Freedom of Expression Under Threat

Freedom of Expression Under Threat

By Graeme Reid, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender rights program at Human Rights Watch Invisibility and stigma go hand in hand. "Coming out" became a central part of the gay liberation movement in the United States and Europe from the 1960s, a strategy adopted as a prerequisite for claiming rights. And in the late 1980s, in response to the AIDS crisis, ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) adopted the slogan "Silence=Death," which became the rallying cry of a movement challenging silence and stigma. Globally, in the past three decades, there has been a rapid increase in queer visibility, facilitated by many factors including images and ideas circulating through the internet, interconnectedness among LGBT organizations and individuals, and the global response to HIV/AIDS.  As of 2017, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) has 1,228 member organizations in 132 countries. Yet visibility also comes with risks. As the visibility of sexual and gender minorities has increased, so too...
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Impossible Harms: A Conversation on Genocide Education and Prevention

Impossible Harms: A Conversation on Genocide Education and Prevention

by Rowena Kosher, a blog writer for RightsViews and a student in the School of General Studies at Columbia University Genocide, or the intentional killing, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group of individuals, has occurred throughout world history and occurs even today. On November 30, students, professors and human rights scholars gathered in Pupin Hall at Columbia University for a discussion with Henry Theriault from Worcester University about the crime of genocide, the gravest of human rights violations. Theriault, the president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, has devoted his career to genocide studies, traveling the world speaking about and researching the topic. He was joined by Eylem Delikanli, an ISHR oral historian studying traumatic memory at Columbia University, and Marc Mamigonian, the director of the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research, who moderated the conversation. The event was co-hosted by the Armenian Society of Columbia University, and the discussion took place within the...
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Unjust Justice: A Case of American Exceptionalism

Unjust Justice: A Case of American Exceptionalism

By Olivia Heffernan, a master’s candidate at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs  The United States represents four percent of the world’s population but is home to 22 percent of the world’s prisoners. These disproportionate figures, and the financial and emotional burdens of mass incarceration in America, were the topic of a recent discussion at Columbia University between former Mayor of Philadelphia Michael Nutter and Obama administration official Elias Alcantara. The discussion, hosted by the Criminal Justice Reform Working Group (CJR) at the School of International and Public Affairs, brought together two panelists well suited to discuss criminal justice policy—its challenges, similarities and differences—on city and federal levels. As a country that prides itself on its values of freedom and equality, the United States demonstrates a gaping contradiction with its discriminatory and broken justice system. Spikes in incarceration rates are often attributed to the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, signed by former President Bill Clinton, which implemented a...
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The Future of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

The Future of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

by Rowena Kosher, a blog writer for RightsViews and a student in the School of General Studies at Columbia University On November 20, students, professors and human rights colleagues gathered in Columbia Law School’s Jerome Greene Hall for a discussion on economic, social and cultural rights led by Catarina de Albuquerque, the former United Nations special rapporteur on the right to safe drinking water and sanitation. Originally from Portugal, de Albuquerque began her career in human rights as part of the Portuguese Foreign Service, moving on to become the chairperson-rapporteur for negotiation of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, a protocol adopted in 2008 that establishes an individual complaints mechanism to recognize important rights like the right to education, the right to health, and labour rights, among others. Following these positions, de Albuquerque took on her current role as executive chair of the Sanitation and Water for All Partnership, a global partnership to catalyze political action, improve accountability and use...
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Great Power, Great Responsibility: The Digital Revolution of Human Rights

Great Power, Great Responsibility: The Digital Revolution of Human Rights

by Genevieve Zingg, a blog writer for RightsViews and a M.A. student in Human Rights Studies at Columbia University “Human rights faces a stress test today,” Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said during his World Leaders Forum address at Columbia University's Casa Italiana on November 14. “The approach which seems to be in the ascendent is a blinkered, blind vision of domination, nationalism, and walled-in sovereignty.” The teatro grew sombre as al-Hussein’s initial quips gave way to his analysis of the current state of human rights— a field in flux, balanced precariously on the back of a technological revolution that poses both risk and opportunity. "The digital universe offers us amazing possibilities for human rights work,” he continued. “We already use satellite imagery and encrypted communications to ensure better monitoring, investigation, and analysis of human rights violations in places where the authorities refuse to give us access.” Indeed, digital tools have increasingly yielded significant results in the human rights field....
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What does the Rohingya crisis mean for Myanmar’s Nobel Laureate?

