HOME / SEARCH / OUR WORK /

Search

Search results

    2021 Mar 19

    Indigenous Women Convening for Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation

    Registration is required
    9:30am to 1:00pm

    Location: 

    Virtual Event (Registration Required)

    Join us for our Indigenous Women Convening for Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation. The Indigenous Women Convening on Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation brings together Indigenous scholars and women leaders from seven indigenous socio-cultural zones of the world to share stories of war and conflicts in their territories and find collective ways of ideating indigenous conflict resolution and peace-making processes. 

    This event is organized by the Committee on Ethnicity, Migration, Rights, the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, the Scholars at Risk Program, and...

    Read more about Indigenous Women Convening for Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation

    Registration: 

    Sign up for this event
    Disability Rights
    John Shattuck and Mathias Risse. 1/21/2021. “Disability Rights.” Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities in the United States, 008. See full text.Abstract

    Nearly 61 million Americans have a disability, making the group the country’s largest minority. Individuals with disabilities cut across race, gender, and sexual orientation. Since people with disabilities are disproportionately older, they have also made up an expanding share of the general population as the U.S. population has aged. Unlike other more fixed identities, any person can become disabled at any time, due to severe injury, illness, trauma, pregnancy, or simply aging. In fact, while only 11% of people under ages 18 to 64 reported having a disability in 2017, 35% of people ages 65 and over reported having one, illustrating the fluid nature of disability status.

    Disabilities include a range of conditions, both visible and invisible, and including physical, mental, and cognitive impairments—all of which require different types of protection against different types of discrimination. These complexities make understanding and advancing disability rights more challenging. Moreover, people with disabilities continue to face challenges as a result of policies that affect them both directly and indirectly. Renewing rights for people with disabilities requires both reinstating and extending equal protections, and affirmatively expanding accommodations to better allow them to participate meaningfully in all aspects of society. 

    Read the full paper. 

    See other issues of the Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities project here. 

    Are Rights and Religion Orthogonal?
    Richard Parker. 12/2/2020. “Are Rights and Religion Orthogonal?” Carr Center Discussion Paper Series, 2020-13. See full text.Abstract

    Talking about “rights” is to talk about a fundamental cornerstone of our democracy, our system of law, our ethics, and—perhaps most deeply—our identity.

    One of the rights we Americans customarily consider ours is “our right to religious freedom,” which, as enshrined in the First Amendment, is not one but two important correlate rights– our individual right to worship (or not) as we please, and our collective right (and duty) to prohibit any sort of government favoritism toward (or disfavoring of) any organized religion.

    In his paper, author Richard Parker weaves the history and evolution of religious freedom into the context of human rights.  

    Read the full text. 

    Women's March Washington, D.C.

    How to Stop a Power Grab

    November 16, 2020

    According to Erica Chenoweth, there is no one, single moment when a country crosses from a democracy into an autocracy. Instead, as she tells The New Yorker, "The norms and institutions can grow weaker over years, or decades, without people noticing."

    Voting Rights
    John Shattuck and Mathias Risse. 11/6/2020. Voting Rights. Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities in the United States. 2020002nd ed. Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. Read the ReportAbstract

    After more than a century of expanding the voting rights of previously disenfranchised groups, the American electoral system today is confronted by political and legal maneuvers to curtail the hard-won rights of these same groups, ostensibly in the name of combating fraud and regulating voting, but actually to change the outcome of elections. 

    "Political campaigns to suppress or dilute votes corrode democracy, frustrate the popular will, and stimulate polarization."

    Attacks on the integrity of the electoral system are not new. Throughout the 19th and much of the 20th century dominant political forces suppressed voting by African Americans and other minorities, women, immigrants, and young people. Manipulation of voting in the 20th century included racist suppression of African American votes, first by Democrats and later by Republicans. These practices are blatant examples of the vulnerability of the electoral process to partisan manipulation and the necessity of reform to safeguard voting rights, especially among these vulnerable groups.

    In his timely addition to the Reimagining Rights and Responsibilites in the U.S. paper series, authors John Shattuck, Mathias Risse, and team outline the expansion of the vote through history, the disproportionate impact of voter suppression, and propose a set of policy recommendations accordingly.

