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    2017 Mar 22

    Study Group: Human Rights, Ethics and Philanthropy

    4:00pm to 5:00pm

     

    Carr Center Fellow Patricia Illingworth will lead a semester long study group, Human Rights, Ethics and Philanthropy.

    About the Study Group

    Given great global and domestic need, the moral imperative to help others is pressing and falls on the state, civil society, enterprises and individuals.   In recent years philanthropy – the “love of humanity” – has received...

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    2017 Mar 07

    Study Group - The Democracy Crisis in Europe and the US: A Comparative Perspective

    4:00pm to 5:30pm

     

    Governance

    How is liberal democracy being attacked by "illiberal governance" in Europe and the US? What is the "illiberal governance" model in Hungary, Poland, Turkey and Russia?  Is it a sustainable alternative to liberal democracy, or a nationalist reaction against globalization and outside elites that may not prove sustainable?  How does it relate to populist nationalist...

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    Disinformation Campaigns Target Tech-Enabled Citizen Journalists
    Steven Livingston. 3/2/2017. “Disinformation Campaigns Target Tech-Enabled Citizen Journalists.” Brookings.Abstract
    New blog post by Carr Center Senior Fellow Steven Livingston published on Brookings. 

    "Governments hoping to evade responsibility for war crimes and rights abuses are having a much tougher time of it these days. Denying entry to nettlesome investigators is still standard while many places are simply too dangerous to investigate. But even where investigators cannot go, digital technologies can sometimes overcome barriers to investigation. A recent Harvard Kennedy School report published by the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy underscores how various digital technologies undermine attempts to hide abuses and war crimes. Commercial high-resolution remote sensing satellites, some capable of distinguishing objects on the ground as small as 30-cm across, allow human rights groups to document military forces deployments, mass graves, forced population displacements, and damage to physical infrastructure."


    Read the full blog at Brookings.

    American Cruelty and the Defense of the Constitution
    Alberto Mora. 2/27/2017. “American Cruelty and the Defense of the Constitution.” United States Naval Academy Stutt Lecture. See full presentation.Abstract
    Alberto Mora recently gave the Stutt Lecture at the United States Naval Academy.

     

    "I propose to explore with you this evening what it means to “support and defend the Constitution.” I will use as a prism the 2002 decision of the Bush administration to use torture as a weapon of war and my own involvement in the matter as Navy General Counsel."

    Read his full address here. 

    2017 Mar 06

    *CANCELLED* Laughtivism: Fighting Authoritarian Regimes with the Power of Humor *CANCELLED*

    4:30pm to 6:00pm

    Location: 

    Carr Center Conference Room R-219

    *This event has been cancelled*

    How do you start, build, and complete a peaceful revolution?  How do we fight oppression and violence? Why were the Serbian and Arab Spring revolutionaries able to topple deep-seated autocrats while the American Occupy movement failed to achieve its stated goals? What are the application of rules for 'people power' movements in different environments - from autocracies to democracies?

    Join us on Monday, March 6th, as Srdja Popovic looks at how past youth movements have successfully toppled...

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    What is a Populist?
    Pippa Norris. 2/27/2017. “What is a Populist?” The Atlantic . Publisher's VersionAbstract
    The Atlantic features HKS's Pippa Norris, the Paul. F. McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics.

    Why does Donald Trump exaggerate the size of his inauguration crowd, brag about his election win in conversations with world leaders, and claim without evidence that voter fraud may have cost him the popular vote? Why does he dismiss protesters who oppose him as “paid professionals” and polls that reflect poorly on him as “fake news”? Why does he call much of the media the “enemy of the people”?

    There are explanations for these things that focus on the individual, characterizing Trump as a self-centered reality-TV star obsessed with approval and allergic to criticism.

    But there is also an ideological explanation, and it involves a concept that gets mentioned a lot these days without much context or elaboration: populism.

    Read the full article in The Atlantic.

