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Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February was a violation of the UN Charter and an act of aggression, a crime under international law. Russian forces conducted indiscriminate attacks resulting in thousands of civilian casualties, amid mounting evidence of other crimes including torture, sexual violence and unlawful killings. Attacks on civilian infrastructure also led to violations of the rights to housing, health and education. A new law on the media granted excessive powers for the Ukrainian state media regulator. Promised new legislation on civil partnerships appeared to include same-sex relationships. The war exacerbated existing inequalities for women, amid a reported increase in gender-based violence. The crackdown on dissent and human rights defenders in Russian-occupied Crimea continued.

Background

On 24 February, Russia launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, including from neighbouring Belarus. Russian forces reached the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv, and made gains in the east and south of the country before being pushed back amidst fierce fighting. By the end of the year, Russian forces had retreated from much of the newly-captured territories but retained control of substantial territory in the east, south-east and south of Ukraine, including Crimea.

The war had an immense impact on Ukraine's civilian population. The UN recorded close to 18,000 civilian casualties in 2022 including at least 6,884 deaths, mostly caused by the use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects. Actual figures were likely to be significantly higher.

Almost 8 million Ukrainians, mostly women, children and older people, left the country, creating the largest refugee population in Europe since the Second World War. Almost 7 million were estimated to be displaced within the country.

In September, Russia announced the illegal annexation of four partially occupied regions of Ukraine.

Ukraine's public, political and civilian life was dominated by the war. Martial law was declared on 24 February and remained in place at the end of the year. The Ukrainian authorities took several steps to reduce Russia's media, cultural and political influence within the country, including blocking various Russian online resources. At least 11 political parties were banned for their alleged seditious activities and ties to the Russian authorities.

One of the two principal Orthodox churches, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which, unlike the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, had retained formal subordination to the Moscow Patriarchy, amended its statutory documents in May to remove all respective subordination clauses, although its relationship with Moscow remained ambiguous. Nonetheless, in December, the authorities committed to banning its activities in Ukraine, and opened an investigation into its allegedly subversive activities, carrying out raids on churches and monasteries across the country.

The World Bank predicted that the Ukrainian economy would contract by around 45% and reported a tenfold rise in the country's poverty rate, as nearly half a million children were pushed into poverty. In December, a World Bank official cited latest estimates of the cost of reconstruction as EUR 500 - 600 billion. The unemployment rate exceeded 30% at the end of the year.

Violations of international humanitarian law

Russia's invasion of Ukraine triggered an extensive human rights, humanitarian and displacement crisis. Russian forces conducted indiscriminate attacks, using weapons with wide-area effects which resulted in thousands of civilian casualties. On 30 September, a Russian missile strike on a humanitarian convoy in Zaporizhzhia killed at least 25 civilians. Russian forces also occupied large swathes of territory, and denied civilians access to humanitarian aid. As Ukraine retook control of some territories, mounting evidence emerged of unlawful deprivation of liberty, torture, sexual violence, unlawful killings and other crimes by Russian forces.

In Russian-occupied territories, Russian authorities disabled or disrupted Ukrainian communication channels, including by replacing mobile networks with their own, and persecuted local residents who reported on attacks in the occupied territories, including through abduction, unlawful imprisonment and torture. There were reports of extrajudicial executions of civilians. In Bucha, for example, Amnesty International investigated five apparent extrajudicial executions carried out during the Russian occupation in March.

Due to the restrictions on communication, and lack of access for independent media and monitors into Russian-occupied territories, reports of military strikes attributed to Ukrainian forces, including those resulting in casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, were difficult to verify. Russian officials and state-controlled media made regular allegations about unlawful Ukrainian strikes, some of which were shown to be false. The Russian authorities blamed Ukrainian forces for the destruction of the theatre in Mariupol on 16 March, despite compelling evidence that this building, which was sheltering hundreds of civilians, was deliberately targeted by the Russian air force.

Prisoners of war

Prisoners of war were subjected to ill-treatment and possible extrajudicial execution. Russian forces and their proxies mostly denied humanitarian access to prisoners they held. In August, the UN announced a fact-finding mission into the July attack in Olenivka that killed dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war held by Russian proxy forces, but the mission was unable to deploy to the site. Ukraine denied carrying out the attack, and claimed it was a deliberate killing of prisoners by their captors.

Photos and videos circulating on social media depicted torture and other ill-treatment of prisoners, and possible extrajudicial executions, which would constitute a war crime. Videos emerged in July showing a Russian soldier castrating a Ukrainian captive before killing him. Reportedly, Russian security services questioned the suspected perpetrator and dismissed the video as fake, although it was independently verified by open-source investigators.

Ukraine faced calls to investigate the abuse and killing of prisoners. In November, videos and photos were published on social media of a possible extrajudicial execution, in which at least 10 surrendered Russian soldiers appeared in one video to be alive and being held face down on the ground, while a later aerial video showed them dead. Ukraine opened an investigation but did not report its findings before the year's end.

Unfair trials

In violation of international humanitarian law, in June, a separatist "court" in Russian-occupied Donetsk "convicted" three members of the Ukrainian regular forces (one Moroccan and two British) of being foreign mercenaries and taking part in hostilities and "sentenced" them to death. In July, Russian authorities claimed they had already charged 92 Ukrainian prisoners of war with "crimes against peace and humanity", and planned to try them at an "international tribunal" in occupied Mariupol, thereby depriving prisoners of war of their fair trial rights.

Forced displacement

In Mariupol and elsewhere, Russian authorities forcibly transferred and deported civilians from occupied areas of Ukraine in what amounted to war crimes and likely crimes against humanity. This was accompanied by a screening process, known as "filtration", during which some civilians were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, including being beaten, electroshocked and threatened with execution. Others were denied food and water, and held in dangerous and overcrowded conditions. In some cases, children were separated from their parents. After being forcibly transferred or deported, older people, people with disabilities, and unaccompanied, separated or orphaned children often lacked the financial means, necessary support or the legal right to leave Russia or Russian-occupied areas.

