Charli Carpenter comments on  U.S. President Joe Biden's executive order, issued in February 2022, releasing $7 billion in frozen, U.S.-held Afghan central bank reserves. It has been proposed to use half of the funds to pay reparations to the families of 9/11 victims.

Charli Carpenter writes: The role of government should be to make it easy for grassroots humanitarianism to take root and spread, not take advantage of volunteers as a way to duck its obligations under international law.

Charli Carpenter analyzes the possible fates of the Ukrainian POWs who surrendered at Mariupol. If they are put on trial, the Geneva Conventions will likely have little to do with it.

Charli Carpenter elaborates on three important reasons to believe that the systemic mass rape allegations in Ukraine are highly likely to be evaluated by U.N. war crimes investigators and prosecuted in war crimes courts.

Charli Carpenter argues that the Taliban should be isolated and shamed, and diplomatic recognition should be withheld until an inclusive government is in place. But in the meantime, the United States should do all in its power to protect and expand the human rights of women. Leading by example can be the most powerful form of advocacy.

Charli Carpenter writes that the White House has announced that the United States will open its doors to 100,000 refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine. But there are several enormous problems with this refugee relief plan—and the dysfunctional system now facing Ukrainians should be a wake-up call for the United States on its treatment of refugees in general.

Charli Carpenter argues that the way to protect civilians from war crimes during ongoing war is not merely to threaten punishment for crimes sometime in the future but to put a stop to them now. And in Putin's case, this stopping power can come only from military force, not solely from judges.

Airbnb's refugee-helping program has some advantages over the "ghost-booking" model. But it mitigates against the very sort of grassroots organizing that is currently running the engine of the relief effort for Ukrainian refugees. What is missing is a technological solution to bridge the gap between the two approaches argues Charli Carpenter.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, war refugees have been flooding across the country's western border into Poland, greeted by local Poles, international volunteers, and a few small NGOs operating in the country. How is this effort going three weeks into Europe's biggest refugee crisis since World War II? In Poland, Charli Carpenter asked these questions of journalists, aid workers, and Polish citizens.

Charli Carpenter explains why Ukraine's policy of enforcing the draft on men between the ages of 18 and 60, but not on women, is a violation of men's human rights and puts refugee women at greater risk. But more importantly for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, it is also counterproductive to his war aims in several key respects.