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The newest essays, interviews, and features from Big Think.
The Obama administration is finally getting serious about closing Guantanamo. The main obstacle to closing the military prison has always been that it wasn't clear where to put the approximately […]
For all of us, coping with the death of a loved one is intensely traumatic. For sufferers of "complicated" grief, however, the trauma itself never seems to die; rather than dissipating over time, it becomes a […]
Expectations for the Copenhagen summit next month are dropping like a cartoon anvil. Where once there was talk of a comprehensive international accord on cutting greenhouse-gas emissions, now the great […]
Stewart Brand's latest book, "Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto," contains a dagger in its subtitle. To write a manifesto on behalf of "ecopragmatism" is to imply that the current […]
A variety of English media reported today that the Times of London will begin charging its customers for 24-hour access to the Times’ website by spring. The Times, roughly the […]
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Only two countries have yet to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child—Somalia, and the United States. Jo Becker explains why.
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Though it may seem like a quintessentially 19th century problem to many Americans, child labor is surprisingly prevalent throughout the First World.
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Though there continues to be resistance internationally to making 18 the minimum for military service, provisions in the CRC for education and security provide other outlets for children in areas […]
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Human Right’s Watch’s Jo Becker delineates the recruitment of child soldiers, and the abuses they suffer once they’ve been drafted.
It’s becoming a familiar theme. An election is held somewhere in the developing world that is hotly contested. The opposition cries foul and demands a recount. Allegations fly as both […]
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Twenty years after the Convention on the Rights of the Child, countries around the world are still struggling with implementation.
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Ann Venemen dissects the consequences of letting another generation go without education, health care, and basic civil rights.
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Veneman admits it’s a challenge to find a set of standards that fits every country and context, but argues against a sliding scale of rights.
Steven Pinker's attack on Malcolm Gladwell in the New York Times Book Review was more lucid and entertaining than it was intellectually honest. Pinker's take-away claim is that Gladwell's work […]
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UNICEF head Ann Veneman shares some of the frequently overlooked abuses that children are subject to the world over.
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The former child soldier decries the violence that many children still face.
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Ishmael Beah shares his own experience of being a child soldier.