Right to truth, justice and reparation

On 2 March, the ICC Prosecutor announced an investigation into the situation in Ukraine, which still had not ratified the Rome Statute, after receiving referrals from 39 ICC states parties. The investigation was ongoing at the year's end. On 4 March, the UN Human Rights Council voted to establish an independent international commission of inquiry.

On 17 November, a Dutch court convicted in their absence two Russian and one Ukrainian nationals affiliated with so-called "Donetsk People's Republic" of murdering all 298 passengers and crew of the Malaysian Airlines MH17 flight that was shot down over eastern Ukraine in July 2014.

Economic, social and cultural rights

Russia's war of aggression imposed immense, deliberate hardship on the Ukrainian people, resulting in a dramatic deterioration in their standards of living, housing, health and education.

In the second half of the year, Russia increased its attacks on essential civilian infrastructure, including power and water installations, adding significantly and intentionally to the economic hardship. As colder months approached, missile and drone strikes seriously damaged at least 40% of Ukraine's energy infrastructure, regularly causing massive blackouts. These regularly and simultaneously deprived several million Ukrainians of electricity, disrupted critical services, including healthcare as well as education, and impacted the heating and water supply in freezing temperatures. At times, 80% of the residents of Kyiv were deprived of running water.

According to the Kyiv School of Economics, over 126,700 houses and 16,800 apartment buildings around the country had been destroyed or severely damaged by the end of October. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Health in December, 1,100 healthcare facilities had been damaged and 144 destroyed.

Workers' rights

In July, two laws were adopted that undermined labour rights and were estimated to affect around 70% of the Ukrainian work force. They were presented by the Ukrainian authorities as necessary war-time measures. Various similar provisions had been proposed in 2020-21 but withdrawn in the face of trade union opposition and criticism from the ILO. The first law legalized zero-hours contracts for up to 10% of a company's employees, subject to a minimum guaranteed 32 paid hours a month. The second exempted companies with no more than 250 workers from various protections set out in the Labour Code, including collective agreements previously negotiated by unions. Many provisions were to remain in force for as long as the country was under martial law.

Older people's rights

Older people were disproportionately impacted by war-related death and injury, with people over 60 accounting for 34% of deaths among civilians whose age was known. Older people, particularly those with disabilities or health conditions, were often unable to access private or communal shelter facilities or evacuate from conflict-affected areas. In occupied areas, where Russian forces prevented the transport of humanitarian aid, older people did not have access to medications or other health services. Older people also struggled to access accommodation in displacement, where temporary shelters were largely physically inaccessible, and poverty-level pensions locked them out of the private housing market. After February, at least 4,000 older people were placed in overstretched state institutions such as care homes, in inferior conditions, while others continued living in damaged homes without electricity, heating or water.

Freedom of expression

National TV channels with substantive news and analytical content were merged in March by presidential decree into a United News platform broadcasting pooled round-the-clock news content. Compulsory at first, this arrangement was relaxed later in the year.

On 13 December, a law on the media was adopted which extended excessive powers for the official media regulator, the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting, to warn, fine, delicense and suspend any media outlet, and temporarily extrajudicially block access to non-media online resources.

LGBTI people's rights

The pressures of war prompted greater solidarity with some previously marginalized groups. In stark contrast to 2014, when the fighting in eastern Ukraine began and the presence of LGBTI people in the Ukrainian forces was discouraged, openly gay, lesbian and transgender volunteers and conscripts reported being welcomed and respected within the ranks.

In July, a petition calling for the legalization of same-sex marriage received over 25,000 signatures, obliging a presidential response. In August, President Zelensky indicated that he supported the move but noted it required constitutional change, which was not possible during martial law. Instead, he promised new legislation on registration of civil partnerships, implying it would extend to same-sex couples.

Transgender people with identity documents bearing incorrect gender markers reported being stopped, and sometimes harassed, as they sought to leave the country, on account of the martial law prohibition on the departure of men between the ages of 18 and 60.

Women's rights

While women increasingly took on roles previously dominated by men, particularly within the armed forces, they remained under-represented in political and decision-making structures.

Some existing inequalities were exacerbated. According to UN Women, more than a third of female-headed households in conflict affected areas struggled to secure sufficient food.

The conflict also had a significant impact on maternal health. Russian strikes on healthcare facilities and power networks and the shortage of trained staff greatly reduced the services available, and the incidence of babies born pre-term increased markedly.

Many of those working with victims of domestic violence reported an increase in gender-based violence and a reduction in the services available.

War crimes of rape and sexual assault in Russian-occupied areas were reported. However, their documentation presented a challenge for the authorities and NGOs, for multiple reasons including mistrust by survivors and the associated social stigma.

In July, Ukraine ratified the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention) and became a full member on 1 November.

Environmental degradation

The war had a devastating impact on the environment, using huge quantities of fossil fuels, destroying habitats and causing forest fires, and polluting Ukraine's air, water and soil with toxic substances.

Russia's conduct of hostilities raised the risk of a nuclear incident. After seizing control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on 4 March, Russian troops and military hardware were stationed within the site. Mortar or other explosions were repeatedly reported in its immediate vicinity, for which both sides blamed each other, and some infrastructure was damaged. By September, all six reactors were shut down. Negotiations on the establishment of a demilitarized zone around the plant led by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were ongoing at the end of the year.

In November, Russian strikes on Ukraine's wider power network prompted the emergency shutdown of all of Ukraine's nuclear reactors. The dangers inherent in repeatedly shutting down and restarting nuclear reactors prompted the IAEA to describe the situation as "precarious, challenging and potentially dangerous."

