In the spring of 2012, a group of Columbia undergraduate students took part in the Alternative Spring Break Program for Columbians Vested in Global Exchange for Positive Development. The GEQUA  program offered students the opportunity to engage in a local gender equality project with Fundación Brethern y Unida, one of the oldest NGOs in Ecuador, which focuses on educating youth about sustainable development and the environment.

ISHR helped support select undergraduate students to participate in this program. Below, two of these students, Jessica Eaton and Christian Hubbard, reflect on their experience, and consider how their time in the field has altered their understanding of human rights and the environment.

Indigenous Rights, Women’s Rights and Organic Farming: Lessons learned in the back of a pick-up truck

By Christian Hubbard

Prior to going to Ecuador, if you would have asked me what corn and human rights have to do with each other, I definitely would have said nothing. But after my stay in Ecuador I now have a better understanding of how the treatment of the environment has a direct impact on human rights.

A field of Choclo, a locally grown variant of corn

We stayed with La Fundación Brethen y Unida on their Hacienda in the small, rural town of Picalquí, Ecuador. We performed many tasks in their agricultural sector that ranged from collecting Choclo for later meals, to preparing plant beds for future crops – all the while meeting local leaders and discussing topics pertaining to indigenous and women’s rights.

My goal for the trip was to learn more about the day-to-day concerns of the average person in each area we visited, so I introduced myself and started chatting to some people in the back of the truck. I was expecting to discuss general information about people’s families, maybe their opinion of president Correa. But I heard stories that I didn’t expect to hear as well. One person in the truck talked about working on one of the various flower plantations, known as Floriculas, like many others in this region. The companies that own the plantations often make their workers perform difficult labor for long hours for a low income that is not equal to their labor. The companies also use chemicals to grow the flowers, which are dangerous for humans and often cause the workers a great deal of health problems after a few years. In some cases, these health problems caused the deaths of relatively young and previously healthy people. This person got sick after working on the Floricula for a while, and had to leave the plantation due to poor health. Hearing this story not only put a human face on the problem, but made it personal to me

Christian finds a mural at a local grammar school in Picalquí that says “Study, Work and Love your Environment”

Intersectionality in Ecuador 

By Jessica Eaton

The goal of our alternative spring break trip to Ecuador was to promote women’s rights and gender equality, and to learn simultaneously from local Ecuadorian women about their perspective on rights and equality in this realm, and to initiate a continuous and sustainable dialogue.

The trip was organized under a responsible and sustainable service model, so were required to lead pre-departure planning meetings to ensure that our trip was as successful and productive as possible. This effort was in part to prepare us for the distant and unfamiliar environment in which we would spend two weeks living, learning, and working. During these meetings, discussions covered topics ranging from Ecuadorian politics to urban poverty, from creative fundraising techniques to the South American economic situation.

Jessica (far right) with the GEQUA team

With two months of planning and preparation, we were confident that we would be able to approach the challenges on the ground in a knowledgeable and mature manner. We believed we had the tools to tackle these complex topics of gender dynamics and the ability to facilitate creative and valuable conversations. However, we could not have anticipated the remarkably interconnected nature of the issues we were confronted with.

We realized in the first few days what we had not understood in two months of preparation, that gender roles and women’s rights in Ecuador are intricately and inextricably connected to the land, agriculture, indigenous rights, conflict, political climate, and the economy. It became clear that it was impossible and unproductive to consider the topic of women and gender without thinking about topics like minority rights and rural agricultural practices.

After a few personal interactions with the Ecuadorian women, it was obvious that we would need to take a more holistic approach to the topic of rights, and that we needed to see issues in context with each other. Successes and failures in one area could provide crucial insight into dealing with others, and in order to be effective in our work we needed to bare the interconnected nature of these topics in mind.

This realization made me really appreciate the value of travel. That living an issue can teach you lessons and make connections that no amount of research can replace. My experience in Ecuador exposed me to the importance of intersectionality of rights and how essential it is to supplement theory with practice, research with travel, and planning with real conversations if we want to truly understand foreign issues in foreign places.

To lean more about the work of FBU, check out this clip:

An interview with conveners of the American Coalition for the ICC (AMICC), John Washburn and Matthew Heaphy

As the final salvos of the KONY 2012 debate began to retreat from Facebook and Twitter newsfeeds, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has finally announced its first-ever conviction. On March 14^th 2012, judges in The Hague found Thomas Lubanga Dylio, 51, guilty “beyond reasonable doubt” of committing crimes of conscription, enlistment and use of children to participate in hostilities under the Rome Statute Article 8.2 (b).

