By Kelly Dudine, a staff writer at RightsViews and a graduate student in the Human Rights MA Program
Over the decades, China has implemented aggressive and tailored plans to catalyze economic development across its vast regions. Driven in part by a desire to modernize industries and join a growing global marketplace, these plans led to periods of rapid growth and prosperity, while simultaneously straining local communities and exacerbating inequalities. Today, poverty in China’s ethnically diverse West is still prevalent.
During a virtual lecture held earlier this month, author Pat Giersch discussed his new book, Corporate Conquests: Business, the State, and the Origins of Ethnic Inequality in Southwest China, which examines how corporations, combined with top-down policies geared toward modernization and state-building, marginalized local and ethnic minorities in the West, creating unequal access to growth and prosperity.
Giersch’s story begins with the emergence of early-twentieth-century corporations, which enabled business to maintain a central hub of power while also expanding throughout the Southwest, reaching into...
By Noah Smith, RightsViews staff writer and graduate student in the Human Rights Studies program at Columbia University
On October 28, Climate Refugees and the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University brought together experts in environmental racism, indigenous rights, climate science and racial justice to discuss the two fundamental issues of our time: race and climate change. The panelists offered their expert opinions on the intersectional relationship between race and climate change and discussed solutions to mitigate these issues moving forward.
The climate crisis has disproportionately impacted marginalized populations, many of whom may be displaced or forced to migrate, because of years of unequal access to opportunities and gaps in human rights. Panelist Dr. Ingrid Waldron, a noted sociologist, has coined this disproportionate impact as ‘Environmental Racism’ which she defined as ‘‘a disproportionate location and exposure for indigenous, racialized communities and poor white communities to contamination from polluting industries and other environmentally hazardous activities.’’
The panel further articulated the...
By Lindsey Alpaugh, staff writer for RightsViews and graduate student in the Human Rights MA Program
On October 13th, the Institute for the Study of Human Rights hosted its first Alumni Speaker Series event with Barbara Matias. A graduate of the Institute’s MA in Human Rights Studies, Matias has had a diverse career that spanned over many countries, as well as different missions. Some of her most recent work has included her new position working for the European Union on Belarus, as well as a Programme Officer to the training mission in Iraq and the Euro-Atlantic Disaster Relief Crisis Center’s Team Lead on NATO-EU coordination.
Speaking from experience, Matias advised job seekers that “stability comes later” in the field of human rights, and that they should not be discouraged by the frequency with which they may switch jobs. She also admitted that there were moments where she doubted her choice of working in the public sector, but ultimately realized that she was...
By Susanne Prochazka, staff writer for RightsViews and a graduate student in the Human Rights MA Program.
Ethereal, smoky, crimson-red droplets drift across the screen as the next speaker is introduced during the online launch of the Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies on October 8th. Jen Lewis’ “Beauty in Blood” art introduces each new speaker, emphasizing the stark red color of menstrual blood and reinforcing the artist’s goal of breaking the stigma surrounding menstruation.
The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies is the first of its kind, an open access handbook containing a multidisciplinary collection of works drawn from the field of Critical Menstruation Studies. Content in The Handbook comes from a variety of genres, from multimedia art to public health, proving that menstruation is both a rich and varied field of study, as well as a vital component of health and human rights studies. Following opening comments from the editors, including Inga T. Winkler, lecturer for ISHR and Director of...
Exploring Careers in Human Rights: ISHR’s 2020 Human Rights Career Panel
By Rowena Kosher, Co-Editor of RightsViews
In the midst of the global pandemic of COVID-19, orders of social distancing and indoor sheltering in place, students and panelists tuned in virtually for ISHR’s annual career panel last week, meeting through screens to discuss what the multiplicity of careers in the human rights field can look like. Gergana Halpern, ISHR’s Director of Educational Programming, moderated the panel.
The Panelists - What Do You Do?
Halpern began the session by asking each of the four panelists to introduce themselves, their current work, and what their job entails.
Louis Bickford is the CEO and founder of Memria, an online platform for the collection and sharing of stories through audio and text, and an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at ISHR. He has 20 years of experience in the human rights field and as such has worked in a variety of capacities, including in truth commissions, testimonial collection, academia,...
