For over ten years, I have changed broken systems to make them work for the common good. And that's what makes me feel alive. I was born during a civil war and grew up in a country with a damaged economy. Learning about and harnessing policy opened my eyes to new ways to deliver change and fight for what I believe are the most pressing issues in our generation.

In 2017 I began working with Stanford alum Tom Steyer on building an effective climate justice policy plan that was community participatory. In 2018, I traveled through 48 US states and met with hundreds of investors, innovators, civic leaders, and climate activists. What I saw was scary. Rising sea levels depleted drinking water in southern Florida, displacing thousands. Fires scorched the West. Floods across the Midwest drowned crops, making farming harder and food scarcer. Increased maritime access to previously frozen Alaskan waters heightened foreign tensions and undermined our national security. This experience shifted my focus to climate justice. Along with other climate leaders, we built an investment platform that has been providing the expertise and capital necessary to scale vital and urgent climate solutions.

Climate change is more than a national, unilateral issue. It requires a collaborative international approach. In 2018, I started working with El Salvador's Vice President Felix Ulloa on a 35-year plan to tackle forced migration caused by climate change. That same year, along with the Minister of Labor, Rolando Castro, we began a pilot project to train Salvadorans in green and sustainable infrastructure. We drafted a plan to invest billions of dollars in renewable energy and create thousands of high-paying jobs. Even with the pandemic hitting our economy, El Salvador remains committed to our goal. It is set to become the second country in Central America, after Costa Rica, to achieve decarbonization and reach net-zero emissions by 2055. For so many years, El Salvador has been stigmatized in the region for the increasing number of gang-related violence. Still, I'm more than confident that we are set to become regional leaders in renewable energy and the transition to net zero.

Over the summer, I worked in the Executive Office of the President Nayib Bukele and Vice President Felix Ulloa of El Salvador. I advised principals on issues related to Central American integration, political communications, clean tech, and climate change, among others. I worked with the legislative branch to successfully pass a law allowing the introduction of electric vehicles and charging stations free of taxes. This law is one early step in the process of preparing the infrastructure for the next generation of transportation. The passage of this law proved to me that the government is ready and committed to joining the green revolution. My time in El Salvador helped demonstrate the impact that one Stanford graduate student can effect through policy.

This experience was possible with the support of the MIP team, funding through the MIP Summer Internship Stipend program, the Stanford family, and the Executive Office of the President and Vice President of El Salvador. I'm confident that this is just the beginning of a fundamental transformation that is urgent. The task of combatting global warming is monumental and complex. I am committed to climate justice and have joined the fight.

The United Nations kicks off the 10th Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) on Monday, gathering 191 treaty members in New York. It’s an NPT review that typically takes place every five years, though the pandemic pushed the date back two years.

Read more at The Washington Post.

Nearly every Latin American country opposed the U.S. war in Afghanistan in 2001. Most also opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Why is the region more divided on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine today? Despite the Latin American consensus opposing unilateral uses of force against weaker states, governments across the region have refused to impose sanctions on Russia to respond to its invasion of Ukraine. There are even some countries, like Brazil, whose diplomats in U.N. forums have condemned Russia while the executive ponders whether to help Vladimir Putin’s administration economically. Does Latin America solidly condemn interventions only when the United States is the intervener?

Read the rest at War on the Rocks

Abstract

Latin American foreign-policy elites defend the principle of non-intervention to shield their countries’ autonomy. By 2005, however, most Latin American foreign policy elites accepted the easing of limits on the use of force in international law. They supported the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), which regulates the use of force to protect populations from mass atrocities. The paper presents a comparison of the Brazilian, Chilean, and Mexican positions in the R2P debates to understand why they supported this norm. During the debates leading to the emergence of R2P, these elites questioned a central premise of liberal internationalism: the idea that great powers would restrain their use of military force as part of their commitment to a liberal international order (LIO). Using Republican international political theory, I argue that these Latin American foreign-policy elites viewed a restricted humanitarian-intervention norm as a new defence against great powers interfering in developing countries. Instead of trusting that great powers would restrain their actions, these elites advocated for a humanitarian-intervention norm that would prevent uncontrolled humanitarian interventions.

Read the rest at Cambridge Review of International Affairs