Thomas Lubanga on trial at the International Criminal Court. © Ed Oudenaarden/AFP/Getty Images

Lubanga was a major figure in the Second Congo War (1998-2003) and the Ituri conflict (1999-2003) that saw Lubanga’s Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) participate in murder, torture and rape on a massive scale. Ituri is a fertile region in North-East DRC rich in gold, diamonds, and oil and was often referred to as the bloodiest corner of the DRC—as the longstanding local dispute between the Hema pastoralists (Lubanga’s tribe) and rival Lendu agriculturalists was exploited by regional actors.

The Lubanga case is a watershed moment for the ICC. The chamber disagreed with defense claims that Lubanga, as UPC president, had no direct involvement in child conscription and instead reaffirmed his superior responsibility; citing forensic evidence, such as a video footage of Lubanga exhorting a group of child soldiers, and relying on witness testimony that Lubanga had a personal guard of child soldiers.  Lubanga has 30 days  from the release of the French version of the judgment to appeal the verdict.

The debate surrounding the ICC, and the Lubanga conviction specifically, is manifold. ICC advocates emphasize the narrowing impunity gap and the potential deterrence affects on future mass atrocities. Géraldine Mattioli-Zeltner of Human Rights Watch observes, “military commanders in Congo and elsewhere should take notice of the ICC’s powerful message: using children as a weapon of war is a serious crime that can lead to the dock.”

Antony Njuguna, Reuters, Files

However other human rights groups have sharply criticized the ICC Prosecutor Louis-Moreno Ocampo for his case-selection strategy and allegedly myopic prosecutorial approach—reducing the vast array of crimes committed by Lubanga to charges of child recruitment. Ocampo has also been criticized for, at least initially, breaching Lubanga’s fair trial rights by refusing to release potentially exculpatory evidence. More generally, critics also charge that the ICC is expensive, with an overall expenditure of $900 million, but only this one result since its inception in 2002.

Below I chat with John Washburn and Matthew Heaphy, Convener and Deputy Convener of AMICC, about the Lubanga conviction. AMICC is a coalition of non-governmental organizations that works to raise US domestic support for the ICC, and is a program of the ISHR.

1) A major criticism of the Lubanga trial is the narrow scope of charges the accused was charged with. What are the major benefits of this prosecutorial strategy? Drawbacks?

MH: One of the major benefits of this strategy is, on one level, special attention given to this crime—which has not been a consistent focus of international attention. Particularly, the plight of children in armed conflict. In this case, the Prosecutor embraced the opportunity to bring attention to this serious crime and to have a simple case to establish substantive jurisprudence and case law.

This case also helps clarify and define what it means to be someone who is accused of committing this crime. It also defines what it means to be a victim of child conscription—that enlistment first begins when the child is brought into the ranks of the militia and doesn’t end until they turn fifteen, when the conflict ends, they are released or when the child soldier is demobilized. This jurisprudence will certainly be elaborated on and cited in future child soldier cases that are expected to come before the Court.

As far as the narrow list of charges, in an ideal world individuals are made to answer for the crimes that they allegedly commit. The reality the Prosecutor faces is that he or she needs to go to trial with the evidence available. The evidence at hand and available at the time of Lubanga’s arrest presented an overwhelmingly strong case against Lubanga for the conscription and use of child soldiers. However, the Prosecutor has also shown a willingness in an upcoming case against Lubanga’s co-accused—who is still at large, Bosco Ntaganda—to substantially expand the list of charges.

 JW: It is also noteworthy that the child soldier charges are broader than they first appear: they involve abuse of the child soldiers, boys and girls, including sex slaves, torture, and inhumane treatment.

2) Approximately 123 victims participated in the Lubanga trial on their own behalf. How did this work in practice during Lubanga’s hearing?

JW: Victim participation gives judges a larger sense of the context—it’s very helpful for judges that are not part of the culture or specific situation to understand the larger picture surrounding the conflict. The Court also noted that people did crowd in areas where they were televising the video and that the audience identified with the victims.

 MH: One of the novel challenges facing the Court was the participation of victims—something that has never happened at this level in an international tribunal. Here, we have victims filing applications directly with the Court or legal representatives—not being called as witnesses by either the Prosecutor or the defense, but to represent only themselves and to have the opportunity to participate on their own.

We don’t know how many victims the Court can handle, but there are going to be efforts to ensure that victims’ participation remains meaningful and does not slow down a process that is complicated and perceived by many as being already too slow.