By James Courtright, Staff Writer for RightsViews
On January 30th Dr. Jana Krause came to speak with students and faculty at Columbia’s School for International and Public Affairs about her new book, “Resilient Communities: Non-Violence and Civilian Agency in Communal War.” Her work centers on communal conflict - non-state armed conflict between identity groups - in Plateau state in Nigeria and Maluku province in Indonesia. In both places the violence tended to be simplistically referred to as Christian against Muslim, but upon further investigation she found it was deeply rooted in local political and economic dynamics and narratives. After explaining how communal violence was organized, she then delved into neighborhoods in Nigeria and Indonesia where violence did not occur, analyzing how the choices of civilians and their collective efforts to prevent fighting saved the lives of hundreds of people.
Conflict in Jos
When she first visited Jos, Nigeria in 2010, Dr. Krause had to pass through multiple checkpoints along the road from the...
By: Jalileh Garcia, Staff Writer for Rights Views
Every year in the month of December, the Historical Dialogues, Justice, and Memory Network holds a conference where scholars and practitioners share their scholarship and experiences in the field of historical dialogue.
This year’s theme was “Prevention Activism: Advancing Historical Dialogue in Post-Conflict Settings.” The event’s theme sought to understand how to address and redress the violent past in order to prevent ethnic and political conflicts in the future. The conference took place December 12-14 at Columbia University.
On Saturday, December 14, Mark Wolfgram from the University of Ottawa opened the event “Uses of History in Genocide Prevention II” by stating that the panelists would speak about their experiences and expertise in different countries and on distinct thematic issues that addressed how to ensure non-recurrence of genocides and mass atrocities through prevention activism, or the effort to record, acknowledge, address and redress the violent past.
Ilya Nuzov, the Eastern Europe and Central Asia Desk Director at...
By: Kyoko Thompson, staff writer at RightsViews
“A commission is coming from Saudi Arabia tomorrow; they have something to do in the Consulate. They will have something to do on my floor in the office.” - October 1 2018, 21:48
At 1:15 PM on Tuesday, October 2, 2018, Washington Post contributor and longtime journalist Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, and was never seen again. His death was not the first of its kind. According to the United Nations, more than one thousand journalists have been murdered since 2006. Yet it drew international attention from governments and individuals alike, many of whom demanded justice. The events that followed challenged the limits of international law and U.S. foreign policy. One year later, an investigation yields more questions than answers, such as: What does justice for Khashoggi look like? Is his death a manifestation of a deeper, more insidious trend? And: What is the future of free speech in an era...
By: Nay Alhelou, RightsViews Co-editor
In her first talk in an academic setting in the USA while serving in her current capacity, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, Dr. Kombou Boly Barry, highlighted how education could help prevent mass atrocities. On October 15, she addressed students, teachers, and fellows at Columbia University and discussed the report she presented three days later to the United Nations.
Dr. Boly Barry was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2016 to examine the right to education as an independent expert. She is mandated to conduct country visits, respond to allegations of violations of the right to education and promoting dialogue with governments, civil society and other actors.
According to the Special Rapporteur, schools can either be the space where intolerance is harnessed or where tolerance is promoted. In favor of the former, she remarked: “In a world where everybody is afraid of everybody else… education should be used as a tool to...
By Rowena Kosher, Co-Editor of RightsViews
The International Committee of the Red Cross’ (ICRC) reverence for its mandate to the Geneva Conventions was obvious as Columbia students welcomed Hugo Slim, ICRC’s Head of Policy and Humanitarian Diplomacy Division, to speak on “War and Humanity: Challenges and Trends in the 70th Year of the Geneva Conventions” on November 6.
From its founding in 1863 in Geneva, the ICRC has been committed to the provision of international humanitarian aid, embedding itself as one of the core players in international humanitarian law (IHL) as it developed over time to regulate jus in bello, or the “conduct of war.” It was the ICRC that convinced states in 1864 to adopt the very first Geneva Convention, creating a universal obligation of care for all wounded soldiers. From that moment on, it was also the ICRC that ultimately headlined what the IHL community now holds as some of its most fundamental texts: the four Geneva Conventions of 1949...
