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    Remarks Before the Commission on Unalienable Rights
    Martha Minow. 3/17/2020. “Remarks Before the Commission on Unalienable Rights.” Carr Center Discussion Paper Series, 2020-003. See full text.Abstract
    In her address to the U.S. Commission on Unalienable Rights, Martha Minow discusses the meaning and implications of human rights. 

    "Please accept my thanks for the invitation to speak with you and for your service on this important effort. Grappling with the meaning and implications of human rights is a task that no one generation can complete; comprehension, validation, and commitment require investment of renewing thought and action even though human rights are described as self-evident and eternal. In fact, the reasons why individual nations and even individual people subscribe to notions of human rights vary enormously—and range from idealism to realpolitik—as do their justifications and rationales, which sound in such competing registers as religion, social contract, nature, utility, and game theory.  As I will explain, respect for the dignity of each person offers a core basis for human rights in both substance and in attitudes of respect and civility even when we disagree. Your admirable effort to trace ideas about human rights to deep histories and understandings of eternal truths should underscore the importance of engagement with other nations and multinational convenings as we all face unprecedented challenges to human dignity."

     

    Read full address, here. 

    Rights and Responsibilities in the Coronavirus Pandemic
    Kathryn Sikkink. 3/16/2020. “Rights and Responsibilities in the Coronavirus Pandemic.” OpenGlobalRights. See full text.Abstract
    Touching on points from her newly published book, The Hidden Face of Rights: Towards a Politics of Responsibilities, Kathryn Sikkink urges the global community to place responsibility on all actors to uphold human rights during the Coronavirus pandemic. 

    Building on the work of Iris Marion Young in her posthumous book, Responsibility for Justice, in The Hidden Face of Rights, I argue that all actors socially connected to structural injustice and able to act, need to take action to address the injustice. One problem with the word responsibility is that people often use it in the common legal meaning focused on who is to blame or liable. This is what Iris Young has called backward-looking responsibility or the “liability model.” She focused on political responsibility that is forward-looking. This kind of responsibility asks not “who is to blame,” but “what should we do?” Forward-looking responsibility is necessary to address the Coronavirus pandemic and to think about what we should do in the world after the pandemic. I also draw on Max Weber’s idea of an ethic of responsibility in Politics as a Vocation to stress that it is not enough to act with good intentions. We also need to have done our research about the most effective way to act so that our actions have the impact we seek.


    This framework is useful in the context of the Coronavirus crisis because it involves both a range of rights and responsibilities of many actors. Our right to health, but also rights to liberty, freedom of movement, to education, to information, to food and shelter are all at stake. As countries ramp up exclusionary travel and border policies, some of these rights may be imperiled, and governments need to strike a balance between protecting the health and respecting human rights, as the WHO Secretary General recognized in his briefing on March 12. A quarantine is a legitimate state policy in times of health emergencies, but the state must attend to the rights of individuals caught in the quarantine to adequate health care, food, and shelter. 

    Carr Center Fellowship

    The Carr Center welcomes applications from individuals seeking to affiliate for a semester or a year as Fellows.  Fellows can be post-docs, scholars, academics on sabbatical, human rights defenders, senior leaders in international organizations, or heads of human rights organizations. We welcome both emerging and established scholars and practitioners whose research and practice are aligned with the Center’s priorities.  Fellows can focus on research and writing, auditing classes, meeting faculty and other experts, leading study groups for students, and participating...

    Read more about Carr Center Fellowship
    Why the AI We Rely on Can’t Get Privacy Right (Yet)
    Neal Cohen. 3/7/2020. “Why the AI We Rely on Can’t Get Privacy Right (Yet).” VentureBeat. See full text.Abstract

    Neal Cohen analyzes why AI technologies fall short on privacy. While artificial intelligence (AI) powered technologies are now commonly appearing in many digital services we interact with on a daily basis, an often neglected truth is that few companies are actually building the underlying AI technology.

     

    2020 Mar 12

    CANCELLED - Legitimacy: The Right to Rule in a Wanton World

    12:00pm to 1:30pm

    Location: 

    Littauer 324

    Join Arthur Applbaum, Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values at the Harvard Kennedy School, for a discussion of his latest book, Legitimacy: The Right to Rule in a Wanton World. 

    What makes a government legitimate? The dominant view is that public officials have the right to rule us, even if they are unfair or unfit, as long as they gain power through procedures traceable to the consent of the governed. In this rigorous and timely study, Arthur Isak Applbaum argues that adherence to procedure is not enough: even a properly chosen...

    Read more about CANCELLED - Legitimacy: The Right to Rule in a Wanton World

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