Former US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has been turned into an internet meme for asking Americans to Pokemon-Go-To-The-Polls during her failed campaign for president in 2016. Nearly ten years later, however, that sentiment is being echoed across the Atlantic. Kind of.

The United States has a political system that declares set dates for elections to occur. In many parliamentary democracies, however, elections for Parliament can be called at any point before a certain date by the country’s prime minister. For example, Ireland’s current prime minister, Simon Harris, was required to call elections for the next makeup of Parliament before the current session’s five-year mandate comes to an end in March 2025. 

He has now done so. In an unsurprising decision to political analysts, PM Simon Harris recently decided to dissolve the lower house of Parliament and call for their elections on Nov. 29. Harris’ center right party, Fine Gael, has recently enjoyed an uptick in support, putting them in a strong position for elections later this month.

Before an examination of Irish politics gets too confusing: a breakdown of the actors involved. Although smaller parties do exist, the three biggest parties in the Republic of Ireland are: center-right parties Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil as well as left-wing nationalist party Sinn Féin. Nearly all the governments in Ireland’s 100 year history have been under the control of one of the two center right parties. For decades, Sinn Féin has been ostracized from Irish politics because of their former role as the political branch of the Irish National Army. However, in the last elections in 2020, Sinn Féin staged a surprising comeback, winning the popular vote and earning the second most number of seats in Parliament (Ireland uses proportional representation to assign seats). 

Currently, Fine Gael remains the most popular party, but Fianna Fáil is catching up. A recent poll found that Fine Gael enjoys 26% support, followed by Fianna Fáil at 20% and Sinn Féin at 18%. Irish voters also see current PM Simon Harris as a clear favorite to be the next PM, signaling confidence from the electorate that Fine Gael will control enough seats after this next election to determine the next prime minister.

Simon Harris’ decision to dissolve Parliament was likely spurred by the desire to maintain his party’s current polling advantage, before a giveaway budget Parliament passed earlier this year begins to hit voters’ pockets. 

Top issues in this election will likely mirror concerns of voters in other European nations. The cost of living, driven by the failure of local governments to invest in public housing, has prevented many young Irish citizens from being able to buy a home. Rising immigration, including from Ukrainian refugees, is also proving to be a controversial issue: one year ago, a violent riot gripped the capital of Ireland, Dublin, as far-right anger over immigration into Ireland hit its peak. 

While the opposition party Sinn Féin may have surprised their political opposition in 2020, it’s not likely to happen again. Beyond their inability to spell out a clear plan on handling immigration, they’re facing internal struggles as well. Controversy after controversy, including the cover-up of a leftist politician being forced to resign after sending inappropriate texts to a teenager, have collapsed the party’s dominant support. 

Over the next few weeks, Ireland’s political parties will launch an intense campaign that could determine the future of the tiny nation. Whether that future is more left- or right- wing, only the citizens that will Pokemon-Go-To-The-Polls will be able to tell. 

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• Megan Specia, New York Times

• Philip Ryan, Irish Independent

• Shawn Pogatchnik, Politico

• Megan Specia, New York Times

• Jayne McCormack, BBC

Each week of newly elected Claudia Sheinbaum’s term as the president of Mexico has been marred by cartel violence. 

In the Mexican state of Chiapas, Catholic Priest Marcelo Perez, a well-known anti-cartel and indigenous rights activist, was gunned down while leaving Sunday mass. 

The same week, a 14-year-old boy was kidnapped and murdered along with his whole family by local cartel members, who dumped the bodies in a city where the local mayor had also been murdered earlier that month. 

The beginning of Sheinbaum’s term has been a reckoning of cartel violence. In 2024, homicides have risen 8.6 percent compared to 2017, when the “Hugs Not Guns” policy was first implemented to deal with cartel violence. 

Sheinbaum’s predecessor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, pioneered this new policy based on the idea that the root cause of cartel violence is poverty. The program invested billions to focus on social, welfare, education, and employment policies and programs to lift rural areas out of poverty and theoretically decrease the supply of cartel gunmen. 

Crucially, the policy largely abandoned the previous Mexican strategy of dealing with cartels and organized crime, military intervention. AMLO’s predecessors had long leveraged the military to destroy cartels and combat violence directly, producing mixed results. 

Going into Sheinbaum’s term, many expected more of the same when it came to cartel policy. Not only was Sheinbaum part of AMLO’s Morena party, but AMLO was viewed as her mentor. While campaigning, she built her platform off of AMLO’s policy and, earlier in October, committed to continuing “Hugs not Guns” policies. 

