About Carly A. Krakow
Carly A. Krakow is a writer, journalist, scholar, professor, editor, and activist based in New York City and London, UK. Her journalism, political analyses, and research have appeared in Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, The Progressive, Opinio Juris, Jadaliyya, E-International Relations, openDemocracy, Truthout, Common Dreams, the peer-reviewed journal Water, and Passport: The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Review.
Her areas of expertise include environmental and climate justice, international law and human rights, the health impacts of toxins, and the rights of displaced and stateless people. Carly has written and spoken widely on her original concept of “toxic saturation,” focused on the long-term health and environmental consequences of forced exposure to toxins, including toxins used during the Iraq and Vietnam wars. Her work on “toxic saturation” also addresses the impacts of forced toxic exposure for communities living in sacrifice zones worldwide. She speaks widely about climate, environment, and human rights issues and recently spoke at COP28 in Dubai, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, for events hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO); the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA); the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); and more.
Carly is a faculty member at the NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She teaches an interdisciplinary course she has designed, Environmental Racism and Environmental Injustice: Rights, Citizenship, and Activism. She is completing her PhD in International Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in the School of Law. At LSE, she is a Judge Rosalyn Higgins Scholar and Modern Law Review Scholar. Carly was a 2022–23 Scholar in Residence at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law.
Carly hosts The Catch-Up with Carly A. Krakow, a video podcast focused on international current affairs. She is the Managing Editor for Special Projects and Environment Co-Editor at Jadaliyya, an online magazine specializing in the politics and culture of the Middle East. For Jadaliyya and the Arab Studies Institute (ASI), Carly has hosted and produced numerous broadcast and podcast programs.
Her fiction, humor, and poetry have been published in Across the Margin, The Daily Drunk, Potato Soup Journal, and Adelaide Literary Magazine. Her short story “Pitter-Patter” was named in Across the Margin’s “The Best of Fiction” collection.
Carly has extensive experience researching and reporting on international climate justice and negotiations, recently including at COP28 in Dubai, UAE; COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt; and at UN Headquarters in New York. Her human rights advocacy and research have also brought her to international justice and policy institutions in The Hague and Geneva. Her research has focused on the rights of displaced and Indigenous communities and the rights of people with disabilities. Over multiple periods of research in Palestine, she has investigated water access, exposure to toxins, and environmental justice projects in the West Bank. In South Africa, she analyzed the impacts of Cape Town’s water crisis on the city’s most marginalized communities. In Greece, she examined living conditions and access to healthcare for asylum-seekers and refugees.
Additionally, she has written about topics such as human rights at the US-Mexico border, the devastating effects of war in Yemen, and the damaging impacts of the climate crisis, pollution, and toxic poisoning in communities throughout the United States. Carly also writes about film, literature, and political theory.
Carly earned her MPhil in International Relations and Politics from the University of Cambridge, where she wrote a Distinction-awarded dissertation on the international law and politics of water access in the Middle East. She earned her BA summa cum laude with a concentration in Human Rights Law, Environmental Policy, and Comparative Literature from NYU. She received the NYU Gallatin School’s Richard J. Koppenaal Award, the School’s highest academic honor.