Yemen is no longer “on the brink” of catastrophe. Rather, it has already been pushed into the abyss and therein continues to fall. After four years of war, Yemen has suffered the destruction of its infrastructure, economy, social fabric, and much more. Yemenis are a nation traumatized by human loss and starvation. In the past year, photos of malnourished children…

Submitted by: Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis Third Cycle 32nd Session Human Rights Council January-February 2019 The Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies (Sana’a Center), Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic (the clinic), and the George Warren Brown School, Washington University, jointly submit this report to inform…

The Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic and Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies traveled to the UN to bring attention to the grave situation of mental health in Yemen, and to push for improvements in how the Government of Yemen and the international community respond to the mental health needs of Yemenis.

Even as economic and state collapse have propelled millions of Yemenis toward famine, the war economy that has developed over almost four years of conflict has also allowed a select cadre of individuals to become incredibly wealthy. These people – many of whom hold the highest positions of authority on either side of the frontlines, and indeed often cooperate with…

Representatives from Yemen’s warring parties sat at a negotiating table for the first time in more than two years at the beginning of December. The peace consultations – which took place in Sweden and were mediated by the United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths – followed international pressure for a ceasefire that began in October and intensified through…

Since August 2018, the Yemeni Congregation for Reform, otherwise known as the Islah party, has taken major steps towards consolidating political and military power in Taiz City. Islah officially supports the internationally recognized Yemeni government of President Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi; however, the party’s increasing capacity to act independently in Taiz represents a further erosion of the state’s purview within areas the government supposedly controls. Islah’s rise in Taiz, if solidified, is likely to complicate United Nations-led efforts to secure…

In October, the United Nations warned that Yemen could become the worst famine the world has seen in a century, with some 14 million people – half the population – facing starvation. This crisis is primarily due to the collapsing value of the Yemeni rial: Yemen is overwhelmingly dependent on imports to feed itself and the rial’s depreciation has thus…

Corruption, or the abuse of power for private gain, is deeply entrenched in the Yemeni political economy. For decades Yemen has witnessed state capture, with political leaders at the highest level extracting rents from state institutions to benefit a select few. Administrative corruption, too, has been commonplace in Yemen: low-level bribery and favoritism have become a part of everyday life. There is arguably a cultural acceptance — even an expectation — of corruption in politics and business, as informal networks…

Corruption, or the abuse of power for private gain, has been deeply entrenched in the Yemeni political economy for decades. Over the course of the ongoing conflict, however, as the war has fragmented and regionalized the country, state capture in Yemen has become far more complex. In the war economy, patronage networks are now emerging among previously marginal or unknown…