What does the Rohingya crisis mean for Myanmar’s Nobel Laureate?

By Olivia Heffernan, a master’s candidate at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs  On November 14, the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University hosted a lecture titled “Understanding the Rohingya Crisis.” Panelists addressed the historical roots of ongoing violent conflict in Myanmar, including the “othering” of the minority Rohingya Muslims and escalating fear of Islam, as well as the responsibility of the international community to respond to the country's human rights crisis. The lack of response raises questions about the international community’s commitment to protecting peace and precipitates another interesting discussion: What does an ethnic cleansing overseen by a Nobel Peace Prize winner mean for the credibility of the award itself? Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader and first state counselor, was conferred the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her admirable fight for democracy in Myanmar during 15 years under house arrest as a political prisoner. However, actions speak louder than words. Aung San Suu Kyi’s complicity to the killings...
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Human Rights Futures

Human Rights Futures

By Ayesha Amin, a blog writer for RightsViews and a M.P.A. candidate at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs Is the human rights movement on the road to nowhere? Last Thursday, the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University hosted a book launch and panel discussion on “Human Rights Futures,” edited by Stephen Hopgood, Jack Snyder and Leslie Vinjamuri. The book brings together 15 mainstream human rights scholars and their critics to debate alternative futures for the human rights movement. The panel conversation was moderated by Andrew Nathan, professor of political science at Columbia University, and included four contributors to the book: Jack Snyder, Belfer Professor of International Relations at Columbia University; Shereen Hertel, editor of the Journal of Human Rights; Alexander Cooley, director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University; and Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the Centre on Conflict, Rights and Justice at SOAS, University of London. Other panelists included Aryeh Neier, co-founder...
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Memory Laws: Criminalizing Historical Narratives

Memory Laws: Criminalizing Historical Narratives

by Ido Dembin, a blog writer for RightsViews and a M.A. student in Human Rights Studies at Columbia University On the weekend of October 27 and 28, Columbia University Seminars hosted a two-day conference on Historical Narratives and Memory Laws. The conference was scheduled as part of a University Seminar titled “History, Redress and Reconciliation,” chaired by Elazar Barkan, director of Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights. The seminar’s self-proclaimed objective is to "forge a more structured exchange among scholars and practitioners who engage a set of issues that are yet to self-identify as an academic field, and is addressed in different disciplinary spaces.” The content-heavy weekend proved to serve that objective. Memory laws embody state-approved understandings of historical events, with the criminalization of historical narratives becoming more commonplace. The conference dealt with issues of memory legislation in countries from East Europe to Africa, where governments and parliaments have been tackling the problem of historical narrative, memory and redress over the last...
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Counterterrorism and Human Rights under the Trump Administration

Counterterrorism and Human Rights under the Trump Administration

by Genevieve Zingg, a blog writer for RightsViews and a M.A. student in Human Rights Studies at Columbia University On Monday, the Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law School hosted an event on counterterrorism and human rights under the Trump administration. The event featured Laura Pitter, senior national security counsel at the United States program of Human Rights Watch, speaking on the new human rights challenges posed by counterterrorism policies emerging under President Trump. Prior to working with HRW, Pitter was a journalist and lawyer with the U.N. in Bosnia and Afghanistan. Under the Obama administration, she worked on accountability for past instances of torture and the prevention of government-sanctioned torture. Specifically, she worked to document torture that had not yet come to light prior to the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program. Human rights concerns under the Obama administration centered on detention practices at Guantanamo and the use of drone strikes. During this time, HRW focused on...
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From the Field: Building a Plurality of Memories in Spain

From the Field: Building a Plurality of Memories in Spain

By Zina Precht-Rodriguez, Columbia College '19 The story of Spain’s traumatic history is compelling because it is continuously unfolding. One of my most memorable experiences in Barcelona this summer was my visit to an air raid shelter that was designed during the Spanish Civil War to protect thousands of civilians during the fascist bombings of Barcelona. The existence of the shelter was only discovered a couple of years ago by a cable company. The company intended to build an underground landline to connect more people throughout Spain, but the irony of the situation is that something much deeper connects the people of Spain: a traumatic memory that tells the story of a vicious divide within Spain, as well as within Europe, of those who risked their lives for progressive change and those who compromised their own morality. In 2017, these casual rediscoveries of a traumatic Spanish past are triggering an outpouring of civilian, intellectual and political inquiry. The European Observatory for Memories (EUROM) addresses...
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