However, with these publicized and egregious cases of wanton violence stirring public outcry throughout October, combined with cartel civil wars breaking down stability in both Chiapas and Sinaloa, 2 of Mexico’s most violent states, a change was almost inevitable. 

The last month has seen a significantly expanded use of military and lethal force against cartels. 

In Sinaloa, military forces killed 19 cartel suspects, with only one living to be arrested. 

This case is increasingly characteristic of the situation present all across Mexico, where gun battles with cartels in Mexico’s most violent states have been far more common, even resulting in significant civilian casualties. 

Sheinbaum’s term marks a departure from the idea of non-confrontation. While Sheinbaum has committed to continuing the anti-poverty policies meant to solve the root cause of cartel violence, she has steadily expanded the role of the military in directly confronting cartel activities through armed force. Meanwhile, AMLO repeatedly refused to confront cartels and infamously released El Chapo’s son following his arrest in a raid.

While the social issues driving the drug trade are undeniable, Sheinbaum’s own actions as well as rising violence have exposed massive holes within the “Hugs not Guns” policy. With the military effectively rendered as a peacekeeping force and with law enforcement all but excluded from anti-organized crime operations,  cartels have faced little to no repercussions, and act practically unfettered given they do not directly attack military forces. Furthermore, with law enforcement excluded, detective work is completely defunct, leading to little actual arrests of cartel members. 

With cartels obviously emboldened, the increase in murders since 2017 becomes an obvious conclusion. It seems like the next victim of Mexico’s October surge in violence is AMLO’s landmark policy approach itself. 

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• Staff, Reuters

• Staff, AP News 

• Staff, AP News

• Mark Stevenson, ABC News

• Shannon O’Neil, CFR

With innumerable gilded temples and resplendent Buddhist pagodas, it shouldn’t be surprising that Myanmar is fondly referred to as the Golden Land. Behind the shimmering ornaments though, is a different story. 

Facing 76 years of repressive military authority, Myanmar has endured multilateral challenges with violence. Fighting between the government and ethnic armed organizations, or EAOS, has been ongoing for decades, as EAOs are seeking self-determination. Organizations like the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the leading EAO in Kachin state, have worked with the local civilian militias to fight the military government. 

The civilian militias in Myanmar are the People’s Defense Forces (PDF), which are groups that work to counter the military junta in power. This is proving to be an extremely arduous process, as the military junta has decades of experience targeting and eliminating its opponents to maintain power. The PDF serves as an armed wing of the National Unity Government (NUG), a civilian administration that includes members from minorities and civil society. The NUG is recognized as the legitimate government of Myanmar, even by the European Parliament. The NUG’s main actions have been launching various initiatives to gain funds for ammunitions and for the reconstruction of Myanmar. Specifically, they’ve encouraged Burmese taxpayers and companies to redirect taxes to the NUG instead of the military government. Ultimately, Myanmar’s crisis depends mainly on these four main actors, whose relationship can be summed up as follows: The military government is oppressive, so its authority unites the NUG, PDF, and EAOs to fight against them towards a shared goal of democracy. 

Why has there been minimal progress for the NUG, PDF, and EAOs? Myanmar’s crisis escalated in 2021, when the military government, the Tatmadaw, overthrew the central government after claims that the election was fraudulent. The Tatmadaw continues to slow political freedoms in Myanmar and wants to be more central to Myanmar’s government. However, they are using severe violence to slowly disintegrate democracy, responsible for devastating human rights violations. The Tatmadaw are accused of committing the mass genocide of the Rohingya, a stateless ethnic group that resides in Rakhine state. The military’s operation against Rohingya Muslims started in 2017, resulting in mass rape, burnings, drownings, and violence that killed over 9,000 innocent people. Unfortunately, the Tatmadaw are engaged in conflict with other ethnic groups as well, including the Kachin and the Konkag, but the severity of violence against the Rohingya is on a much larger scale. 

The Human Rights Watch has interviewed thousands of Rohingya since 2017, and they described horrifying incidents where soldiers murdered village residents before setting fire to their homes. In total, 400 villages were destroyed. According to Abdul Halim, a 30-year-old Burmese refugee in Bangladesh, the Tatmadaw burned houses, burned children, and committed violent assaults against women and children. As a consequence of the Tatmadaw’s brutal control over Myanmar, the military has seized control of supply routes north of Yangon, the largest city. Prices for basic staples, like cooking oil, rice, and fuel, have tripled, leaving 1 in 4 people without food. Furthermore, as the military is burning houses and barns, farmers can no longer grow as much produce as they could prior to the military’s crackdown. The UNDP states that people’s incomes are collapsing because agrarian livelihoods are disappearing, which has forced many to seek greener pastures elsewhere. Nearly 25 percent of the population is living abroad, which is causing a workforce crisis internally. Labor shortages will make it immensely difficult for Myanmar to recover from this war economically, especially given that over half the population lives below the poverty line.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult for Burmese civilians to survive on their own, which urges the question of what is being done externally. The international community’s response has been timid, but there are ways to progress in the right direction. First, the Tatmadaw has enforced a conscription law requiring all men 18-35 and women 18-27 to serve for the military, as the Tatmadaw is losing critical manpower. The UN its higher agencies must end their silence on this aspect of the junta’s campaign, and prevent the forcible recruitment of innocent individuals. The citizens of Myanmar should not be forced to help fuel the reign of terror the Tatmadaw enforces, and the Council has to work harder to end this violence.

