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    2020 Apr 07

    CANCELLED - The Price of Civil Rights: Black Lives, White Funding, and Movement Capture

    11:45am to 1:00pm

    Location: 

    Allison Dining Room

    The Carr Center’s Human Rights in Hard Places talk series offers unparalleled insights and analysis from the frontlines by human rights practitioners, policy makers, and innovators. Moderated by Sushma Raman, the series highlights current day human rights and humanitarian concerns such as human rights in North Korea, migration on the US-Mexico border, Myanmar, and the dismantling of democracy.

    Megan Ming Francis, Visiting Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and author of Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State...

    Read more about CANCELLED - The Price of Civil Rights: Black Lives, White Funding, and Movement Capture
    2020 Feb 27

    The New Geopolitical Order

    4:15pm to 5:30pm

    Location: 

    Knafel Center | 10 Garden Street Cambridge, MA 02138

    The new geopolitical environment taking shape in many parts of the world tends toward increasing authoritarianism and nationalistic competition. Inwardly focused governments are pursuing individual agendas, and eventually, these differing agendas will collide.... Read more about The New Geopolitical Order

    India's Soft Power: Challenges and Opportunities
    Salil Shetty and Tara Sahgal. 12/2019. “India's Soft Power: Challenges and Opportunities.” Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies (December 2019). See full text.Abstract
    Salil Shetty's recent paper for the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies explores the resources and potential of soft power in India. 
     

    The paper breaks the concept of soft power in the Indian context into two parts: state driven and non-state driven.  Shetty analyzes these resources and interrogates whether India can use its soft power effectively in its quest to become a “great” power in today's world.

    There has been a fairly dramatic transformation in the global power map in the last few years. Trump's America has changed the role of the U.S. in the world in a very fundamental way, pulling back from an active role in many parts of the world as well as in the U.N. and most multilateral platforms. China has come out of the closet in terms of more publically asserting its role as the second global superpower. This is most visible in its aggressive positioning in U.N. processes but increasingly portends a tectonic shift in geo-politics in all its dimensions. Europe has also been consumed by internal challenges triggered by the explosive growth of right wing populism which has resulted in Brexit and political turmoil in so many countries.

    With the growth in its economy and pervasive presence in the world of internet technology and software, India has undoubtedly acquired a larger voice on the international stage in the last decade or so. The decisive second term victory of a Hindu majoritarian party brings new opportunities and challenges to India's soft power.

    Little work has been done to understand the role of India's soft power, let alone factoring the contemporary realities. This paper is by no means aiming to fill this gap through a comprehensive scholarly study on this complex subject. It is a limited exploration to identify some key opportunities and challenges for India in today's context very much from a practical standpoint. We hope it will serve to trigger further research and action.

    Read the full text here. 

    2020 Feb 12

    Steps Forward, Steps Back: The Struggle Against Violence and Discrimination Based on Sogi an Overview of the Findings of the United Nations Independent Expert

    11:45am to 1:00pm

    Location: 

    Taubman 102

    The Carr Center’s Human Rights in Hard Places talk series offers unparalleled insights and analysis from the frontlines by human rights practitioners, policy makers, and innovators.... Read more about Steps Forward, Steps Back: The Struggle Against Violence and Discrimination Based on Sogi an Overview of the Findings of the United Nations Independent Expert

    Genocide’s Straw Man
    Matthew Smith. 2/2020. “Genocide’s Straw Man.” Mekong Review. See full text.Abstract
    Matthew Smith challenges a claim that human rights organizations are to blame for the Rohyinga Crisis.

    Smith is co-founder and CEO of Fortify Rights and a Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. His recent article for the Mekong Review challenges Benjamin Zawacki's claim that human rights organizations are responsible for the Rohyinga Crisis.

