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    2020 Oct 08

    Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities in the U.S.

    Registration Closed 10:00am to 11:30am

    Location: 

    Virtual Event (Registration Required)

    Please join the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy for the release of our report on Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities in the United States. We'll discuss the historical context in which this project was framed, recent developments around rollbacks and movements for expansion of rights, and policy recommendations for building a more robust commitment to rights and responsibilities around six broad areas, including equal protection and due process.  We'll also discuss results from our public opinion poll and townhalls across the United States, conducted with support from the...

    Read more about Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities in the U.S.

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    Mike Pompeo Is Unfit to Lead the CIA If He Doesn't Reject Torture
    Alberto Mora. 1/12/2017. “Mike Pompeo Is Unfit to Lead the CIA If He Doesn't Reject Torture.” The Guardian .Abstract
    Article in The Guardian by Carr Center Senior Fellow Alberto Mora.

    "Among the flurry of confirmation hearings happening this week in the Senate, one in particular will signal whether President-to-be Donald Trump and his administration are, indeed, serious about restoring the failed and discredited Bush-era torture policy.

    Trump’s pick for CIA chief, the US representative Mike Pompeo, will face the Senate intelligence committee and no doubt will be asked about his past support for cruelty. If he fails to renounce torture at his hearing, the Senate should deem Pompeo unfit for the office and vote down his nomination.

    I know what’s at stake from my own experience. I was the navy’s chief lawyer when, in 2002, I learned that detainees held at Guantánamo were being subjected to cruel and unlawful interrogation practices. This wasn’t a case of “bad apples” – it was a case of officials at the highest levels of government choosing to radically reinterpret, distort or violate the law so as to knowingly apply torture. That can’t happen again."

    Read the full Op-Ed in The Guardian.

    Law Restricts Trump on Torture - Unless He Ignores It
    Alberto Mora. 1/27/2017. “Law Restricts Trump on Torture - Unless He Ignores It.” Deutsche Welle.Abstract
    New article in Deutsche Welle featuring Carr Center Senior Fellow Alberto Mora.

    Donald Trump has threatened to make good on his campaign pledge to bring back waterboarding and forms of torture "a hell of a lot worse." That would violate international and US law, of course, but could he do it anyway?

    There was a sense that the US was coming to grips with its sins in December 2014, when the Senate completed its report on CIA torture under President George W. Bush in the years following the attacks of September 11, 2001. Months later, on June 16, 2015, when more than 20 Senate Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues in a 78-21 vote to ban torture once and for all, there was a sense that the country was even moving forward. There would be no more "rectal feeding" of prisoners in the CIA's secret interrogation centers, no more threats to kill inmates' children or parents, no more people killed by hypothermia after spending hours forced into stress positions on frigid concrete. But 230 miles (385 kilometers) from the US Capitol on that very same June afternoon in 2015, a reality television host was kicking off a scorched-earth campaign at the New York City tower he had named for himself. And in 2017 the United States finds itself debating the limits of official cruelty all over again - though not necessarily the long-settled legality.

    "Torture under international law is categorically prohibited under all circumstances," said Alberto Mora, the Navy's general counsel during the Bush administration and a leading Defense Department opponent of the practices euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation." "This is what's called a nonderogable law, meaning that there is no set of circumstances or extenuating circumstance which would justify the application of torture."

    Read the full article.

    2020 May 19

    Kleptocrats, Coronavirus, & How to Combat Them

    Registration Closed 12:00pm to 1:15pm

    Location: 

    Virtual Webinar (Registration Required)

    The response to the Coronavirus pandemic will prove a bonanza for corrupt leaders who have historically robbed their countries of funds needed for the health and welfare of their citizens as trillions of dollars are disbursed without even the usual, ineffective safeguards. The panelists will discuss the immediate need to enhance transparency and accountability with existing resources, and the ultimate need for an International Anti-Corruption Court to punish and deter the shameless kleptocrats that the pandemic will eventually expose.

    Panelists

      ...
    Read more about Kleptocrats, Coronavirus, & How to Combat Them

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    In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Donations Were Too Little Too Late
    Tom O'Bryan. 11/29/2016. “In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Donations Were Too Little Too Late.” Foreign Policy .Abstract
    Read the article by Carr Center Research Assistant Tom O'Bryan:

    Countless studies have shown that democracies are less likely to go to war, torture their own citizens, and censor the media. That's one reason why Western governments and philanthropic foundations funnel more than $10 billion every year into promoting democracy overseas. For example, donors fund efforts to help train election observers, educate voters about their rights, and train local media outlets to cover political issues.

    In the last year, more than $70 million have been spent on such projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a poor and fragile country emerging from over two decades of armed conflict. That may sound like a lot of money, but in relative terms it's not. The American, British and Canadian governments alone spent more than eight times that amount on democracy promotion in Afghanstan during the country's most recent elections.

    Read the full article in Foreign Policy 

    Here’s What Erick Erickson Gets Wrong About Dictators and Migration
    Kathryn Sikkink. 12/4/2018. “Here’s What Erick Erickson Gets Wrong About Dictators and Migration.” The Washington Post. See full text.Abstract
    In a recent op-ed, conservative writer Erik Erickson argued that the U.S. government should support the “next Pinochets” to create more stability in Latin America and stop the flow of refugees seeking access to the United States.

    The remark was instantly controversial because Augusto Pinochet was a Chilean dictator who committed massive human rights abuses.

    Read the full article here.

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