Unlike other Russian-occupied territories, Crimea, which had been illegally annexed in 2014, was less immediately affected by the war, although it suffered occasional Ukrainian strikes against targets ranging from sea vessels to airports, and an explosion that partly damaged the bridge connecting the peninsula with Russia.

Freedom of expression, association and assembly

The crackdown by the de facto authorities on the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association continued, with prominent members and activists of the Crimean Tatar community, individuals with pro-Ukrainian views, and members of minority faith-based groups, facing ongoing reprisals. Displays of Ukrainian culture and music were effectively criminalized, and several people were given administrative detention or heavy fines for playing Ukrainian songs during private functions.

Local lawyers who represented victims of politically motivated prosecutions were targeted with unlawful searches, arbitrary arrests, hefty fines and administrative detention. On 15 July, lawyers Lilya Gemedzhi, Rustem Kyamilev and Nazim Sheikhmambetov were disbarred in apparent retaliation for defending Crimean Tatar activists.

Prisoner of conscience Nariman Dzhelyal, the most prominent remaining former member of the arbitrarily banned Mejlis (representative body) of the Crimean Tatar People, was convicted under false charges of sabotage in September and sentenced to 17 years' imprisonment. His co-defendants also received long prison sentences.

1. "Ukraine: Missile attack on humanitarian convoy in Zaporizhzhia further proof of Russia's 'utter disregard for civilian lives'", 30 September

2. Ukraine: "He's not coming back". War Crimes in Northwest Areas of Kyiv Oblast, 6 May

3. "Ukraine: Russia's military activities at nuclear plant risk safety in region", 6 September

4. Ukraine: "Children": The Attack on the Donetsk Regional Academic Drama Theatre in Mariupol, 30 June

5. "Ukraine/Russia: 'Death sentences' against three foreign members of Ukrainian forces by separatists' 'courts' a blatant violation of international law", 9 June

6. "Russia: Charging 92 members of Ukraine's military with 'crimes against humanity' brazenly undermines fair trial rights", 25 July

7. Ukraine: "Like a Prison Convoy": Russia's Unlawful Transfer of Civilians in Ukraine and Abuses During 'Filtration', 10 November

8. Ukraine: "I used to have a home": Older People's Experience of War, Displacement, and Access to Housing in Ukraine, 6 December

9. "Russia: Crimean human rights lawyers disbarred: Lilya Gemedzhi, Rustem Kyamilev and Nazim Sheikhmambetov", 22 August

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Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February was a violation of the UN Charter and an act of aggression, a crime under international law. Russian forces conducted indiscriminate attacks resulting in thousands of civilian casualties, amid mounting evidence of other crimes including torture, sexual violence and unlawful killings.

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Focuses on continuing global development in a way that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs(Brundtland Commission 1987)

2000 - Adoption of the UN Millennium Declaration

Millennium Development goals - targets to be achieved by 2015

Adapted in 2015 to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - targets to be achieved by 2030

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Idea that development is about expanding the richness of lives, not just the economy

Includes expanding one's freedoms, opportunities, choices and capabilities to lead the life one chooses

Believed that we needed to look at development more holistically

Views income growth and economic growth as a means to an end, but not the end in itself

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Have a specific agenda, usually geared toward human emancipation, freedom, and equality

Focused on deconstructing implicit power dynamics in development theory and development discourse

# data[].attributes.body
Invisible hand, trickle-down economics, privatization, free trade, deregulation, comparative advantage

Austerity Measures: government cuts spending in order to balance budget and debts

# data[].attributes.body
Marxist influences - does not look at individual countries, but instead at the entire capitalist world system as a whole

Argues that the underdevelopment of the Global South (GS) is a result of structural dependence on the Global North (GN)

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1. Traditional - Traditional societies are characterized by rudimentary technology, pre-scientific values and norms, and a subsistence economy

2. Pre conditions for Take-Off - At this stage societies exhibit a degree of capital mobilization (banks and currency) and start to develop an entrepreneurial class

3.  Take-Off - This happens when the norms of economic growth are well established and sector-led growth becomes common

4. Drive to Maturity - This is characterized by growing economic diversification, greatly reduced poverty, and rising living standards

5. Modernity - This final stage is characterized by high mass consumption. At this stage the economy is increasingly orientated around the production of modern consumer goods, with “affluence becoming widespread”

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Supportive of state involvement to smooth out the highs and lows of cyclical economic recessions

Argued that the Global South would develop through capital injections and changes to macro-economic policies

# data[].attributes.body
History and persistence of conflict
Stability
Accountability, transparency and corruption
Vested Interests
Poor Management

# data[].attributes.body
Access to Resources->Resource Constraints
Infrastructure
Odious Debt
International Aid(SAP's, IDA)
Trade

# data[].attributes.body
Culture + Traditions
Gender Relations
Migration

# data[].attributes.body
The UN
The IMF
World Bank
WTO

# data[].attributes.body
Geography
Resource Endowment
Consequences of climate change on people and communities’ lives

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1990 CAIRO DECLARATION ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN ISLAM

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1990 CAIRO DECLARATION ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN ISLAM

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CULTURALLY RELATIVE DOCUMENT THAT REFUTES MANY OF THE UDHR'S CORE PRINCIPLES AND SOLIDIFIES THE IDEA THAT HUMAN RIGHTS IN ITS CURRENT FORM WERE CREATED IN A CULTURALLY RELATIVE SENSE AND SUBSCIRBE TO POWER POLITICS AND STRUCTURE IN IGO'S

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HR framework prioritizes individual over collective-> westernized, HR flow from human to group
universalism: ethical theory that claims universal human nature, which transcends bounds of identity, and thus an existence of universal values is possible
relativism: ethical theory that claims values are culturally and individually determined
-global agreements on most fundamental aspects of human life are difficult to achieve

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realism: states engage in voluntary participation and self-regulation based on their interpretation of international law->ANARCHY
UNSC: intended to legitimize action in the international system and uphold international peace and justice
international Law: agreements and treaties signed by state to regulate their behavior.
Customary International Law: law accepted through general practise
Uphold HR: UN commission on HR allowed discourse forums yet was ineffective
UNHRC: 2006, 47 states, lead investigations, take complaints against states, make recommendations to solve HR violations.
ICC: independent court to bring justice to individuals when state system fails, enforced by Rome Statute.
-ICC investigates and tries: genocide, war crimes, crimes against Humanity, Crime of Aggression.