    The Rohingya genocide in Myanmar has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than a million civilians, shocking the conscience of humanity and making the Rohingya a household name. A variety of individuals and institutions are responsible for the egregious situation, including the Myanmar military and police, civilian political elite, and extremist civilians, but in “Humanitarian Breakdown” (in the February 2020 issue), Benjamin Zawacki lays blame in a most unusual place: at the feet of the international human rights movement.

    Read the full article. 

    "I Feel Like We Are People Who Have Never Known Each Other Before": The Experiences of Survivors of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation Transitioning From Shelters to Life in the Community
    Laura Cordisco Tsai, Vanntheary Lim, and Channtha Nhanh. 1/2020. “"I Feel Like We Are People Who Have Never Known Each Other Before": The Experiences of Survivors of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation Transitioning From Shelters to Life in the Community.” Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 21, 1. See full text.Abstract
    Journal article by Carr Fellow Laura Cordisco Tsai analyzes how survivors of sexual exploitation transition back to life in their communities.

    In this article, we explore the experiences of survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation in Cambodia as they transition from living in trafficking-specific shelter facilities to living in the community. We analyzed data from Chab Dai's Butterfly Longitudinal Research (BLR) project, a 10-year longitudinal study with survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation in Cambodia utilizing a prospective panel design. We present findings from our analysis of 236 interviews and narrative summaries of interviews conducted with survivors between the years 2011 and 2016 (n=79). An interpretive phenomenological approach was used to understand survivors' experiences during this transition. Themes included: conflicted feelings about life in the community; difficulties completing school and securing employment; violence in the community; limited follow-up; unfulfilled expectations; feeling loved like a family member in the shelter, but abandoned in the community; vulnerability in the community due to dramatic differences between shelters and the community; and varied experiences with case closure. We underscore the importance of understanding and listening to the voices of survivors about their experiences in the anti-human trafficking sector and discuss implications for the design and implementation of services for survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation in Southeast Asia.

    2020 Feb 25

    The International Court of Justice Case on Genocide in Myanmar

    12:00pm to 1:00pm

    Location: 

    Austin North, Harvard Law School

    In November 2019, The Gambia filed a case with the International Court of Justice alleging that Myanmar military had violated the Genocide Convention for years in its treatment of the Muslim minority group, the Rohingya. A United Nations fact-finding mission had found similar patterns of abuse, documenting widespread violations of human rights in Myanmar against minority groups, including crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes. The International Court of Justice handed down provisional orders to protect the Rohingya in January 2020. Now, with the backing of all 57 members of...

    Read more about The International Court of Justice Case on Genocide in Myanmar
    On Trade Justice: A Philosophical Plea for a New Global Deal
    Mathias Risse and Gabriel Wollner. 12/3/2019. On Trade Justice: A Philosophical Plea for a New Global Deal. 1st ed., Pp. 288. New York : Oxford University Press. See full text.Abstract
    This novel account of trade justice makes ideas about exploitation central, giving pride of place to philosophical ideas about global justice but also contributing to moral disputes about practical questions. On Trade Justice is a philosophical plea for a new global deal, in continuation of, but also at appropriate distance to, post-war efforts to design a fair global-governance system in the spirit of the American New Deal of the 1930s. This book is written in the tradition of contemporary analytical philosophy but also puts its subject into a historical perspective to motivate its relevance. It covers the subject of trade justice from its theoretical foundations to a number of specific issues on which the authors' account throws light. The state as an actor in the domain of global justice is central to the discussion but it also explores the obligations of business extensively, recognizing the importance of the modern corporation for trade. Topics such as wages injustice, collusion with authoritarian regimes, relocation decisions, and obligations arising from interaction with suppliers and sub-contractors all enter prominently. Another central actor in the domain of trade is the World Trade Organization. The WTO needs to see itself as an agent of justice. This book explores how this organization should be reformed in light of the proposals it makes. In particular, the WTO needs to endorse a human-rights and development-oriented mandate. Overall, this book hopes to make a theoretical contribution to the creation of an exploitation-free world.

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