    Read the full report. 

    See all the issues of the Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities paper series here. 

     

     

    Carr Center Annual Report: 2019-2020
    Carr Center Human Rights for Policy. 11/2/2020. Carr Center Annual Report: 2019-2020. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Kennedy School. See the ReportAbstract

    The Carr Center is pleased to launch its 2019-2020 Annual Report. Take a look at our work, and learn how to get involved. 

    This past academic year, we’ve seen significant economic anxiety, political uncertainty, and public health failures besiege communities and societies around the world. We’ve also witnessed acts of solidarity and kinship—the Black Lives Matter protests sweeping the United States, the rise of social movements holding authoritarian leaders to account, and communities offering mutual aid to vulnerable people impacted by the pandemic.

    We hope that you remain engaged with our work in the coming months. After all, human rights are not just about institutions, laws, and policies. They are about people coming together, hoping to make the world and their communities a better place—more just, more equitable, and more peaceful. 

    Read the Annual Report

     

     

    Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities in the United States: Toward a More Equal Liberty
    John Shattuck and Mathias Risse. 10/8/2020. “Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities in the United States: Toward a More Equal Liberty.” Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities in the United States, 2020-01. See full text.Abstract

    Americans today know they face threats to their rights, their democracy, their health and their economy. These threats are interrelated and demand a transformative response. Transformations have occurred at other pivotal moments in our nation’s history—at its founding during the American Revolution, its Reconstruction after the Civil War, its recovery from the Great Depression, its rise after World War II, and its reimagining during the Civil Rights Movement. Can today become a similar moment of transformation, turning threats into opportunities through the power of civic activism, voting, and government response? Can we reimagine the promise of rights that bind us together as a nation of diverse histories, identities, and lived experiences? 
     
    With the release of their nonpartisan, evidence-based report, Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities in the United States, researchers at Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights provide a guide for the nation wrestling with its values. This blueprint for protecting and expanding citizens’ rights proposes policy changes to strengthen democratic processes; safeguard equal protection, equal opportunity, and due process of law; and better protect freedoms of speech, media, religion and privacy. The Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities Project is directed by John Shattuck, Carr Center Senior Fellow and former US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. The report and the project are overseen by a faculty committee chaired by Carr Center Faculty Director Mathias Risse.
     
    The report offers an in-depth analysis of the state of rights in America in 2020, and then offers 80 recommendations to address failures to protect these rights. The Reimagining Rights team researched fifteen topics in five broad categories that are fundamental to protecting and expanding citizens’ rights. The Carr Center will continue to publish the fifteen reports in the coming months that expand upon specific rights domains in greater detail, including voting rights, money in politics, civic education, racial equality, women’s rights, and other areas of research. Sign up for our newsletter and follow our social media channels to stay up-to-date as we release each report.

    Read the Executive Summary.

     

    Read the Additional Reports: 

    1. Voting Rights
    2. Money in Politics
    3. Civic Education
    4. Racial Discrimination
    5. Women's Rights
    6. LGBTQ+ Rights
    7. Disability Rights
    8. Equal Access
    9. Immigration
    10. Criminal Justice & Public Safety
    11. Gun Rights & Public Safety
    12. Freedom of Speech & Media
    13. Religious Freedom
    14. Hate Crimes
    15. Privacy, Personal Data, and Surveillance
    2020 Nov 12

    Summit on Nonviolent Resistance Today 

    Registration Closed 11:00am to 4:00pm

    Location: 

    Virtual Event (Registration Required)

    On November 12, 2020, the Nonviolent Action Lab convened a summit featuring scholars and practitioners of nonviolent action. The event featured a keynote speech from the Rev. Stephen Green of Faith for Black Lives, several panels featuring new research on nonviolent resistance, and focused discussion among dozens of scholars, practitioners, and Topol Fellows from Harvard, Tufts, Brandeis, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, University of Massachusetts-Boston, Boston Latin School, and elsewhere.

    This Summit, convened by the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, is made possible...

    Read more about Summit on Nonviolent Resistance Today 

    Registration: 

Pages