Investigating Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Violations in the Middle East

Edward Crouse (’21), Inesha Premaratne (’21), Emily Hawley (’20), and Katelyn Masket (’21), were invited by a United Nations entity to produce human rights reports on violations of economic, social, and cultural rights committed in the conflict in Yemen. These in-depth reports focused on the impacts of the fuel crisis on the right to an adequate standard of living (including the right to food and water) and the right to health as well as on proving the parties to the conflict are using starvation as a weapon of war in violation of international humanitarian law (or the law of armed conflict). The team also engaged in open source research to produce bi-weekly reports on violations of international humanitarian and human rights law committed in Yemen since June 2019. This more focused project carried over from research last term that involved a survey of ESC rights violations during the war.