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3rd Gen: shaped by fraternity
-group and collective rights
social groups and societies as opposed to individuals
-not listed in UDHR: UNDRIP, right to harmony with nature, sustainable development, and self-determination

# data[].attributes.body
Equality: idea that all people are treated the same and inherently have the same value
2nd Gen Rights: shaped by equality; socialist response post-WW2 to injustice and inequality
-Economic, Social, Cultural rights
positive rights: imply level of state intervention in order to be upheld
socio-economic rights: social security, work, paid holiday, education, healthcare

# data[].attributes.body
1st Gen: shaped by liberty; civil/political rights which are acknowledged as the oldest HR's
-American and French REvilution
-Life, Liberty, and property: constraints on government and freedom from interference
Civil liberties: speech, press, religion, movement, association

# data[].attributes.body
Liberty: freedom to live life without interference from those in power
John Stuart Mill: Harm Principle: "individual is free to do whatever it wants unless or until it harms others

# data[].attributes.body
UDHR(1948): try to prevent another WW2, "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights"
split individual rights into six categories
1. political
2. civil
3. Equality
4. Economic
5. Social
6. Cultural

# data[].attributes.body
US Declaration of Independence(1776): "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"
French Declaration on the Rights of Man And Citizen(1789)
Congress of Vienna(1815): attempt to abolish slave trade
Brussel Convention(1890): codify anti-slavery measures
Slavery Convention(1926): formally outlaw slavery
Hague Conventions(1907), Geneva Conventions(1926): regulate conduct of war

# data[].attributes.body
Developed in Early Modern Europe by Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke
Natural rights: provided by a divine authority and the belief that humans are creatures of god, where "natural" means God-given and a part of human nature
-these ideas became declarations to separate government and civilian autonomy

# data[].attributes.body
UIII: Universal, Indivisible, Inalienable, Interdependent
Universal: equally applied to all people in all parts of globe
Inalienable: Humans are born with rights that cannot be taken away
Indivisible: different elements of human rights cannot be separateed
Interdependent: Realization of one human right requires realization of others
Positive HR: require action from those in power; ability to do something-"freedom of..."
Negative HR: require protection against a power; less interference

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"Eventually humanitarian assistance is just a Band-Aid. It's not really a sustainable equilibrium that we're in right now. . .There really needs to be a very clear conversation, a very difficult conversation of whether our policies are, in fact, hurting the Taliban or the Afghan people."

One year after the U.S. troop withdrawal, Afghanistan faces a collapsed economy, humanitarian crisis, and a Taliban regime essentially unchanged from that of 1996-2001. Madiha Afzal discusses the Taliban's restrictions on civil society, the segregation of women and girls from public life, and the need for more creative policies to alleviate Afghan people's suffering without helping the Taliban.
Related material:
Listen to Brookings podcasts here, on Apple or Google podcasts or on Spotify, send email feedback to podcasts@brookings.edu.

Thanks to audio engineer Gaston Reboredo.

TRANSCRIPT

PITA: August 30 marks one year since U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan, followed shortly by the collapse of the Afghan government, and the return of Taliban control over the country. Here with us to talk about what life in Afghanistan looks like after one year under the Taliban is Madiha Afzal, a fellow with the Center for Middle East Policy here at Brookings. Madiha, thanks for much for talking to us today.

AFZAL: Thanks for having me.

PITA: Part of the story of the last 20 years has been of both Afghans and the U.S. and international development agencies working to build and strengthen the structures of life in Afghanistan, the civil society, the systems of governance. When we say that the Taliban is now ruling in Afghanistan, what does that look like? One year in, what's the state of Afghan civil society, of journalism, and of governance there?

AFZAL: Well, one year in, the Taliban have really struggled to transition from a fighting force and insurgency to now being in charge of Afghanistan, to governing. And part of that is because that was what the foot soldiers were used to for twenty years, was fighting, and now they're in office in many places in the country. And part of it is because there isn't really an economy to govern because of sanctions, because of the cutting off of aid that Afghanistan was so dependent on. The country doesn't really have a functional economy, so that has also stymied the Taliban.

The way the structure of government works is that it is fractured, and essentially what we've seen over the last year are divisions within the Taliban. We've seen the more hardline factions of the Taliban essentially win out, such as on the decision not to allow girls to attend a secondary school. That was a decision that came from the ruler, the emir in Kandahar. And so on many, many decisions, we've basically seen a Taliban which, at least some factions of Taliban had promised they would become a more moderate entity, they've really reverted to the Taliban 1.0, the Taliban of twenty-six years ago, twenty-seven years ago, when they were first in power.

So that's the first thing I'll mention. On journalists, civil society, et cetera. Well, I would say, reporting is much harder. It's still happening. There are news channels like TOLOnews still running. They still have women reporters as well, but things are much harder now. We've seen journalists face restrictions, they've been beaten up. Women and journalists have to cover themselves because of the restrictions that the Taliban have put in place. In the workplace - and I'm sure we'll talk more about women and girls - in the workplace, you've seen women essentially recede from government offices, but otherwise these offices work largely the way they used to. They've just been replaced by more Taliban officials. There are restrictions on civil society in terms of protests, yet there are still really brave Afghan women and girls who come out to protest despite the risks they face. So while everything is very, very different, and has regressed, especially in the urban areas, there are still factions of society that we see are displaying resilience and trying to push back on the hardline nature of Taliban rule.

