This morning, the Summer Institute began with a presentation by Jason Cross on health and human rights. Soon to be a PhD in cultural anthropology, Jason is also a lawyer (Duke Law) and a veteran activist with experience in Europe and Latin America. He described health as a “gateway” human right and perhaps one of [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Human Rights’
The story behind “Straight 18″ on child soldiers
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 [...]
Tipping point for sectarianism?
One of the most confusing things about Northern Ireland is the contrast between what people say they want and what is. For instance, a report was released yesterday asserting that 80 per cent of people polled in Northern Ireland would prefer to live in “mixed” neighborhoods: i.e. Protestants and Catholics together. Yet 90 percent of [...]
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, [...]
Bearing Witness
Yesterday, I was included in a panel with James Dawes, who teaches literature at Macalester College. This was at Elon College, hosted by Safia Swimelar, who is teaching a human rights class and helping her students put on a performance of Ariel Dorfman’s Speak Truth to Power. Dawes’ book, That the World May Know: Bearing [...]
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 [...]
Remembering Tiananmen
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBjPvV4yHfY&feature=fvst[/youtube]
Dismantling torture
Just as the second invasion of Iraq was a (not so) carefully coordinated campaign of half truths and whole lies, the justfication for torture is beginning to fall completely apart. Not that it wasn’t already an evident fabrication, but… Today’s New York Times reports that in late 2007 ABC’s Brian Ross interviewed a former CIA [...]