3) Are there potentially negative implications on the legacy of the Lubanga conviction given “right to fair trial” concerns?

MH: The Rome Statute requires that the Prosecutor hand over potentially exculpatory evidence to the defense. However, the Prosecutor was concerned about protecting the confidentiality of individuals and victims whose identities would be released. Upon an order from the Trial Chamber, the Prosecutor negotiated with sources to permit the judges to review the evidence to determine if it was indeed exculpatory—and thus had to be shown to Lubanga’s defense. The result was favorable to everyone; some sensitive evidence remained confidential and fair trial rights were upheld.

 JW: This procedural jurisprudence was an enormous boost to the credibility and standing of the Court. The judges were prepared to place extreme pressure on the Prosecutor to comply. The Trial Chamber should, and did, instruct the Prosecutor to do what due process rights demand and what the rights of the accused require.

4) How do you see the Lubanga verdict influencing/complementing the efforts of AMICC to increase support for the ICC in the United States?

JW: Even if we have changes due to the appeal process, this was a successful case. The verdict was solid and extensive; well-reasoned and well-written. For starters, the document is a consensus document—remarkable in a situation as complicated as the Lubanga case. Therefore, the ruling will help convince people that the Court is fair, professional, and meets our very own standards of due process.

MH: The support of the Court in the U.S. is broad but shallow. When people learn about what the ICC does, they tend to express support but don’t necessarily know the details of how the Court works or what cases are before it. Now that we have a conviction—this will help to change that. Lastly, it is positive that the Court is ready and able to proceed with the next batch of trials—this shows that there are continuing efforts to try individuals for the most serious crimes and that the ICC has a life following the Lubanga conviction.

5) Moving forward, what are the other lessons learned from the ICC’s first-ever conviction?

 JW: It was also very clear that the reason that the trial was as good as it was, and as compelling as it was, was Lubanga’s committed and resourceful defense. This was a defense that was aware, even vigilant, with regards to protecting the rights of the accused. These are outcomes you get only in an effective adversarial proceeding.

MH: The ICC is a young, maturing institution. A lot of the headlines discuss the millions of dollars spent and the fact the there is only one verdict. However, it’s important to recall that in addition to conducting these trials, the world is building an international organization from scratch and building an institution that will be more and more effective at investigating and prosecuting atrocity crimes in the future. And so I like to think that while there was some slowness, the institution will continue to learn and improve if ICC States Parties continue to invest political and financial capital in it.

For further information about the AMICC’s work on the Lubanga verdict, see their recent papers:

• http://www.amicc.or/docs/Lubanga_Verdict_Background_Paper.pdf
• http://www.amicc.org/docs/Lubanga_Verdict_Talking_Points.pdf

And for readers on Columbia campus next week, be sure to see this ISHR/ AMICC event with US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice, Stephen J. Rapp. http://www.amicc.org/docs/Rapp_April_19.pdf

 Derek M. Welski is a M.A. candidate in the Human Rights Studies program at ISHR. Derek’s focus is on international criminology and jurisprudence arising from International Criminal Tribunals.

Jason Russell being interviewed on E News on March 8th.

If you have a Twitter or Facebook account, you’ve probably watched Kony 2012. This 29-minute film has more than 65 million hits on YouTube. Invisible Children (IC) co-founder, Jason Russell, directed and narrated the super-viral film that campaigns against Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a militant group that began in Uganda over two decades ago, and a wanted war criminal responsible for the death and abduction of as many as 30,000 children.

Russell asks viewers to join IC’s campaign to capture Kony after describing his friendship with one of Kony’s victims, Jacob, and then sharing a compelling narrative about the promise he made to Jacob – “we’re going to stop them.”

In less than a week, the film has created an uproar. Many criticize the film for misrepresenting the LRA’s part in two decades worth of complex regional wars in East and Central Africa. Others praise the film as a social media superstar. Whether or not IC’s campaign can overcome the criticism, Kony 2012 is sure to provide a lasting lesson in the power and limits of social media activism.

How did Kony 2012 go viral so quickly?
The campaign was extremely savvy in its use of various social media platforms to circulate Kony 2012. The film intentionally targets the younger generation through its simplistic narrative, upbeat music and powerfully edited visuals. The film evoked an emotive response, motivating viewers to “share” it via twitter or facebook.

The targeting of the twenty culture-makers helped this film spread like wildfire. Oprah, Katie Couric, Bill Gates, Justin Bieber and other high profile celebrities have tweeted their support to the Kony 2012 campaign, creating more publicity for the film.  The video accumulated nearly 7 million views on Vimeo within 16 days and the YouTube upload received over 43 million views in the span of 72 hours.