Second, members of the military government and even armed group members could potentially face the attention of the International Criminal Court for the genocide, forced recruitment, and deportation of Rohingya.  However, the court cannot do much given that their jurisdiction is limited to ICC member countries, of which Myanmar is not part of. Myanmar must be included in the jurisdiction capacity of the ICC. The ICC would be able to open an investigation regarding the prosecution of the Rohingya minority, and put a stop to the violence that is devastating this group.

Third, countries and international institutions need to do more when it comes to providing aid. The World Food Programme urgently requires $50 million to sustain aid for vulnerable communities until March 2025, specifically to support nutritional rehabilitation and the creation of home gardens to revitalize agriculture. Furthermore, the International Rescue Committee is operating in a deficit, struggling to provide shelter programs to help displaced, crisis-affected and vulnerable communities to regain control of their futures. Their tailored services in regions like Rakhine, Kachin, Northern Shan, and Kayin States, are helping ethnic communities persist in the face of instability.

Myanmar’s situation and multilateral layers of violence call for a stronger international response, warranting the UN and international communities to end their silence on this issue. The ICC’s jurisdiction should be expanded to hold individuals accountable, and organizations must fund humanitarian recovery efforts. Ultimately, with the increased support of the international community, Myanmar’s instability may have hope for resolution – not just ending an oppressive regime, but ending the suffering of the innocent individuals confined inside of it.

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• Staff, BBC News

• Maung Sar Ga, Narinjara News

• Staff, AP News

If there’s any court that’s been mentioned more times than the US Supreme Court in the last few months, it’s the International Criminal Court. Based out of the Netherlands, the ICC is known for prosecuting those who have committed the most severe crimes against humanity. But unfortunately, over the past year, the ICC has been nothing but a failure.

Not to be confused with the ICJ (International Court of Justice), the ICC focuses solely on those who, including political leaders, committed one of four crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression. 

To say the least, we’ve seen such happen time and time again as wars wage across the globe. Notably, we turn to Russia, where Vladimir Putin has led a ruthless border invasion that has left civilians dead, billions of dollars lost, and countless people without homes. With his destruction across Ukraine, it’s no surprise the ICC has filed charges against him. Specifically, they’ve charged him with unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children, but it’s no secret he’s committed other war crimes in his course of action against Ukraine. But even then, those charges have done absolutely nothing. 

The ICC filed an arrest warrant, which means any country that is a member of the court (there are 124!) must arrest a fugitive who is wanted by the ICC if given the opportunity to do so. Yet, Putin managed to successfully visit Mongolia, a member of the ICC, and not be arrested. Despite protests, and even a call from Amnesty International to arrest Putin, he was warmly welcomed and had the opportunity to meet with Mongolia’s President.  

Russian leader Vladimir Putin is merely one example of the ICC’s incompetency. Just to the south of Russia lies another war that the world has its eyes on: the Israel-Hamas war. Here, not only have civilians been killed, but even international peacekeepers have been bombed and targeted with no repercussions. After seven months of fighting, the lead prosecutor announced that, “senior leaders of Hamas and Israel have committed a range of war crimes”, before announcing he was pursuing arrest warrants. Today, no progress has been made towards peace nor bringing warmongers to justice. 

Putting the icing on the cake, the ICC itself has a major problem. Its very own lead prosecutor, Karim Khan, has been accused of sexual misconduct. Now, the very man who attempted to prosecute these leaders is being investigated himself. 

Today’s world is a representation of corruption at its finest. Leaders across the globe are going unpunished despite destroying generations and ruining millions economically, and the one international body dedicated to prosecuting those who do so is incompetent. Society cannot go on for much longer if those who lead society are willing to destroy it for personal gain. 

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• Harry Davies, The Guardian

• Claire Klobucista and Mariel Ferragamo, Council on Foreign Relations

• Maria Vignoli, Human Rights Watch