    Climate Change Induced Displacement: Leveraging Transnational Advocacy Networks to Address Operational Gaps
    Steven Livingston and Joseph Guay. 2/21/2017. “Climate Change Induced Displacement: Leveraging Transnational Advocacy Networks to Address Operational Gaps.” UNHCR .Abstract
    An article on climate change and induced displacement, by Carr Center's Senior Fellow Steven Livingston and Joseph Guay. 

    According to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, “Few aspects of the human endeavor…are isolated from possible impacts in a changing climate. The interconnectedness of the Earth system makes it impossible to draw a confined boundary around climate change impact, adaptations, and vulnerability.”1 This includes human population displacements, which amounted to a staggering 51.2 million refugees, asylum-seekers, and internally displaced people (IDPs) in 2013.2

    Unfortunately, as the frequency, duration, and intensity of extreme events affecting populations are on the rise, the humanitarian aid community is stretched thin in the face of multiple complex emergencies and protracted challenges around the world

    Read the full post.

    Conference Report: Technology & Human Rights in the 21st Century
    Steven Livingston and Sushma Raman. 2/21/2017. “Conference Report: Technology & Human Rights in the 21st Century.” Technology & Human Rights in the 21st Century. Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA: Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. See full text.Abstract
    Technology and Human Rights Conference Report
    Technology & Human Rights in the 21st Century:
     

    On November 3 - 4, 2016, the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School hosted a symposium that aimed to:

    1. Strengthen collaboration among stakeholders working on issues at the intersection of human rights and technology and

    2. Deepen our understanding of the nature of collaboration among different technical and scientific communities working in human rights.

    The symposium brought together practitioners and academics from different industries, academic disciplines and professional practices. Discussion centered on three clusters of scientific and technical capacities and the communities of practice associated with each of them. These clusters are:

    • Geospatial Technology: The use of commercial remote sensing satellites, geographical information systems (GIS), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and geographical positioning satellites (GPS) and receivers to track events on earth.
       
    • Digital Networks: The use of digital platforms to link individuals in different locations working towards a common goal, such as monitoring digital evidence of human rights violations around the world. It often involves crowdsourcing the collection of data over digital networks or social computation – the analysis of data by volunteers using digital networks.
       
    • Forensic Science: The collection, preservation, examination and analysis of evidence of abuses and crimes for documentation, reconstruction, and understanding for public and court use. Among the more prominent evidential material in this area includes digital and multimedia evidence as well as corporal and other biologic evidence.  When considering the use of digital technologies, we might say that forensic science involves the recoding of material objects into binary code. This domain includes massively parallel DNA sequencing technologies as well as document scanning and data management technologies.

    In their landmark 1998 book, Activists Beyond Borders, Kathryn Sikkink and Margaret Keck wrote that “by overcoming the deliberate suppression of information that sustains many abuses of power, human rights groups bring pressure to bear on those who perpetuate abuses” (Keck and Sikkink, 1998, Kindle Locations 77-78).  The Carr Center’s symposium on technology and human rights explored the ways modern human rights organization use science and technology to overcome the deliberate suppression of information.

    Speakers discussed the latest advances in each of the key technologies represented at the symposium and used today by human rights organizations.

    Steven Livingston and Sushma Raman co-organized the event. Livingston is Senior Fellow at the Carr Center and Professor of Media and Public Affairs and Professor of International Affairs at the George Washington University; Raman is the Executive Director of the Carr Center at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

    Full online version here.

     

    2017 Mar 02

    Study Group: International Criminal Court with Luis Moreno Ocampo

    2:30pm to 4:30pm

    Location: 

    Location to be released to accepted applicants.

     

    Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the first-ever Prosecutor of the ICC, will convene a dynamic group of select students and researchers from across Harvard University to workshop chapters of his forthcoming book on the emergence and evolution of the ICC.

     

    Dates & Times:

    2/2/2017 Thursday, 2:30 – 4:30 p.m.

    3/2/2017 Thursday, 2:30 – 4:30 p.m.

    4/6/2017 Thursday, 2:30 – 4:30 p.m.

    ...

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