Martha Mundy

Martha Mundy is a professor emerita of anthropology at the London School of Economics. She began her research career in northern Yemen (1973-77), then taught in Jordan, Lebanon, France, the United States, and the United Kingdom. In 2011-12, she returned to Yemen to work with agronomists on agrarian transformation. Since the start of the war in 2015, she has examined the impact of policy and war on Yemen’s rural society and food systems, including authoring the report “The Strategies of the Coalition in the Yemen War” (World Peace Foundation, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, 2018). She is a contributor to the Observatory.

September 30, 2026

Columns/Geopolitics

Inside the United Nations Tunnel

This month, like every year, the United Nations General Assembly takes place. Heads of State take the floor to send messages to the world. These messages are broadcast on TV, transcribed, and

Columns/Human Rights

The Greater Isolation of Lesser Israel

When Benjamin Netanyahu rose to address the United Nations General Assembly on September 24, the rows of empty seats spoke before he did. Diplomats walked out, while others stayed away from the outset. News reports citing an Israeli tally put

September 30, 2026

What Sri Lanka’s Easter Judgment Finally Reveals

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka’s September 22, 2026 Easter Sunday judgment marks a decisive legal reckoning with one of the country’s deadliest terrorist attacks, convicting 15 of

Exclusive: Inside Sri Lanka’s Easter Plot — Read the Full TAB Judgment

Geopolitics/Human Rights/Judiciary

The 22 September 2026 Trial-at-Bar judgment provides a detailed account of the alleged network behind Sri Lanka’s 2019 Easter Sunday attacks, tracing the prosecution’s

Yemen’s Socotra Archipelago: The UAE’s Occupation and Destruction of a World Heritage Site

November 29, 2023

History

Environmental destruction entails two intertwined processes: climate change and the destruction of biodiversity, which mutually reinforce each other. Both are human-caused. Climate change is not the lead driver of biodiversity loss; it is

Why the United Arab Emirates Is a Poor Choice for a Global Climate Summit

November 23, 2023

Columns

It is no joke; the man who will preside over the upcoming climate summit, COP28 (which will take place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), from November 30 to December 12), is the chief oil