PITA: Yes, we saw some of those protests just a few weeks ago, mid-August that the women were marching in protest in Kabul. They were calling for "bread, work, and freedom." As you mentioned, when the Taliban was first coming back into power last year, there were some of these promises not to restrict schooling for girls, but of course we've seen that change, that education has been shut down, everything above sixth grade. Talk with us some more about what life is like now for girls and women in Afghanistan.

AFZAL: Well, there's been an undeniable kind of regression in women's and girls' rights, especially in the urban areas. In rural areas, things have not really changed quite as much as they have changed in the urban areas. And girls' education and women's movement in public spaces was largely restricted even over the last twenty years, and so there's been less of a difference. But in urban areas like Kabul, the women and girls are largely cut off from public life.

So what we've seen is that girls are not allowed to go to secondary school. The Taliban had made a promise that on March 24 of this year, they would send girls to secondary school, and at the last minute, there was sort of an edict essentially sent from Kandahar, basically, which said that girls were not allowed to attend secondary school. So if they were in their backpacks, they were ready to go to school, and you know essentially their dreams were crushed. Girls are still allowed to attend university, though, so this is just a specific portion of girls that aren't allowed to go to school, but eventually, if this lasts for a few years, you're not going to have any girls attending anything beyond elementary school once the girls who are in university graduate out, because you're not going to have a pipeline of girls to go to university.

So, I would say women can still work in some offices, et cetera, but they're largely segregated, very different from the way they used to be. They have to cover themselves. And so they really have seen major restrictions in urban areas to the way things were just a little over a year ago. Life for them has changed dramatically. That being said, there are still some informal mechanisms for girls to go to a secondary school. There are these underground schools. Those came up when the Taliban ruled the first time around. Those have come up again. And then the second, and really heartbreaking story, is that there are some girls who are repeating 6th grade over and over again just to keep their minds active, just so that they can attend school.

Conferences are segregated, women can only teach women, and women doctors attend to women and girls. So this largely segregating women from public spaces has a real impact on how much they can contribute to society. And so slowly we're seeing that completely wash away.

PITA: Sure. Another of the significant areas of concern as the U.S. was withdrawing last year was about what would happen to the many, many Afghans who had worked closely with the U.S. military, with international agencies, with the Afghan government. So, the U.S. had their Special Immigrant Visas - and I'm sure other countries also had some of their own similar programs. What's the status of some of these efforts to get those Afghans out, the people who may be particularly targeted by the Taliban for retribution for their work with the U.S. and other Western forces?

AFZAL: There are still upwards of seventy thousand special people who were in line for Special Immigrant Visas waiting, and about ten thousand of them have a pretty high level of approval. They're still waiting to be evacuated. But even for those who have been evacuated through this program, first we saw withdrawal was chaotic, we saw the scenes at the airport last year. Some of them were separated from their families in the effort to evacuate, and so some of them have families still in Afghanistan, and are separated, members of their immediate family live separated from them. And then there are also these stories of those who have settled in the West struggling because essentially, you know, the life they knew is over. So even for those who have been evacuated, who have managed to make it out, life is quite tough, and they have to find a way to work. They have to find a way to make ends meet, they have to find a way to have a productive life. So even for them the story is not simple, and there are concerns.

But, as you said, there are upwards of seventy thousand still waiting, and they of course face a very real threat of retribution from the Taliban. What has happened recently is that DHS, State to try to simplify the process, to make it one form, and so we'll see how that bears out.

But I think, as with many of the concerns about Afghanistan over the last year, whether it's about the humanitarian crisis, whether it was about Special Immigrant Visas, a lot of it fell away from the headlines pretty soon after the last troops withdrew exactly a year ago. So we didn't see as much attention being paid to the issue, especially with the Russian war in Ukraine, and the crises that followed it, I think the world's attention sort of drifted away from Afghanistan. And we've seen the impact that on various levels in Afghanistan, and that includes the fact that perhaps not as many Special Immigrant Visas were issued, and perhaps more Afghans suffered in the humanitarian crisis than should have.

PITA: Yeah, I want to end on the note the humanitarian crisis that's going on there. The U.S. had frozen approximately nine and a half billion dollars of Afghan central bank assets, and, as you mentioned at the top, there's all sorts of international financial restrictions, due to counterterrorism sanctions and that sort of thing. And the Afghan economy has essentially collapsed. The UN reports that the country is headed for "universal poverty." There is nearly ten million children going hungry every day. How is the international community grappling with this? And are they reconsidering at all how to balance the condemnation for the Taliban, for their support of terrorism and their human rights abuses with the need to avoid mass starvation of Afghan civilians?

AFZAL: This is such a this is such a difficult issue. And essentially the promise of the Doha deal that was signed with the Taliban, and that of the withdrawal, was that the West had the tools that it needed in order to constrain the Taliban, in order to moderate the Taliban. And those tools, we said, were economic leverage. We could use the tools of sanctions and cutting off of aid to try to get the Taliban to moderate, and that was the strategy. Well, a year in, we can sort of safely say that that strategy has not worked. It has not worked in terms of moderating the Taliban and we're seeing that right now most greatly, of course, with the decision not to send girls to secondary school, but we also saw that with the fact that Ayman al-Zawahiri was found in Kabul just at the start of this this month. And so there's the worry of the Taliban-run Afghanistan being a safe haven for terrorist groups such as al-Qaida.

