Abstract: Digital technologies have changed how victimization occurs. Abuse no longer requires physical proximity between a perpetrator and a victim. Child sexual abuse imagery can be copied and circulated indefinitely, impeding the ability of survivors to find closure and creating repeated trauma each time the material resurfaces. With children increasingly becoming active users of digital technologies, the intersections between sexual abuse and digital technologies have grown ever more complex. This article argues that international parties must move towards a more coherent, child-rights-centered governance framework with proper investment in prevention, including addressing social and economic vulnerabilities.
Abstract: In March 2025, a lengthy investigation by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Korea (TRCK) found that the South Korean state was complicit in human rights violations against children sent for international adoption. These findings laid bare long-practiced abuses of power in the adoption industry that have harmed multiple communities and stakeholders—original parents, adoptees, and adopters. South Korea has the longest continuous overseas adoption program in the world; as a result, adoptees from South Korea constitute the largest group of transnational adoptees from a single nation, both in the United States and worldwide. In light of the TRCK's findings and the significant Korean adoptee population in the United States, this paper argues that the U.S. government must take a more proactive approach to regulating transnational adoptions. Although the United States ratified the Hague Adoption Convention in 2007, numerous cases of industry abuse demonstrate the need for greater emphasis on protection and abuse prevention for all—especially birth families and adoptees, who are the most vulnerable to human rights violations under the current system.
Abstract: It has become a cliché that Dominicans are Black denialists, that they are ashamed of their blackness. Exploring the cultural historical origins of this truism, this essay argues that Dominican Black denialism is, in fact, part of a broader global history of anti-Blackness, that is, the product of a transnational and pan-Atlantic racial formation shaped by Iberian colonial hierarchies, U.S. imperial discourses of hegemonic Blackness, and the legacies of Trujillista nationalism that are deeply rooted in the Black Atlantic. Understanding this dynamic conveys significant policy implications: frameworks built on Dominican Black denialism hamper efforts to implement educational reforms, undermine cultural diplomacy, and limit the Dominican Republic's capacity to engage constructively in hemispheric conversations on race. By reframing Black denialism, this analysis also offers strategies for de-Trujilloizing the national imaginary via inclusive education reform and historical accountability.
Abstract: This paper examines South Korea's relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in light of North Korea's diversification of foreign relations, not least its alliance with Russia amidst the ongoing war in Ukraine. It argues that South Korea should strengthen its collaboration with NATO through a more issue-based and threat-specific approach that supplements, rather than replaces, its bilateral alliance with the United States. Specifically, the paper calls upon South Korea to prioritize engagement with NATO in three domains: sanctions enforcement, early warning mechanisms, and cooperation on cybersecurity and illicit financial flows.
Abstract: Global shifts in power have propelled the field of international relations toward greater diversity while also raising questions about how new forms of order take shape. This article argues that music plays a vital yet overlooked role in global reordering. Integrating insights from Global International Relations, a program of scholarship that sheds light on non-Western references, it proposes an approach that highlights music's ability to articulate identity, contest narratives, and imagine alternative political futures. Drawing on cases from emerging powers, small states, and Indigenous communities, this article shows how musical practices can act as a resource for diplomacy.
