This policy paper sets out how the former U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Access to Justice leveraged international activity and mechanisms, including the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, to advance its domestic priorities. The strategy resulted in noteable accomplishments and even protected a number of them after the office was closed in 2018. The brief recommends that the incoming Biden-Harris Administration reestablish the Office for Access to Justice, revitalize the White House Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable charged with implementing Goal 16 for the United States, link U.S. domestic priorities to all 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and prioritize the United States’ role as a leader in the global movement for equal justice for all.
COVID-19 has underlined that spatial inequality is relevant—and costly—everywhere: not only in developing countries. The pandemic has exposed sharp inequalities in prosperous cities, such as New York and San Francisco, as well as in slums and informal settlements in developing countries such as Kenya and Iran. This paper presents the results of a rapid appraisal carried out in May 2020. It surveys how existing urban inequalities have played out in practice, how spatial inequality has shaped the repercussions of COVID-19, and how housing-related program and community responses have helped close—or exacerbated—these gaps. It also outlines the opportunities and prospects for longer term reforms.
All three of the recent UN secretary-general reports on peacebuilding and sustaining peace (2018, 2019, and 2020) take note of the need to enhance collaboration between the UN—not only its development system but also its peace and security and humanitarian arms—with international financial institutions (IFIs), namely the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
In September, Afghanistan and the Taliban began conducting peace negotiations to plan a road map for the country’s future after the withdrawal of United States forces. A key challenge for this process is the status of Afghanistan’s current constitution. This report, published by the United States Institute of Peace in partnership with CIC, explores some of the constitutional questions that are likely to arise in the course of the negotiations and provides suggestions for how the peace process might resolve them.
We are very saddened by the death of our dear friend and colleague Dr. Subinay Nandy, who passed away peacefully in New York on November 7, 2020. He had been a Visiting Scholar at the Center on International Cooperation since 2018, advising our program on humanitarian crises and the links with development and peacebuilding.
