International – Page 9

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

November 22, 2017November 22, 2017 by Editor1 Comment

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...

Human Rights Futures

November 20, 2017November 21, 2017 by EditorNo Comments

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...

Memory Laws: Criminalizing Historical Narratives

November 15, 2017November 16, 2017 by EditorNo Comments

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...

Corporate Social Responsibility Belongs on the U.S. Human Rights Agenda

November 3, 2017September 29, 2018 by EditorNo Comments

By Ashley E. Chappo, editor of RightsViews and a M.I.A. candidate at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University Last week represented a potential turning point for the United States in its commitment to international human rights law and corporate regulation. From October 23 to 27, members of the open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises (OEIGWG) convened at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, to draft a legally-binding instrument with respect to corporations and human rights. Despite its leadership role in the world order and the prominence of transnational corporations operating within its borders, the United States has so far remained disengaged from negotiations on this new treaty agreement. The treaty process, which could take years to complete, is a historic opportunity for the United States to stand up for its shared values with other governments in regulating and holding accountable the stateless, corporate actors often associated with violations of human rights, from alleged sweatshop...

Mis-Gendered Security: Women’s Exclusion from Counterterrorism Efforts

October 18, 2017November 9, 2017 by EditorNo Comments

By Marina Kumskova, M.A. in Human Rights '17 Achieving security for all is impossible without the involvement of more women in the field of security. In practice, the inclusion of women in security-related decision-making has proven difficult to achieve. It took decades for researchers, civil society activists and gender champions to demonstrate that meaningful inclusion of women in the field of security is a necessary measure that prevents the emergence of new security threats and addresses existing challenges. The Global Study on Women, Peace and Security, part of the 2015 U.N.-led Global Review, was a culmination of these efforts, as it demonstrates the importance of women’s inclusion across multiple security situations. Specifically, the Global Study proved that women’s participation increases the probability of a peace agreement lasting at least two years by 20 percent. The NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security also found that refugee camps where women have been consulted in the design and implementation of protection strategies are...

Lankesh and Free Speech: Gagged, Tortured and Shot

October 11, 2017November 9, 2017 by EditorNo Comments

By Malcolm Katrak, a guest blogger and judicial clerk to Justice S.N. Variava The Asian News International (ANI) tweeted on September 5th, “There has been a shootout at Gauri Lankesh’s house this evening; she is no more. Body found in the veranda.” Another tweet swiftly followed, “This is a cowardly act, she is just a writer & journalist, not a terrorist or a naxalite.” Gauri Lankesh, a senior journalist from Karnataka, had been portrayed as a critic of Hindu right-wing extremism by journalists and news outlets around the country after she was shot dead in Karnataka, India. A total of seven bullets were fired, four missing the target and three hitting Lankesh. The Chief Minister of Karnataka termed the murder as brutal and further stated that this was an “assassination on democracy.” Freedom of press and protection of free speech has long been debated in the halls of parliament and the corridors of the judiciary in India. Be it the First Amendment in...

A Hidden Population of Disabled Refugees in the U.K.

September 25, 2017November 9, 2017 by EditorNo Comments

By Jason Hung, a guest blogger from the University of Warwick Currently, there are an estimated 118,995 refugees living in the U.K., composing less than one percent of the country's total population. Three to ten percent of these refugees are thought to have a physical or mental disability. Due to the small number of disabled refugees living in the U.K., the rights of these refugees have often been disregarded, according to Keri Roberts and Jennifer Harris, research fellows from the University of York who generated data on the numbers and social characteristics of disabled refugees and asylum seekers living in Britain. Their research, which was completed in collaboration with the Refugee Council, found that U.K. communities are unable to provide sufficient aid for these vulnerable groups. “Disabled people in refugee and asylum-seeking communities frequently experienced great hardship,” the authors note. “Considerable confusion about the responsibilities of different agencies and National Asylum Seekers Service (NASS), a lack of coordinated information and service provision, and...

From the Field: Building a Plurality of Memories in Spain

September 8, 2017November 9, 2017 by EditorNo Comments

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...

Trump and Erdogan: Too Much in Common

July 10, 2017November 9, 2017 by EditorNo Comments

By Ariella Lang, Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University In President Trump’s recent meeting with Turkey’s President Erdogan, Trump said nothing about the authoritarian crackdown currently underway in Turkey, nor did he condemn the attack by armed members of Erdogan’s security team on protestors outside the Turkish embassy in Washington, D.C., in which American Diplomatic Security officers were assaulted and nine people were hospitalized. President Erdogan apparently watched the melee unfold from the embassy steps. The same week that these events unfolded in D.C., the summary judgement and sentencing was handed down in a Turkish court with regard to the case against Murat Celikkan, a journalist and prominent Turkish human rights activist. Celikkan had been accused of spreading propaganda for a terrorist organization because of his involvement in the campaign to protest the crackdown and ultimate closure of the Özgür Gündem daily newspaper. Özgür Gündem was one of 15 media outlets that had to shut their doors after a...

Viktor Orbán’s Hungary: A Nationalist Government Within the European Union

June 22, 2017November 9, 2017 by EditorNo Comments

By Bárbara Matias, an M.A. student in human rights In late May, thousands of Hungarians marched against Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s educational reform laws subduing foreign universities and non-governmental organizations. The educational reforms were the latest in a series of clashes between the right-wing Hungarian government and the European Union (EU); the protests yet another manifestation of civil society's mobilization against Orbán’s opposition to EU frameworks. On May 1, the 13th anniversary of Hungary’s accession to the EU, for example, thousands took to the streets in a pro-EU rally, suitably called "We Belong to Europe.’’ This past April, Prime Minister Orbán and Hungary's parliament passed an amendment to Hungary’s national law on higher education, tightening regulations on independent and foreign-funded universities. Specifically, the law targets the Central European University (CEU), a Budapest-based university founded by Hungarian-born American financier George Soros and accredited in the United States and Hungary since 1993. The current government under Orbán sought legal means to shut the university down, viewing...