Duke University’s Summer Institute on Human Rights was lucky enough to have Jo Becker speak today, about how she approaches advocacy and teaching. A long-time veteran of Human Rights Watch, she heads the Children’s Rights Division and is writing a book that collects stories of how advocates work for human rights around the world. She [...]
Posts under ‘Duke Human Rights Center’
Wild Belfast
In a recent issue of The Nation, Ari Kelman writes about the quickening pace of extinction. Kelman writes that when Thomas Jefferson wrote his encyclopedic Notes on the State of Virginia, he believed that extinction was biologically impossible. Since God made the world, he thought, he would not let his creations vanish. There was no [...]
“Recreational rioting” in West Belfast
One of the most interesting phrases we learned about the conflict in West Belfast is “recreational rioting.” Daniel, who lives on the (Nationalist) Falls, is part of a mobile phone network that acts as rapid response to any trouble. If a neighbor reports stones thrown from the Shankill (Unionist) side, he’ll call his Unionist counterpart, [...]
Can human rights trials improve mental health?
Today, we hosted Dr. Jeffrey Sonis from UNC-Chapel Hill. He’s been studying the international human rights trials in Cambodia, to see if trials produce measurable effects on the mental health of victims who suffer from trauma (or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, according to the lingo). This was an event cosponsored with the Duke Global Health [...]
Clinton in China
from today’s USA Today: Before her visit to China, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton removed the issue of human rights from the table, saying it could “interfere” with talks on the global economic crisis, climate change and security. She missed a critical point. Human rights aren’t a side dish on a crowded buffet. Human rights [...]
Preserving a human rights history
An effort at Duke I’m really proud of is the Archive for Human Rights, run by Patrick Stawski. We’re collecting the institutional papers of (primarily) US-based human rights groups. We;re also looking for private collections, like the one held by Coletta Youngers, for many years (and counting) a human rights advocate on the Andes, in [...]
George Washington Williams
I’ve been slow in posting the iTunes videos of the Duke Human Rights Center events. This is a great one, featuring noted historian John Hope Franklin talking with CUNY scholar Lea Wernick Fridman about African-American politician, historian and journalist George Washington Williams. Williams had a fascinating, complicated life. A Civil War veteran, he fought with [...]
The New Germans
Christina Cowger, Maher Arar and Steve Watt Originally uploaded by FabiolaPal On September 26, the Duke Human Rights Center sponsored an event called “Unheard Voices in the ‘war on terror,’” featuring Canadian Maher Arar (seen on live video from the University of Ottawa, left) who was subjected to extraordinary rendition in 2002. To summarize, Arar [...]