So, the issue I think here is that the U.S. and the West is sticking with its policy, which was that these are the tools that we are going to use, sanctions, cutting off of aid to try to get the Taliban to moderate. The Taliban is sticking to its ideology, and what we have seen over the last year is that it has not changed. It is essentially the same Taliban that ruled from 1996 to 2001. It is essentially still the Taliban 1.0 There may be more moderate factions in the Taliban, but eventually, if the hardline factions are the ones that are prevailing, the ones that are running things, then that is what we're seeing. And in between the West sticking to its side of things and the Taliban to their side of things, essentially with sanctions, with the freezing of seven billion in reserves, which essentially, basically collapsed the Afghan economy, what we really have seen are that the Afghan people have suffered, in the middle, right? The common man has suffered.

And of course you've listed out some of what has happened. 19 million Afghans are facing food insecurity. That's half of the population. They're lining up at bakeries. Some of them have had to sell - something that's unthinkable - their children to feed their families. We're seeing millions of malnourished children, hunger all around.

And essentially, one thing that has happened is that the West has given humanitarian aid. Perhaps not the amount that the UN has called for, only about half of that amount. The UN launched its largest-ever humanitarian appeal, and that was for Afghanistan. And of course the decision not to send girls who came out as the UN had launched its appeal, and that no doubt curtailed the giving of nations for that appeal. But we still saw that the worst of the humanitarian crisis was largely staved off through humanitarian assistance, but eventually humanitarian assistance is just a Band-Aid. It's not really a sustainable equilibrium that we're in right now. And I think one struggle that we've seen is that, especially over the fall, we were slow in the easing of rules to get around sanctions so that aid could get to Afghans. So there might need to be a more proactive approach that the West could take in order to better the lives of Afghans. And I think there really needs to be a very clear conversation, a very difficult conversation of whether our policies are, in fact, hurting the Taliban or the Afghan people.

And so we really need to be looking at how we can, without helping the Taliban, deal with the economic tools that we have, so that Afghan people do not suffer needlessly. And so in that, I think, instead of a policy that's reactive, that's giving humanitarian aid after the fact, we need to shift to a more proactive policy and devise creative solutions that essentially lend liquidity to the Afghan economy, and allow people to work and get money for the jobs that they're doing rather than essentially starving just because the liquidity in their economy is so limited.

So I think there needs to be some creativity here, and some more concerted focus on making sure that our policies are not hurting the Afghan people. At this point, our approach has largely been reactive, and it's largely focused on humanitarian assistance, but not really thought of kind of a long-term solution, given the realities that the Taliban are a regime, they are an organization that has not changed ideologically.

PITA: All right, Madiha, it's a thorny problem, as you explained. We'll stay tuned. I want to thank you for talking to us today, and hopefully they'll come up with some more creative solutions to this, as you described.

AFZAL: Thanks, Adrianna.

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What's happening in Afghanistan one year after the U.S. withdrawal?

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One year after U.S. troops withdrew, Afghanistan faces a humanitarian crisis and Taliban rule essentially unchanged from 1996-2001. Madiha Afzal discusses restrictions on civil society, the segregation of women and girls, and the need for more creative policies to alleviate Afghan people's sufferi

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Earlier this month, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin for allegedly committing war crimes in Ukraine. [Aris Messinis / AFP]

The invasion of Ukraine has exposed the "double standards" of human rights internationally, a new Amnesty International report has said, with the West adopting a tough response to Russia's war of aggression while also maintaining a "deafening silence" on rights abuses around the world.

The UK-based rights organisation published its annual 2022 report on Tuesday, highlighting the state of human rights in 156 countries.

"In 2022, we had the fantastic example of how the world came to support and show solidarity with the Ukrainian people. But we did not have a similar kind of support and solidarity for the Palestinian people, the people of Ethiopia, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo," Agnes Callamard, Amnesty's secretary-general, told Al Jazeera from Paris on Monday.

The international response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine was "robust and welcomed", characterised by public denunciations and marked by "strong calls against the many war crimes being committed", Callamard said.

"It was also marked by commitment and actual actions to support international investigation into those war crimes. The International Criminal Court did intervene very quickly and frankly, very unusually," she added.

In March 2022, International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan said he was opening an investigation into alleged war crimes in Ukraine, dating as far back as the 2013 Maidan protests. At that time, demonstrations erupted in central Kyiv against the country's then-Russia-friendly government and persisted until the fall of then-President Viktor Yanukovych's administration in early 2014.

Earlier this month, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin for allegedly committing war crimes in Ukraine.

Callamard said because the reaction to Ukraine had been so "multifaceted", covering many dimensions including the issue of Ukrainian refugees, it made the "silence, the indifference and the neglect very glaring" when compared with other instances of human rights violations.

Israeli occupation, refugees

The Amnesty secretary-general said that while the report had many examples of double standards regarding human rights, the occupation of the Palestinians was a "particularly important one".

"Without making any comparison between Russia's aggression and Israel ... it is clear the Palestinian people are under a regime of oppression. A regime of occupation and a regime of apartheid," Callamard told Al Jazeera.

All Palestinians, wherever Israel controls their rights, are subjected to its systematic oppression and domination. But, for all its condemnation of some of the tools of apartheid, the EU still declines to acknowledge this system. pic.twitter.com/fpMAID4Ip1

- Amnesty International (@amnesty) March 26, 2023

"At a time when the international community did so much ... for the people of Ukraine, the people of Palestine lived through the most deadly year in decades," Callamard noted.

More than 150 Palestinians were killed in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem last year, including 36 children. In May, Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by an Israeli soldier while covering a raid in Jenin, leading to worldwide condemnation.

The Amnesty report also condemned Europe's approach and attitude to Ukrainian refugees compared with refugees from other nations.

"Generous reception of most people from Ukraine stood in sharp contrast to the often violent rejection and abuse of refugees and migrants at Europe's external borders," Amnesty said in the report.

"This double standard revealed the racism inherent in EU external border policy and practice," it said.

In the United States, the report notes that 25,000 Haitians were expelled between September 2021 and May 2022 without due process, a move that runs counter to international law.