The backlash
The successful spread of Kony 2012 resulted in an explosion of conversations in the blogosphere about the credibility of the film. While everyone agrees that the Joseph Kony story is both horrific and tragic – critics argue the issues in Uganda are much more complex than the video made out.

The film was posted on Monday and by Wednesday there was so much criticism from the media that Invisible Children posted a response to the many questions about the film and the organization.

Potential consequences for human rights
The debates around the Kony 2012 video campaign cover a number of issues, from its clever marketing strategy via social media, to criticisms of the oversimplified narratives in the video, and even Invisible Children’s questionable finances. From a human rights perspective, the debate about whether or not this video is “a good thing” centers around the following questions:

1) Does the video campaign help those directly affected by the LRA because it brings awareness to the issue, despite some oversimplification and misinformation?
Despite factual errors and misrepresentations in the video, some analysts believe that overall the awareness generated is a positive outcome. In their article in The New York Times, Josh Kron and J. David Goodman make the point that the campaign “could help add to the international resolve to stop the killing.” They quote from an interview with Pernille Ironside of UNICEF, who feels the video campaign is “ultimately a good thing.”

News of the video’s success even managed to reach the UN Headquarters, wherea press release was issued on Friday, March 9, where Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe “expressed appreciation for the awareness-raising potential of a video about the LRA.”

At the same time, other commentators have questioned who actually benefits from this “awareness”?

2) Is the video campaign misguided because it focuses the attention on Kony and distracts from other issues that are more urgent for most Ugandans?
Many commentators argue the video is outdated, and that other concerns are more salient to Ugandans at the moment than the ongoing conflict with Joseph Kony.  As Dayo Olopade remarks in the Global Opinion section of the International Herald Tribune,

Victims of Nodding Disease in Uganda, this mysterious disease is spreading amongst children and adolescents in Uganda

“Ordinary Ugandans are worrying about other things….And if it’s Ugandan children in peril you’re looking for, there are those suffering from “nodding disease” — an unusual neurological disease that’s killed hundreds of children in the very region Kony once terrorized.”  She argues that the Kony 2012 video is a distraction from these more pressing issues.

3) Does the level of misinformation and misrepresentation actually make the situation worse for those directly affected by the LRA, and if so, how?
Many Ugandan journalists and activists  have expressed discontent with the video because of how it misrepresents the current state of Uganda, and its use of problematic, if unintended, cultural stereotypes to depict the situation. From a human rights perspective, though, does the video have the potential to cause harm beyond reinforcing simplistic stereotypes?

In The New York Times article mentioned earlier, the authors point out how activism in conflict zones can have significant and negative effects on the ground. The authors refer to activism around the crisis in Darfur, which gave the conflict an international profile, but, “the one-sided way activists painted the conflict — highlighting the Sudanese government’s crimes against villagers while largely ignoring the atrocities committed by rebels — ultimately made it harder to negotiate an end to the crisis.”

In the context of Uganda, many have argued that the decision by the International Criminal Court to indict Kony in 2005 actually made it more difficult for Ugandans to negotiate a peace settlement with the LRA. So an oversimplified advocacy campaign of “Stop Kony” could easily raise red flags for local activists.

This is image is from April 20, 2011. It shows U.S. Army soldiers meeting with the Uganda People's Defence Force"(AP Photo/Stephen Wandera, File)

Additionally, the video calls for the U.S. government to continue its support of the Ugandan military. However, the Ugandan military has a very murky record when it comes to human rights abuses, and some locals in the Central African Republic (one of the countries where the LRA is now present) do not support the Ugandan military, backed by U.S. advisers.

Outside military intervention in Uganda, as well as in the surrounding countries where the LRA now operates, may not be the simple solution that the video leads us to believe.  Many are worried about potentially harmful policy decisions that may come as a result of this advocacy.

Keeping the conversation going
The Kony 2012 campaign raises an important question: What does “increasing awareness” mean if the source of this awareness is a video that oversimplifies and misrepresents the situation in East and Central Africa? Balancing impact, emotion and nuance have always been challenges for human rights advocates. Rather than allowing the video to get buried in the controversies surrounding it, how can we build on these many reactions and learn about how best to leverage social media and public opinion through producing effective – but nuanced – advocacy campaigns?

Leave us your views in the comments below!

