King Abdullah should do more to transform his reforms - largely symbolic so fa­r - into institutional guarantees.

Nasra, a petite Somali woman wearing a navy blue hijab and long skirt, rocked her sleeping baby in her arms as she told me the story of how, two and a half weeks earlier, she had arrived here at Dadaab - the world's largest refugee camp - without her shoes. 

Kenyan police at the Somali border and in nearby refugee camps are abusing asylum seekers and refugees fleeing war-torn Somalia. Kenya should immediately rein in its abusive police, and the UN refugee agency should step up its monitoring of the situation and press for an end to the abuses.

Shot at and raped. Arrested and beaten. Detained and deported. Extorted and robbed. Threatened and insulted. Ignored and shunned. The treatment of hardened criminals in some far-flung police state? The fate of political opponents by a repressive regime? Not quite. For Somali refugees - 80% of them women and children - this is their welcome to Kenya.

The reforms contained within the Refugee Protection Act of 2010 will bring the United States closer to upholding its human rights obligations towards asylum seekers, refugees, and other vulnerable non-citizens held in US immigration detention facilities.

A Latina immigrant victim of sex trafficking gets locked up for months. A 40-year lawful resident is deported for shoplifting. Sounds like Arizona’s new immigration law – but it isn’t. Under current U.S. federal immigration law, cases like these happen every day.

The United Nations Security Council should immediately begin using measurable benchmarks to protect women caught in conflicts around the world and to ensure that women are included in peace negotiations, rather than delaying this step.

Driving through Port-au-Prince's Parc Jean Marie Vincent camp, the first thing I notice is how massive and congested it is. After that, the smell and the heat hit me. I had come to the camp to interview a young rape survivor, as part of a Human Rights Watch mission to Haiti to investigate sexual and other violence against women in the aftermath of the earthquake. Sexual violence often increases in emergencies, when normal structures have broken down and women struggle to meet basic needs for food, water, shelter and hygiene.