Among other crises highlighted in the report, Amnesty said the more than two-year-long civil war in Tigray, Ethiopia, was one of the "deadliest in recent memory". According to some estimates, hundreds of thousands of people involved in the conflict were killed last year alone. Separately, countries such as Mali, Venezuela and Yemen were also plagued by armed fighting or systemic violence "associated with human rights violations".

Ukraine a 'blueprint' for human rights

Ukraine should provide a "blueprint" internationally for what needs to be done to protect a population from serious rights abuses, Callamard told Al Jazeera.

"What can be done for Ukrainian refugees, surely can be done for Syrian refugees," she said.

"What are the reasons for the international community not to multiply what they have done for the Ukrainian people and do that for other people? The only response to that question will be self-interest," she added.

Asked if she was optimistic about the state of human rights in 2023, Callamard said: "Sadly, while we do have a good model with Ukraine ... we don't have a great deal of trust that countries can act in ways that focus on the global and universal good and ... rules that apply for everybody everywhere."

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Russia-Ukraine war exposed human rights 'double standards'

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The invasion of Ukraine has exposed the "double standards" of human rights internationally, a new Amnesty International report has said, with the West adopting a tough response to Russia's war of aggression while also maintaining a "deafening silence" on rights abuses around the world.

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Hapless Libyans who hoped and dreamt for a 'New Libya' became the victims of the militia-backed power seekers in the East and the West and not much talked about the Southern part of Libya.

Over a dozen long years of continued suffering have passed since the Arab Spring struck Libya. A North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervention eliminated an autocratic ruler of over 42 years, leading to death and destruction in the trail, and germs of militia groupings, supported by rival groups and powers from the region and beyond, continue to infest the war-ravaged country till date. Interventionist powers had plans for the day after.

Hapless Libyans who hoped and dreamt for a 'New Libya' became the victims of the militia-backed power seekers in the East and the West and not much talked about the Southern part of Libya. Instability and power grab by force remain the underlying theme. For years the country has had an ominous distinction of having at least two Prime Ministers and two so-called Parliaments who have undermined any possibility of resolution of the underlying trust deficit, opportunism, instability, disarming of the militia groups and return to normalcy via elections.

Any Libyan watcher and I have served there and witnessed the Libyan desire for normalcy through elections (2012 the best one could ever have), peace, progress, modernity and development, would attest to the failing of Libya mainly by the so-called partisan external stakeholders who exploited the powerful rival militia groups to exercise their own power and interests in the oil-rich country. Oil supplies they did try to manage and so was their effort to contain illegal migration into Europe. But none of these was for the benefit of the common Libyan who continued to hanker for calm.

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View: The great power politics and the shattered Libyan dream

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Hapless Libyans who hoped and dreamt for a 'New Libya' became the victims of the militia-backed power seekers in the East and the West and not much talked about the Southern part of Libya. Over a dozen long years of continued suffering have passed since the Arab Spring struck Libya.

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Federal State: government has it's central control limited by subnational governments, e.g. states or provinces
Unitary state: a national government that wields control in all it's territory with decisions made by the central government
Fragile state: democratic or undemocratic state with it's internal sovereignty weakened
Failed state: collapsed state, government lost complete control

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interdependence: when global political actors rely on each other, share interests, or impact each other
this is done through globalization
global governance: the way states organize themselves, make agreements, and tackle shared challenges, usually organized through IGO's such as the U.N, international law, customary international law, and bilateral and multilateral treaties
economic interdependence: when states are economically linked, and success or fail together, usually this reliance is done through trade
Political interdependence: when states political decisions impact others, usually through elections or a change in
government, or crises
IGO's: powerful states can expand their influence in these orgos, or less powerful states can increase their power by allying with similar states and increasing power in numbers

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Internal Legitimacy: consent of the governed, shown through free and fair elections, electoral choice, and checks and balances of a governmental system
External Legitimacy:  international law and legitimacy from other nations, related to constitutive theory of statehood
Customary international law: acceptance of laws and norms through it's general usage and practice
Jus Cogens: Norms of the international community

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Thomas Hobbes: human nature was bad and violent, and thus one must give their freedom to a leviathan(soveriegn). Claimed that when humans return to the State Of Nature(SON), life was "nasty, brutish, and short"
John Locke: tabula rosa- individuals can make rational decisions that benefit both themselves and society. Power should be with the governed, and to overthrow the government if there is a lack of representation
J.J Rousseau: social contract, meaning that individuals give up some of their liberty to be a part of society in exchange for protection and order
JSM: Harm Principle, reaffirms the golden rule, TREAT OTHERS THE WAY YOU WANT TO BE TREATED

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Legitimacy: the belief that the rule of an institution ought to be obeyed, usually by conforming to agree to laws and democracy
Pre-Enlightenment Legitimacy: Divine Right of Kings
-The Monarch's rule is legitimized by God

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Constitutive Theory of Statehood: states are only states because they are recognized by other states
Declarative Theory of Statehood: states are states because they meet four criteria;
1. defined territory
2. permanent population
3.  a functioning government
4. a capacity for international relations
Montevideo Convention(1933):  accepts declarative theory of statehood, where it's contents define the rights and duty of the state. Customary International Law, and is not officially utilized by IGO's explicitly
-cus. int. law.

