With its judgment in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion. Striking down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision provides state governments with newfound power to enact and enforce laws that curtail abortion access. The consequences of the ruling will reverberate beyond access to abortion to affect women’s equality, bodily autonomy, healthcare, democracy, criminal justice, and U.S. credibility to influence the protection of international human rights.

Our speakers—Reem Alsalem, UN special rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, and Julie C. Suk, professor of law at Fordham University School of Law—discuss what the ruling means for democracy and human rights in the United States and its implications beyond U.S. borders.

Virtual Roundtable: The Implications of the Dobbs Ruling on Human Rights at Home and Abroad

U.S. Special Envoy Jessica Stern discusses the global state of LGBTQI+ rights, findings from the release of the first annual Interagency Report on the Implementation of the Presidential Memorandum on Advancing the Human Rights of LGBTQI+ Persons Around the World, and the importance of U.S. leadership in advancing these rights.
 

A Conversation With U.S. Special Envoy Jessica Stern

David Beasley discusses the global food crisis, including how the UN World Food Program is working to respond to increasing global food insecurity as a result of the conflict in Ukraine.

A Conversation With David Beasley

Addressing Gun Violence at Home and Abroad

CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Alice Albright discusses the role MCC plays in the U.S. foreign policy toolkit and how foreign assistance can address long-term global trends while simultaneously managing humanitarian crises. 

A Conversation With Alice Albright

7/7 CFR Virtual Press Briefing: Previewing Biden's Trip to the Middle East

For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the World Health Organization is poised to declare a different disease, monkeypox, to also be a public health emergency of international concern. Since early May 2022, cases of monkeypox—a disease endemic to parts of Africa—have been identified in more than thirty-seven countries where the disease is not normally found. More than three thousand confirmed and suspected cases have been reported. 

In this Council on Foreign Relations roundtable, Dr. Luciana L. Borio, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Dr. Anne Rimoin, Gordon-Levin endowed chair in infectious diseases and public health at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, discuss the state of the international monkeypox outbreak, national and multilateral public health responses, prospects for control, access to countermeasures, and the potential implications of this outbreak.

Virtual Roundtable: The Expanding Monkeypox Outbreak

In honor of Pride Month, first-year term member Lucas Schleusener, president and co-founder of Out in National Security (ONS), speaks with fellow term member Nayyera Haq, host of SiriusXM Radio. Luke discusses his and ONS's work to amplify LGBTQIA+ voices in the national security community. For those who do not know him yet, in addition to his advocacy work with ONS, Luke is a security fellow at the Truman National Security Project. Before this, he served on the speechwriting staff of Secretaries of Defense Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel, and Ash Carter.

The Term Member Spotlight Series highlights individuals within the Stephen M. Kellen Term Member Program. Drawing on the enormous amount of talent and expertise within the Council’s Term Member Program, this series features a term member in conversation with a fellow term member discussing their career path, how they got to where they are, the challenges they have faced along the way, and the current work they are doing. We hope this regular series will provide an opportunity for Council term members to better engage and learn from one another, draw upon shared experiences within the group, and connect across geographies.

Term Member Spotlight: Luke Schleusener

July 2022 marks twenty-five years since the United Kingdom and China signed the Sino-British agreement, returning Hong Kong to China with the understanding that China's policies regarding Hong Kong would remain unchanged for the next fifty years and that the city would continue to operate under a high degree of autonomy. Our panelists discuss the history of Hong Kong and where it stands now, halfway through the fifty-year agreement, including the effects of the national security law imposed by China, and the future of the city and the people who live there.

The Lessons From History Series uses historical analysis as a critical tool for understanding modern foreign policy challenges by hearing from practitioners who played an important role in a consequential historical event or from experts and historians. This series is made possible through the generous support of David M. Rubenstein.

Lessons From History Series: A Question of Autonomy—Hong Kong Then and Now

Andrew Gordon, chief executive officer and founder of Diversity Abroad, leads the conversation on the importance of providing equitable access to global education.

 

CASA: Hello, and welcome to CFR’s Higher Education Webinar. I am Maria Casa, director of the National Program and Outreach at CFR. Thank you all for joining us. 

Today’s discussion is on the record, and the video and transcript will be made available on our website, CFR.org/academic if you would like to share them with your colleagues after today. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. 

We are delighted to have Andrew Gordon with us to discuss the importance of providing equitable access to global education. Mr. Gordon is the founder and chief executive officer of Diversity Abroad, an organization focusing on topics pertaining to access, diversity, inclusion, and equity in international education. He works with higher education institutions, nonprofit and for profit organizations, and government agencies for developing strategies for increasing access to international education for diverse, first-generation, and high financial needs students. Mr. Gordon is a member of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, the Association of International Education Administrators, the European Association for International Education, the National Association of Black Accountants, and the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting. He is an alum of INROADS and the Association for the International Exchange of Students in Economics and Commerce. 

Welcome, Andrew. Thank you very much for speaking with us today. 

GORDON: It’s great to be here. Thank you. 

CASA: Can you begin by giving us an overview of what equitable access to global education means and its importance in higher education? 

