Grace Lee

In the words of the former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, “who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.” The phrase implies that economic wealth and financial resources have a pervasive impact on decision making, social structure, and the distribution of power. For centuries, world leaders have been competing for global dominance in currency. Hence, it is critical to address the issues in today’s monetary system. Let us shine the light upon a global issue that is heavily devastating countries and marginalized communities worldwide.

In the United States, civic education has been at an all-time low. Teaching civics in schools is invaluable because the youth are much more malleable and easily influenced, making it possible to instill the value of civic engagement into students. Political participation is important in a democracy as it ensures that the government is in regulation by the people. This brief includes and analyzes a brief synopsis of the patterns of civic education in the primary regions of the United States.

Arms transfers are directly linked to human rights. In conflict, transferred weapons and arms split apart families, equipping nations with exponentially larger capacity for destruction and annihilation. Given the nature of arms, access to information about arms transfers is often asymmetric between the public, government stakeholders, state-owned enterprises, and private companies; a trade-off exists between the benefits of making information public and transparent with the downsides of revealing sensitive national security items or trade secrets. In this brief, we review the legal landscape of access to information laws, highlighting applicability to arms transfers to analyze how transparent/accessible information and data regarding arms transfers are in the status quo. We stand in support of the Human Rights Council’s attention on arms transfers, believing that more is needed to involve NGOs, close international loopholes, and track responsible arms usage with technology to uphold human rights for all.

An alarming number of households have unreliable access or none at all to an Internet connection and the technology needed to attain digital education. Over 9 million students14—around 12% of the total student population15—lack access to the Internet entirely. 1 in 4 students have unreliable Internet networks. This also extends to teachers, as around 400,000 lack access to digital education.16 ...

Social media has exploded in usage amongst children. 50% of parents state that their child has access to some type of social media, with 32% of parents reporting that their children aged 7 to 9 have access to social media. Three quarters of parents have shared the content of their children online.1 ...