives from thoughtful leveraging of cultural forms of communication. Russian actors leveraged social media networks among African American and conservative White communities to enhance their sense of alienation and disenfranchisement within the greater political system. 3 Paying renewed attention to cultural diplomacy, as well as providing resources for expanded cultural outreach, represents an undervalued and underutilized means of minimizing the ability of actors such as the Putin regime to leverage cultural fissures within American culture, while also increasing U.S. influence and visibility among populations that would have no other way to learn about the United States. One of the most concerning aspects of the closure of American consulates in Russia4 is the difficulty this now presents for cultural contact and intelligence gathering from areas of Russia outside of the capital city. Russia stretches over ten time zones and having consulates in the further regions provides an invaluable opportunity to interact with populations that would have no other opportunity to learn about American history and culture. This stretches from more traditional forms of outreach, such as providing access to American art and history to the greater Russian population, to facilitating engagement in evolving collaborative disciplines, such as digital humanities. Considering the size of the Russian Federation, as well as the influential geopolitical areas that border it – China and the former Central Asian Republics – it would seem like the increased connections resulting from enhanced activity in the realm of cultural diplomacy, would be seen as beneficial at multiple levels. Instead, on December 18, 2020, the State Department announced the closure of its last two consulates in the Russian Federation, leaving the United States Embassy in Moscow as the only diplomatic outpost in Russia.

Expanding the reach of our cultural diplomacy can also take advantage of cultural processes already happening in countries, such as Russia, as a result of increased global access to travel and information. Kirill Shamaev observed eloquently in the Kennan Institute’s The Russia File blog: “Younger Russians, those raised after the Soviet Union collapsed, readily use the internet, speak foreign languages, and are culturally similar to their Western peers. Nonetheless, their freedoms 2

U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Threat Assessment, October 2020, https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/2020_10_06_homeland-threat-assessment.pdf.

3 New Knowledge, The Tactics & Tropes of the Internet Research Agency, 2018, https://disinformationreport.blob.core.windows.net/disinformation-report/NewKnowledge-Disinformation-ReportWhitepaper.pdf.

4 Vanessa Romo, “U.S. State Department Closing Two Consulates In Russia,” National Public Radio, December 18, 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/12/18/948263408/u-s-state-department-closing-two-consulates-in-russia.

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are curtailed not only by the Kremlin but by policies promulgated by the West as well. The humiliating visa regime does not allow them to travel to the West for tourism, which limits their personal engagement with other cultures. The West has a chance to use the generational change in Russia to advance peaceful relations now and a stronger cooperation with Russia later. Allowing young Russians to freely explore the West before they settle into adulthood will help Russians feel more attached to the Western path of development and can counteract the Kremlin’s destructive framing of its neighbors…”5 Last, and certainly not least, is the fact that cultural diplomacy provides a significant level of foreign contact and influence for what constitutes a significantly minimal economic output. The ability to renew our population of Russia area specialists – specialists in all areas of Russian language, culture, and politics – through cultural outreach already utilized by the Department of State, such as the Fulbright program and the Title VIII program, provides the United States with an opportunity to replenish what has become a significantly shrunk supply of specialists who can help interpret Russian tactics and goals.

B. Amarilis Lugo de Fabritz, Ph.D. B. Amarilis Lugo de Fabritz, Ph.D., is the Master Instructor for Russian at Howard University’s Department of World Languages and Cultures. She was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. She attended high school in Acton, Massachusetts, where she started her studies in Russian language. She received her Bachelor Degree in Russian Language and Literature with Honors from Brown University. She received a Master of Art in International Studies, in Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies from the Jackson School of International Studies at University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. She then completed her doctorate in Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. Dr. Lugo de Fabritz’s research includes work in Russian and East European cinema, Russian literature of the nineteenth and twentieth century, Spanish language, literature and culture, Spanish cinema of the post-Franco era, and Cuban cinema, as well as gender studies. She is currently working on the intersection of propaganda, political rhetoric, and personal expression in Soviet artists’ personal narratives from the Khrushchev era, as well as the representation of Paul Robeson in the Soviet Union. As Master Instructor for Howard University, Dr. Lugo de Fabritz directs the only comprehensive Russian program at a Historically Black University, teaching language, literature and culture courses. She is the main advisor for students interested in Russian studies, and has mentored students in the humanities and social sciences.

Kirill Shamiev, “Bowling Together: Young Russians and a Visa-Free Regime,” The Russia File, December 9, 2020. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/bowling-together-young-russians-and-visa-free-regime.

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