In every crisis it is the poor, sick, disabled, homeless and displaced who suffer the most.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the world’s bustling cities to a screeching halt

Published in Foreign Policy By Robert Muggah The world is convulsed by the novel coronavirus, but that is not the only pathogen that afflicts us. Criminal violence is also endemic, contagious, and highly virulent. More than 464,000 people were killed in homicides in 2017 (the last…

Published in Council on Foreign Relations By Louise Marie Hurel   The February 20 Brazil-EU Cyber Dialogue signaled the most recent step taken by Brasília and Brussels to collaborate on advancing responsible state behavior in cyberspace. While there have sometimes been differences in the two…

With COVID-19 infections now evident in 176 countries, the pandemic is the most significant threat to humanity since the second world war. Then, as now, confidence in international cooperation and institutions plumbed new lows.

Far from merely reflecting an unequal distribution of economic means, rising inequality comes with a broad range of additional toxic side effects, many of which the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown into sharp relief. With the pandemic transforming life around the world before our eyes, this is a problem that can no longer be ignored.

Published in Project Syndicate By Robert Muggah The COVID-19 pandemic was not just predictable but inevitable, which makes the skyrocketing economic and human costs of the crisis all the more unacceptable. If the international community does not respond by creating new global structures to deal…

Published in London Schools Economics By Renata Giannini Brazil’s process of drafting its first National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security was marked by the political crisis that started during the government of its first female president, Dilma Rousseff, and culminated in her impeachment, followed by…

Where a person is born and lives correlates with their overall life chances. Unsurprisingly, people living in environments characterized by high levels of economic and social inequality tend to be more exposed to violence and victimization than those living elsewhere.

Rio de Janeiro’s ultra-conservative governor, Wilson Witzel, was elected in 2018 on a tough-on-crime ticket.

I study violence in Latin America, and I’ve observed a sharp increase in reports of religiously motivated crimes in Rio de Janeiro since 2016, in particular attacks on “terreiros” – the temples of the Candomblé and Umbanda faiths.

After years of procrastination, Brazil has finally adopted comprehensive data protection legislation. In mid-2018, the government approved Law 13.709, known by its Portuguese acronym, LGPD.

They came looking for gold. Earlier this year, several dozen unauthorized prospectors, or garimpeiros as they are known in Portuguese, invaded a 1.4 million acre indigenous reserve in Brazil’s remote northern state of Amapá.

Violence has always been one of humanity’s most serious global challenges. Hundreds of millions of men, women, and children have been killed or maimed by armed conflict, crime, extremism, and sexual and gender-based violence. Not only does violence exact a massive social and economic toll, it depreciates human capital and undermines important civic and social institutions.

We are facing a climate emergency. More than 11,000 of the world’s scientists and successive reports issued by the International Governmental Panel on Climate Change say the evidence of human-induced global warming is irrefutable.