Ronan Farrow - Writings and Policy Positions

Writings and Policy Positions

Despite his own background within the UNO's humanitarian branches, Farrow has sharply and repeatedly criticized the UN's political bodies, including the predecessor to its Human Rights Council, which he called, in the Wall Street Journal, "a cancer on the United Nations". He supported, but expressed skepticism regarding the U.S. decision to join the UN Human Rights Council in early 2009.

Farrow was a vocal advocate for international military intervention in Darfur, where he worked with UNICEF in refugee camps. He authored a string of columns on the subject between 2004–07, interviewing U.N. Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno as early as 2006 on the need for troop contributions. He has written repeatedly on China's investments in the Horn of Africa, including a series of exposés on their alleged arming and funding of the Sudanese government's brutal offensive in Darfur. His writing on the subject, beginning with an August 2006 piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled "China's Crude Conscience", linked Beijing to the Darfur genocide and have been cited with helping to spark advocacy on the subject. He pressed for diplomatic pressure on China, criticizing the administration of George W. Bush's engagements with Beijing during the 2008 Olympics.

After working for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and accompanying a congressional delegation to Eritrea, Farrow authored an emphatic critique of Bush-era Ethiopia policy. Farrow highlighted atrocities allegedly committed by Ethiopian forces in the country's Ogaden desert and questioned what he described as a policy of "no strings attached" military support of the country. Ethiopia's consul general called the charges "misleading" and accused Farrow of "glamorizing insurgents".

Farrow publicly defended Obama's appointment of Harold Hongju Koh (a former teacher of his at Yale Law School) as State Department legal adviser, writing in Forbes that Koh had been the victim of a campaign of "preemptive discreditation" based on Koh's putative Supreme Court candidacy.