HKS Students and Research Affiliates

How can international law better protect both international security and the human rights of people fleeing violence? International refugee law protects only the refugees: those fleeing across borders due to a well-founded persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. The world’s other 42.3 million people displaced by violence have few protections under international law. This article proposes and sketches new international law to address this crucial human rights problem. I argue that a new Displaced Persons Convention to protect people fleeing violent conflict is needed to supplement the 1951 Refugee Convention. The Refugee Convention must be preserved because of the critical protections it provides for the rights of minorities and political dissidents. Adding a new Displaced Persons Convention would better protect the human rights of individuals fleeing violent conflict and state failure, further state interests, and improve international security.

Primary PM2.5 emissions contributed significantly to poor air quality in China. We present an interdisciplinary study to measure the magnitudes of socioeconomic factors in driving primary PM2.5 emission changes in China between 1997–2010, by using a regional emission inventory as input into an environmentally extended input–output framework and applying structural decomposition analysis. Our results show that China's significant efficiency gains fully offset emissions growth triggered by economic growth and other drivers. Capital formation is the largest final demand category in contributing annual PM2.5 emissions, but the associated emission level is steadily declining. Exports is the only final demand category that drives emission growth between 1997–2010. The production of exports led to emissions of 638 thousand tonnes of PM2.5, half of the EU27 annual total, and six times that of Germany. Embodied emissions in Chinese exports are largely driven by consumption in OECD countries.