Further links outlining the lessons other human rights professionals are taking from the campaign:

• A great piece from the Securing Rights Blog: Let’s talk about Kony
• From Charlie Beckett, founding director of POLIS, the journalism and society think-tank at the LSE’s Media and Communications Department: Why I think the Kony Campaign is wrong
• A call for An Online Advocacy Code of Ethics from MobileActive’s Co-founder Katrin Verclas

By Jillian Carson. Jillian is a Human Rights Masters Student at Columbia University. Her Masters program concentrates on Indigenous Rights, more specifically the right to education for First Nations in Canada and reconciliation processes in settler colonial nations. Jillian is also involved in disability rights in education research and advocacy in New York City.

Rights violations and struggles in developed countries are regularly overlooked as human rights issues. In Canada, human rights claims are consistently re-framed as purely political or constitutional in nature, denying the violation of rights at home that would be openly criticized abroad. In response to the growing influence of human rights abroad, First Nations youth in Canada are becoming increasingly aware of the language and mechanisms of the human rights system and how this international body of rights affects their lives at home. First Nations youth have been especially active in raising awareness about education rights and the rights of the child.

In June of this year, young First Nations students, and non-Native Canadian youth from Quebec launched a report aimed at bringing attention to the lack of culturally based, equitable education for First Nations students in Canada. The report will be submitted to the Committee on the Rights of the Child along with Canada’s periodic review as a state party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This report is indicative of a growing awareness of human rights among youth.

Shannen’s Dream

The initiative began with First Nations education youth activist Shannen Koostachin, a student from the Attawapiskat First Nation in northern Ontario and founder of the Shannen’s Dream campaign.  In 2008, fed up with the deplorable conditions of her school at Attawapiskat, Shannen helped organize the Attawapiskat School Campaign which raised awareness among Native and non-Native youth about the condition of the school on her reserve. She convened a group of students from Attawapiskat First Nation and Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation called the ‘Dream Team’, who have helped this campaign grow to include children across Canada forced to learn in uninhabitable, underfunded and unsafe schools.

Chelsea Edwards, spokesperson for Shannen’s Dream commented that, “Shannen’s Dream is now the biggest movement for children by children in Canadian history, to ensure that equitable funding, proper resources and facilities are accessible to children, right where they are.”

Sadly, Shannen was killed in a car accident in May 2010 at age 15, but her message has reached youth across Canada. Students in Quebec, supported by the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada and the Office of the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth, have kept Shannen’s dream alive and endeavor to send her message to the United Nations.

View the clip below to learn more about Shannen and the issues she was fighting for:

Taking a dream to the United Nations

Released in June, “Our Dreams Matter Too” is an alternate report by to the Committee on the Rights of the Child on the occasion of Canada’s periodic review. Canada ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in December of 1991. The Convention recognizes the equality of all human beings and protects against all forms of discrimination. Beyond these human rights principles, Article 3.3 ensures that institutions, services and facilities be responsible for the care and protection of children. It requires competent standards be set for health, safety, building capacity and supervision. Even more specific to the cause of First Nations in Canada, Article 28 and 29 protect the human right to education based on equality, accessibility, safety and respect for languages, cultural identity and human rights.

The Auditor General of Canada has repeatedly called for equity and improvement in education and education policy but the government’s response remains piecemeal and inadequate. In their report, First Nations youth appeal to the United Nations saying, “As children and youth, we continue to write letters to the Government but nothing changes. The discrimination and denial of our rights continues”.

Some of the policy and funding deficiencies highlighted by this report include the fact that First Nations children receive $2000 – $3000 less per child than a student at a provincial school and receive little or no funding for things like books, teachers and other essential equipment and personnel at their schools.

Executive Director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, Cindy Blackstock explains, “First Nations and non-Aboriginal children are taking action creating the largest child lead reconciliation movement in Canada that puts culturally based equity at the center.” Not only are children understanding the discrimination present in current education funding and policy; with inspiration from Shannen and their peers they are taking real action to bring attention to their rights, the rights of people across Canada and the importance of human rights awareness at home.

Welcome to RightsViews, the first interactive blogging forum for the human rights community at Columbia University. This blog is an initiative of graduate students at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights, but is a space for all Columbia faculty and students to share, discuss and debate human rights issues.

We hope to create an interesting and interactive online environment, covering campus events, research by students and scholars, and opinion pieces on a range of rights-related issues.

We hope you enjoy our first blog entry, an interview with filmmaker Pamela Yates by Jen Wilmore. Jen is a SIPA Human Rights student and active member of the Human Rights Working Group on campus. Please feel free to comment on this and future posts, and get the conversation started!