GORDON: Yeah. Absolutely. 

First, just want to say thank you, Maria, for the invitation to speak and to CFR Academic for hosting this session, particularly, this important topic. As I delve into my remarks, I’ll give a little bit of background as to the—where my remarks are going to come from. 

As Maria mentioned, I founded an organization, Diversity Abroad, that centers diversity, equity, inclusion in global education. And over the last sixteen years had an opportunity to work with higher-education institutions, everything from community colleges to liberal arts, R-1s to Ivy Leagues, on this question of what does equitable access to global learning and global education mean.

And we get this question often and, usually, when I get this question sitting in meetings with academic professionals, I, in some ways, put the question back and I say, well, what’s the benefit of global education and global learning. Why do our campuses invest in infrastructure for global education and global learning, whether that’s sending students abroad, supporting international students, ensuring that global themes are embedded into the curriculum? We often h

Higher Education Webinar: Equitable Access to Global Education

USAID Administrator Samantha Power discusses the pivotal moment we face to strengthen democracy and reverse the rise of authoritarianism across the world, and USAID's efforts to mitigate the global food crisis exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.

For more information about the International Affairs Fellowship (IAF), please visit CFR’s Fellowship Affairs Page. 

2022 International Affairs Fellowship (IAF) Conference Keynote Session With Samantha Power

Our panelists discuss the implications of climate change for global governance, mass migration within and between nations and regions, and U.S. national security.

The Silberstein Family Annual Lecture on Refugee and Migration Policy was established in 2019 through a generous gift from Alan M. Silberstein and the Silberstein family. The lecture provides CFR with an annual forum to explore emerging challenges in refugee and migration policy in the United States and around the world.

The Next Great Wave: Human Migration and Climate Change

Our panelists discuss the situation in Afghanistan nine months after the U.S. withdrawal, including the state of Taliban control, the status of women's rights and education, and what to expect in the months ahead.

Afghanistan on the Ground

Five decades ago, China was closed off to the world. In 1972, Jerome Cohen was part of the first U.S. delegations to travel to China after Richard Nixon’s historic visit. A pioneer in Chinese legal studies in the 1960s, he has been deeply involved in Sino-U.S. political, legal, and business developments in past half-century—from the hopeful early days of China’s reform era in the 1980s to the far darker atmosphere of recent years. In this roundtable, Jerome Cohen, adjunct senior fellow for Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations and faculty director emeritus and founder of NYU Law School’s US-Asia Law Institute, reflects on the trajectory of China and its legal system over the past five decades.

Virtual Roundtable: 50 Years Later: What Direction for China and Its Legal System

Our panelists discussed the U.S. approach to energy, from foreign oil dependence to the transition to and consideration of other energy sources, and climate concerns.

With its Renewing America initiative, CFR is evaluating nine critical domestic issues that shape the ability of the United States to navigate a demanding, competitive, and dangerous world.

Renewing America Series: Rethinking the U.S. Approach to Energy

Richard Haass, Sergio M. Alcocer, and Yul Sohn assess the degree of deglobalization and the dynamics behind any trend, whether the COVID-19 pandemic significantly accelerated developments, and the implications for international cooperation moving forward.

The Council of Councils (CoC) is an international initiative created by the Council on Foreign Relations to connect leading foreign policy institutes from around the world in a dialogue on issues of global governance and multilateral cooperation. The CoC is composed of twenty-eight major policy institutes from some of the world’s most influential countries. It is designed to facilitate candid, not-for-attribution dialogue and consensus-building among influential opinion leaders from both established and emerging nations, with the ultimate purpose of injecting the conclusions of its deliberations into high-level foreign policy circles within members' countries.

Coping With Deglobalization: A Conversation With the Council of Councils

Ray Takeyh, Hasib J. Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle East Studies, and Craig McNamara, founder of Sierra Orchards and son of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, discuss the legacy of Robert McNamara and the Vietnam War.

Virtual Roundtable: Robert McNamara at Home: A Conversation with Craig McNamara

With the planet warming at an alarming pace, there are currently three main approaches to managing risks from the changing climate: reducing emissions, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and adapting to build resilience and minimize the effects of the increase in temperature. CFR senior fellow Stewart Patrick discusses on a potential fourth approach, known as solar geoengineering, that reflects sunlight back into space to reduce rising temperatures on Earth. Drawing on findings and recommendations from a recent Council Special Report Reflecting Sunlight to Reduce Climate Risk: Priorities for Research and International Cooperation, Patrick also discusses the need for strong international cooperation to determine the feasibility and potential consequences of sunlight reflection, to ensure collective decision making regarding any deployment of such techniques, and to manage the geopolitical risks of this untested enterprise.
 

Term Member Virtual Meeting: Reflecting Sunlight to Cool the Planet

A panel of journalists who have recently spent time covering the war in Ukraine discusses the situation on the ground there and in the surrounding region, and policy considerations for the United States and NATO allies.

Covering the War in Ukraine: The View From Journalists

Our panelists discussed the Biden administration’s ongoing negotiations to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) following the Trump administration’s 2018 withdrawal, and the role of other actors in the negotiation process, including Russia and Israel.

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