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Sovereignty: the principle of absolute/unlimited power; no higher authority in domestic and external affairs
Internal Sovereignty: the ability of a state to exert legitimate control over a population and manage it's affairs independently, also known as de facto sovereignty.
External Sovereignty: when states are recognized as independent and sovereign by other states, not interfered with, and external border is respected

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Reformation-> 30 years war(1618-1648)->Westphalian Treaty
-separates church and state
Westphalian sovereignty: defines the state as the primary legal actor in Global politics
Sovereign equality: all states have the same sovereign rights regardless of power and territory

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State: organized political entity on defined territory and able to protect from foreign threats and maintain internal order
Nation: group of people as a cohesive unit, based on a shared sense of identity, stemming from nationalism, patriotism, language, or ethnicity
Nation-State: country with borders and single central government, where the government gains legitimacy from the nation. This is where the term "country" is derived
Stateless Nation: a shared identity, that is considered a nation, but has no sovereign territory

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Cyber Power:  allows for non-state actors to exert influence on states, threatening their privacy and cyber security

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Social and Cultural Power: building connections through globalization, not always seen as an exertion of power, but rather through the influence of TNC's

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Structural Power: States influence political ideas, the structure and framework of Global Politics in order to promote a model of politics that one state prefers

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ex. The Cold War: Capitalism vs Communism; where the usage of hard and soft power resulted in the dominance of the capitalist global market

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Relational Power: When state utilize their relations with another state to influence that state's behaviour
-threats and rewards(hard power)
-controlling the agenda by limiting a state's choice's(soft)
-establishing preferences to align goals with the dominating state(soft)

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Luke's Three Faces of Power: describes three types of power interactions, using hard, soft, and smart power in each interaction
Decision-Making Power: Power revealed through policy and political action, most visible face

Non-Decision-Making Power: Power that sets the agenda for discourse and makes certain issues unacceptable for discourse

Ideological Power: Power that influence's one's own wishes and thoughts, even against their own self-interest, e.g. causing women to support a patriarchal society. Least visible face.

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Hard Power: achieving aims through force, e.g. economically, geographically(territory), demographic, militarily.
tangible, observable, measurable
Soft Power: Achieving aims through influence, persuasion, ex. ideology, ideas, culture
intangible, unobservable, unmeasurable
Smart Power: Achieving aims through force, prosecution, and influence, i.e. a mix of hard and soft power

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Unipolar: one Major Global Power that exerts dominance on all others
Bi-Polar: Two separate powers that have separate spheres of influence at the global stage
Multi-polar: multiple powers/states that have their own spheres of influence
Balance Of Power: States may secure survival by ensuring that no one state is too powerful.

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Power: the ability to influence or assert control over the international world and other actors.
Power Politics: Form of international relations where states protect themselves by threatening others
Power is:
1. Never Static
2. Ubiquitous
3. Compounding(same with Powerlessness)

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1. Distinction- There should be a clear distinction made by the troops between combatants and civilians. Acts of violence should not be focussed on civilians who did not choose this outcome.
2. Proportionality- Troops have to ensure that any harm that is caused to civilians or their property is proportional to the concrete and absolute military benefit awaited through an attack on a legitimate military objective
3. Military Necessity- An attack’s aim should be defeating the enemy
4. Fair Treatment of Prisoners of War (PoWs)-All captured/surrendered formerly enemy combatants do not threaten one side’s security. Thus, they should not be ill-treated or tortured
5. No means Malum In Se- Combatants should not use methods of warfare that are widely deemed evil. Some of these methods include mass rape (like the Rape of Nanjing) or using weapons whose effects are unknown or are unable to be controlled (Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

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1. Just Cause- The most vital part of justifying a war is having a just cause. The reasoning behind why a state goes to war must be just and thus, the war can’t be only about recapturing territory previously lost or even about taking action against people who have done wrong. War can only be justified if the lives of innocent civilians are threatened and the intervention occurs under the cause of protecting them.
2. Comparative Justice- Although both parties in the conflict may have experienced rights and wrongs prior to the commencement of the conflict, in order to justify the usage of force, the wrongs suffered by one party must be significantly greater than those suffered by the other
3. Competent authority- Only authorities that are duly constituted have the right to wage war. Authoritarian regimes (Nazi Germany 1939) or deceiving military actions (1968 Bombing of Cambodia by the US) are argued to have violated this criteria.
4. Right Intention- Force can only be utilised for a truly just cause and only to further this purpose. Utilising a war for maintaining economic growth or gaining access to raw materials is not permitted under this criteria.
5. Probability of Success- Arms should not be utilised in a worthless cause or even in a situation where excessive action is required in order for the war to be successful
6. Last Resort- Force should only and only be used once all peaceful and practical options have been exhausted
7. Proportionality- The predicted advantages of waging a war should be in proportion to the harm it can cause for both sides

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The Just War Theory is a theory that addresses the justification of how and why wars are fought. The theory has received detailed development by theologists who have attempted to lay out a comprehensive base for the theory. The base consists of 3 arguments:
1. Taking human life can never be condoned
2. States have an obligation to defend justice and their citizens
3. In the process of protecting the lives of civilians and upholding essential moral values, there needs to be a willingness to utilise force and violence

To determine if a war is just, there is a series of criteria that need to be met. There is Jus Ad Bellum, that is, the right to go to war and Jus In Bello, that is, the right conduct during the course of the war.

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Humanitarian intervention:
Self-Defense:
Religiously/Culturally condoned violence:
It can be said that a majority of violence in the international lens of analysis in global politics are conducted and justified through self-defense and/or Humanitarian intervention
-adds to legitimacy if in humanitarian intervention

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Territorial Conflict: A Case Study in the West Bank

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Territorial Conflict: A Case Study in the West Bank

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West Bank-https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/israeli-palestinianconflict , https://www.npr.org/2020/03/26/821541213/still-locked-in-conflict-israelisand-palestinians-need-each-other-to-fight-covi , https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273229716300740 , https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-impact-the-israelipalestinian-conflict-the-arab- 38 and-jewish-diasporas-latin-america , https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR740- 1.html

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The correlation between Peace and Balance of Power:

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The correlation between Peace and Balance of Power:

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theory of balance of power argues that a state of international security is strengthened when the military capability of states is increased such that no one state has the ability to dominate over others
-realist perspective-> achieved through deterrence and M.A.D

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Unit 1: Power, Sovereignty, And International Relations

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Unit 1: Power, Sovereignty, And International Relations