What We've Been Reading

Welcome to our roundup of news and current events related to ethics and international affairs! Here’s some of what we’ve been reading this past month:

New York Times: A Deadly Fire Exposes the Plight of Low-Paid Migrants in Wealthy Kuwait

A little more than two months after a fatal fire broke out in a seven-story apartment complex in Kuwait, the government continues to focus on building violations rather than the underlying issues affecting migrant workers such as low wages and visa limitations. Rather than addressing the inadequacies of the over-populated migrant worker housing complexes, government officials and landlords instead resorted to eviction and demolition of buildings found in violation of the housing codes. The evictions have left many migrant workers without houses; their low wages mean they are unable to afford anywhere better to stay, resulting in an endless loop of insufficient housing and no house at all. In an oil-rich nation dependent on migrant workers for labor, the lack of adequate provisions is especially stark. The incident also highlights the difficulties that migrant laborers face in demanding basic rights, including from wealthy and well-known entities such as the Kuwait National Petroleum Company or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Human rights activists say that these violations are certainly a fault of private companies, but that the state is ultimately responsible for protecting those within its borders.

Read more about migrant workers and their protections in Ethics & International Affairs:

Finding Refuge through Employment: Worker Visas as a Complementary Pathway for Refugee Resettlement (2020: 34-4)

Helping Refugees Where They Are (2021: 35-4)

Voluntary and Involuntary Migrants: On Migration, Safe Third Countries, and the Collective Unfreedom of the Proletariat (2023: 37-4)

AP News: Aid groups in Gaza aim to avert a polio outbreak with a surge of vaccinations

Polio was eradicated in Gaza twenty-five years ago, but aid groups have reported that vaccinating children against the disease has become increasingly difficult. Palestinians are constantly displaced and forced to crowd into tent camps without clean water or sufficient sewer disposals. A massive vaccination campaign—targeting more than 600,000 children under the age of 10—is lined up to begin at the end of August, but aid workers are reporting that a successful campaign requires at least seven days of peace. In an official statement, Hamas said it would support a “seven-day truce to facilitate the vaccinations,” if necessary. Even with a temporary ceasefire and availability of supplies, humanitarian aid organizations are concerned that they will be unable to reach Palestinians or that the necessary refrigeration will not be possible with the scant 15-20 refrigerated trucks that service all of Gaza. Additionally, only about twelve (one-third) of Gaza’s hospitals are functioning, and only 20 percent of its primary healthcare facilities are operating.

Read more about humanitarian aid and vaccine politics in Ethics & International Affairs:

Equity and Vaccine Allocation: Beyond Ethics in Prioritization to Equitable Production, Distribution, and Consumption (2021)

International Law and the Humanization of Warfare (2023: 37-4)

Multilateralism and the Global Co-Responsibility of Care in Times of a Pandemic: The Legal Duty to Cooperate (2023: 37-2)

Reuters: Venezuelan opposition protests as election dispute drags on

Venezuela’s July presidential election is still the subject of numerous protests across Venezuela, with pro-opposition protesters and politicians taking to the streets to demand recognition of Unitary Platform’s Edmundo Gonzalez as winner of the election. The National Electoral Council announced that sitting President Nicolas Maduro won 52 percent of the vote, but opposition leaders published a separate report claiming Gonzalez had won 67 percent of ballots from 83 percent of the country’s voting machines. Additionally, neither party is willing to budge and hold a new election or publish detailed results. Despite the stalemate, protesters continue to flood the streets of Caracas and other major Venezuelan cities demanding transparency. In response, government crackdowns have resulted in more than 2,400 arrests and more than 20 deaths. The opposition’s window of opportunity for worldwide support is dwindling as attention moves elsewhere.

Read more about democratic elections and liberal democracies at large in Ethics & International Affairs:

Parties, Democracy, and the Ideal of Anti-factionalism: Past Anxieties and Present Challenges (2022: 36-4)

The Pragmatics of Democratic “Front-Sliding" (2022: 36-4)

Healing Liberal Democracies: The Role of Restorative Constitutionalism (2022: 36-4)

Al Jazeera: Nearly 68 million people reeling from drought in Southern Africa

An El Nino-induced drought that began earlier this year is affecting millions of people across a number of countries in Southern Africa. An estimated 68 million people, or 17 percent of the population, are in need of drought relief according to the executive secretary of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Elias Magosi. According to the United Nations, Southern Africa received only 20 percent of its expected rainfall in February this year, in addition to above-average temperatures. The heat and lack of rainfall has meant a substantial loss of crops and available clean water for the area’s residents. The sixteen SADC nation leaders are expected to discuss how to acquire more funding and food for the affected countries, many areas of which the UN World Food Programme has previously identified as vulnerable to food shortages. Experts warn that as the “effects of climate change intensify,” droughts, floods, and other weather patterns will become both more extreme and more widespread.

Read more about aid during the climate crisis in Ethics & International Affairs:

Communities and Climate Change: Why Practices and Practitioners Matter (2022: 36-2)

Which Net Zero? Climate Justice and Net Zero Emissions (2022: 36-4)

Global Climate Governance, Short-Termism, and the Vulnerability of Future Generations (2022: 36-2)