Richard Falk

Richard Falk

Richard Falk is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights. An international law and international relations scholar who taught at Princeton University for forty years, since 2002 Falk has lived in Santa Barbara, California, and taught at the local campus of the University of California in Global and International Studies and since 2005 chaired the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

Articles by this author

What evidence exists by polls and other measurements of public opinion suggest that Sanders would have been a stronger candidate than Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020, but for reasons suggested above, adhering to the bipartisan consensus was more important or Democrats than winning elections. (Photo:Jonathan Newton /The Washington Post via Getty Images) Views
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
Why Biden Must Win: It Is Not About Democracy, Its About Fascism
( Prefatory Note : Responses to an Iranian journalist, Javad Heiran-Nia Interview Questions on U.S. Elections (8 Oct 2020).) 1. What is the most important issue affecting the upcoming US presidential election? (Economy; Foreign Policy; Domestic Policy; etc.) For the voters in America the most...
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"We cannot be hopeful about the future unless we commit ourselves to the hard work of deterritorializing democracy, demilitarizing the state, pacifying geopolitics, empowering people, and strengthening the United Nations and international law," writes Falk. (Photo: Erik (HASH) Hersman/flickr/cc) Views
Friday, September 04, 2020
Can U.S. Democracy Be Fixed?
The 2020 Election and its Aftermath I share the view that the 2020 election in the United States is above all a referendum on fascism, and for this and many other reasons I hope it produces a Biden landslide, including control of the U.S. Congress by the Democratic Party. As well, it is my fervent...
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Colin Kaepernick, decided to kneel during the playing of the National Anthem during the 2016 season, his announced intention was to call attention to racial inequality in the United States, and its ugliest manifestations via excessive uses of deadly force by police against African Americans. (Photo: AP) Views
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
The Politics of Kneeling: A Tribute to Colin Kaepernick
I had long held the image of kneeling as primarily ritual behavior in placesof religious worship, a sign of reverence for the sacred and divine. More broadly, getting down on one’s knees is an expression of submission associated withformal meetings between those of unequal social rank—as when...
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"With respect to nuclear hazards, especially from the weaponry and their possible use, there is a growing disconnect between risk and behavior," writes Falk, "a combination of nuclearism prevailing among the political elites of the nuclear weapons states and public disregard. There is a greater appreciation of the dangers associated with nuclear energy." (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons) Views
Monday, May 25, 2020
Arms Control & Disarmament: A Failed Marriage
The ongoing pandemic makes us obsessively aware of the precariousness of life, and if from the U.S., the mendacious incompetence of our political leadership. Yet, it also makes most of us as obsessively complacent when the threats seem remote and abstract. This complacency with respect to...
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Geopolitical Crimes are ongoing and others are being initiated to reflect current realities. (Photo: CommonDreams) Views
Friday, July 26, 2019
Geopolitical Crimes: A Revolutionary Proposal
[ Prefatory Note : The essay below is a modified version of the 2018 Annual Lecture of the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) of Queen Mary’s University London, given on March 22 of that year. Its original title was “Geopolitical Crimes: A Preliminary Jurisprudential Proposal.” The text of...
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"By purporting to punish the Human Rights Council, the Trump presidency, representing the U.S. Government, is much more punishing itself, as well as the peoples of the world." (Photo: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images) Views
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
The U.S. Withdraws (Again) From the UN Human Rights Council
Explicitly focusing on alleged anti-Israel bias the U.S. withdrew from further participation in the UN Human Rights Council until it reforms itself in accord with the liking of the Trump Administration. The only internationally credible basis for criticizing the HRC is its regrettable tendency to...
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Monday, October 16, 2017
The Flawed and Corrupted Genius of American Republicanism
Trump as President makes us think as never before about viability of the American version of constitutional democracy, that is, the ‘republic’ that Ben Franklin promised the people at the time of Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. We often forget that Franklin replied to the question by...
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Wednesday, August 09, 2017
End of Nuclearism or the End of the World: Utopian Dreams, Dystopian Nightmares
We are living amid contradictions whether we like it or not, driving expectations about the future toward opposite extremes. Increasingly plausible are fears that the ‘sixth extinction’ will encompass the human species, or at least, throw human society back to a technology of sticks and stones,...
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Monday, May 22, 2017
Trumped Up Diplomacy in the Middle East
In his first overseas trip since moving into the White House, Donald Trump is leaving behind the frustrations, allegations, rumors, and an increasing sense of implosion that seems to be dooming his presidency during its second hundred days. At the same time, a mixture of curiosity and apprehension...
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Thursday, January 05, 2017
The Welcome Condemnation of Israeli Settlement Expansion
On December 23, 2016 the UN Security Council by a vote of 14-0 adopted Resolution 2334, notably with the United States abstaining, condemning Israeli settlement expansion. It was treated as big news in the West because the Obama presidency had finally in its last weeks in office refused to use its...
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