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    Smart City Visions and Human Rights: Do They Go Together?
    Tina Kempin Reuter. 4/24/2020. “Smart City Visions and Human Rights: Do They Go Together?” Carr Center Discussion Paper Series, 2020-006. See full text.Abstract
    Over half of the world’s population lives in cities today. According to the latest predictions, more than two thirds of all people will inhabit an urban environment by 2050. The number and size of cities has increased over the last decades, with the highest projections for future growth in the Global South. As cities continue to expand, so does their impact on policy generation, as political players, as drivers of states’ economies, and as hubs for social innovation and cultural exchange. Cities are important actors on the national and international stage, with mayors’ conferences, city grassroots organizations, and urban citizens driving the search for today’s most pressing problems, including climate change, inequity, migration, and human rights concerns. Many have expressed hope that “cities [will] deliver where nation states have failed.” Organizing this ever-growing, dynamic human space, enabling people from diverse backgrounds to live together, addressing the spatial and social challenges of urban life, and delivering services to inhabitants are challenges that cities have struggled with and that continue to dominate the urban policy agenda.
     

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    Technological Revolution, Democratic Recession and Climate Change: The Limits of Law in a Changing World
    Luís Roberto Barroso. 9/9/2019. Technological Revolution, Democratic Recession and Climate Change: The Limits of Law in a Changing World. Carr Center Discussion Paper Series. 2019009th ed. Cambridge: Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. Publisher's VersionAbstract
    ccdp_2019_009_technology_democracy.pdf
     Law is a universal institution that has pretensions of being ubiquitous and complete. However, in a complex, plural and volatile world, its limits and possibilities are shaken by the speed, depth and extent of ongoing transformations, its resulting ethical dilemmas, and the difficulties of forming consensus in the political universe.

    This article provides a reflection on how the Law has attempted to deal with some of the main afflictions of our time, facing demands that include the needs to (i) keep the technological revolution on an ethical and humanistic track, (ii) avoid that democracy be perverted by populist and authoritarian adventures and (iii) prevent solutions to climate change from coming only when it is too late. At a time when even the near future has become unpredictable, Law cannot provide a priori solutions to multiplying problems and anxieties. When this happens, we must set clear goals for the future of humanity, basing them on the essential and perennial values that have followed us since antiquity.

    The Fierce Urgency Of Now: Closing Glaring Gaps In US Surveillance Data On COVID-19
    Nancy Krieger, Gregg Gonsalves, Mary T. Bassett, William Hanage, and Harlan M. Krumholz. 4/14/2020. “The Fierce Urgency Of Now: Closing Glaring Gaps In US Surveillance Data On COVID-19.” Health Affairs . See full text.Abstract
    In order to have a robust understanding of the impacts of COVID-19, data on racial, economic, and gender inequities must be collected. 

    It is insufficient to ask simply whether the virus is or is not present. Social data about who is infected are crucial for responding to needs now and will allow for better estimation of the likely spread and impact of COVID-19, the toll of which will be measured not only in deaths but also in the second-order, socially disparate spill-over effects on people’s economic well-being and safety. Real-time fast journalistic reporting and advocacy groups in the US and other countries are pointing to the critical importance of racial/ethnic, economic, and gender inequities to shaping COVID-19 risks. In the past week, calls for data on COVID-19 by race/ethnicity have been issued by leading politicians, including Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congresswoman Ayana Pressley, the Congressional Black Caucus, the National Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, and by journalists. Why aren’t the public health data documenting these risks available?

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    The Floyd Protests Are the Broadest in U.S. History — and Are Spreading to White, Small-Town America
    Lara Putnam, Erica Chenoweth, and Jeremy Pressman. 6/6/2020. “The Floyd Protests Are the Broadest in U.S. History — and Are Spreading to White, Small-Town America.” Washington Post. See full version.Abstract
    Erica Chenoweth discusses the Floyd protests and its impact on law, social policies, and the 2020 elections.

    Across the country, people are protesting the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and demanding action against police violence and systemic racism. National media focuses on the big demonstrations and protest policing in major cities, but they have not picked up on a different phenomenon that may have major long-term consequences for politics. Protests over racism and #BlackLivesMatter are spreading across the country — including in small towns with deeply conservative politics.

    2020 Jul 30

    The Pompeo Commission on Unalienable Rights: A Selective Vision of Human Rights

    Registration Closed 4:00pm to 5:00pm

    Location: 

    Virtual Event (Registration Required)

    The establishment of the Commission on Unalienable Rights (“Pompeo Commission”) in 2019 prompted concern among human rights advocates and academics that the Commission could redirect U.S. human rights policy in ways that would be self-defeating and would create serious damage to international cooperation for the protection of human rights.

    The Commission released a draft report last week accompanied by a ...

    Read more about The Pompeo Commission on Unalienable Rights: A Selective Vision of Human Rights

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