IRR: Grounded in history: Spring 2022, issue 26

This issue in particular has a heavy focus on history. We seek not to rewrite history but to redefine it. Our emerging scholars offer critical analysis on myths, misconceptions, and misinformation. From articles on the Italian mafia, the role of agriculture in the Middle East, to the TRIPS waiver, we use history as a lesson and as a framework to guide the future of diplomacy. At the same time that we’ve engaged with global history, the International Relations Review also has sought to shift our own trajectory. The journal has historically published a print edition every year, but in the 2021 - 2022 academic year, we’ve increased both the quality and quantity of our content. With a team of more than 100 students, the International Relations Review pushes new frontiers with a podcast, blog, and journal

The Belém do Pará Convention: U.S. Absence from the Inter-American Treaty Addressing Violence Against Women

Violence against women (VAW) is a pervasive problem globally and is especially prevalent in the Americas. In the late 1980s, the Inter-American Commission of Women (Comisión Interamericana de Mujeres, CIM), a specialized commission of the Organization of American States (OAS), drafted the Belém do Pará Convention—a legally-binding international convention adopted in 1994 to prevent, punish, and eradicate VAW through the Inter-American human rights system. Since its adoption in 1994, the Belém do Pará Convention has become the most widely ratified international treaty in the Americas, and 32 out of 35 OAS member states have ratified it. Strikingly, the United States has not. To explain why, I examine three areas: (i) the U.S. tendency to attach reservations when ratifying international human rights treaties and the international community’s criticism of this, (ii) the limitations of the U.S. Constitution and federalist structure on ratifying international human rights treaties; and (iii) the U.S. government’s exceptionalist attitude regarding domestic VAW laws. Because of the restrictions of federalism and U.S. reservations to international human rights treaties, I argue that the U.S. government asserts exceptionalism in its own limited domestic VAW laws in order to justify its absence from the Belém do Pará Convention. Perhaps the most harrowing conclusion from my research is how U.S. absence from human rights treaties grants it impunity within the Inter-American human rights system, which has dire consequences for the ability of U.S. women to seek justice for the violence committed against them

IRR: Redefining resistance: Fall 2021, issue 25

Since 2009, the International Relations Review has contributed to the breadth of international scholarship through a bi-annual publication written and edited by Boston University's undergraduate students. Founded with the intention of promoting dialogue between students, scholars, and policy-makers in an increasingly globalized world, the platform that the IRR creates for emerging scholars is needed now more than ever. The traditional lenses of understanding international relations have shifted in the decade that separates this issue from the first. From anti- government demonstrations and far-right nationalism to the implications of climate change and the global pandemic, the past twelve years have illuminated the extent to which technology and social mobilization have redefined resistance for the generations to come. Despite the unique hardships posed by the global pandemic, the 25th edition preserves the IRR's commitment to illuminating key currents in international affairs that are often neglected by global media. This issue seeks to explore the role of resistance in promoting political reform, thwarting suppression, and accelerating solutions to the world's most pressing crises, whether through the coffeehouses of Egypt or the colonial histories of Latin America