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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.



Chistopher Robichaud. 1/17/2017. “Facts Aren’t Enough to Save Liberal Democracy.” Niskanen Center .Abstract

Facts Aren’t Enough to Save Liberal Democracy by Carr Center's Christopher Robichaud.

"Facts these days are taking a beating in politics. A month or so back, Trump surrogate Scottie Nell Hughes shared on “The Diane Rehm Show” that “[t]here’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore, as facts.” She was pilloried in the press over this, not unsurprisingly, though her words, taken at face value, do at least convey a sense of loss over our purported predicament—it’s unfortunate that there aren’t any facts anymore. Unfortunate or not, is she right that truth has left the building?

Well, no, of course not. We still have death and taxes, if nothing else, two stubborn, non-negotiable facts of modern life. And even if Republicans somehow manage to do away entirely with the latter in the first hundred days of Trump’s presidency, I’m pretty sure we’ll be stuck with our own mortality for at least a little while longer.

The really real world, in other words, didn’t suddenly slip away during the 2016 election cycle, impressions to the contrary notwithstanding. Be that as it may, it’s hard to deny that something funny is going on."
Read the full post on the Niskanen Center website.



Luis Moreno Ocampo. 1/18/2017. “How Trump Can Work with Russia to Challenge the Status Quo and to Control ISIS.” JustSecurity .Abstract

New article in JustSecurity from Senior Fellow Luis Moreno Ocampo.

"What should President Donald Trump do if ISIS crashed a plane into the Freedom Tower next September 11, 2017? After 16 years of a so-called “war on terror,” would experts be able to provide the new President with a clear and effective strategy to confront international terrorism? A short answer to the question is no. In 2015, Stephen Walt denounced a massive, collective failure of the entire U.S. foreign-policy establishment including Democrats and Republican to propose new strategies to deal with international terrorism in the Middle East.

In this essay, I explain, first, the strategic opportunity available through greater US-Russian cooperation and, second, the tools for disrupting ISIS by establishing new international mechanisms—such as a UN Security Council Chief Prosecutor—to go after the group’s leadership and its money."

Read the full article.



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.



Parsing the Legality of Trump's Ban

February 1, 2017

Christiane Amanpour of CNN speaks with Former U.S. Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora on the legality of Trump's ban.... Read more about Parsing the Legality of Trump's Ban



Sarah Peck. 12/21/2016. Carr Center's 2016 Annual Report. Cambridge : Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. See full text.Abstract

See the Carr Center's 2016 Annual Report.

Today we stand at a precipice. A critical fight for fundamental human rights is brewing, and our work to find policy solutions to the most pressing human rights issues has never been more urgent. These issues include economic justice; human security; equality and discrimination; and institutions of global governance and civil society. We leverage research, practice, leadership and communications and technology to enhance global justice and to address all four of these priority issues.

2016 saw a number of important victories for the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, engaging our outstanding faculty members, fellows and students. We hosted a two-day symposium on the future of human rights and technology, convening a diverse group of practitioners working on these issues. And we organized a conference exploring the strategic costs and consequences of the use of torture.

2017 presents new challenges, but also new opportunities to engage and collaborate to ensure respect for our most fundamental rights and freedoms. We will continue to work tirelessly, as we have for the past 15 years, to enhance global justice – and we hope that you will join us in this critically important work.

Download our 2016 annual report to learn more. 



Building Social Cohesion through Education and Empowerment

July 10, 2017

Malika Noor Mehta and Stephanie Kuei received support from the Carr Center to travel to Jordan for their Policy Analysis Exercise (PAE), working with the Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development (JOHUD) to build social cohesion between Syrian refugee and Jordanian youth.... Read more about Building Social Cohesion through Education and Empowerment



Six Ways to Better Address Internal Displacement

August 9, 2017

HKS graduate students are interviewed on their work with the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

... Read more about Six Ways to Better Address Internal Displacement



Carr Center at the UN

January 5, 2018

In the Fall of 2017, a cohort of Harvard graduate students visited New York City as part of a Carr Center for Human Rights Policy delegation to the United Nations.... Read more about Carr Center at the UN



Alberto Mora. 2/5/2018. “How Trump Just Might Close Guantanamo Prison.” Defense One. See full text.Abstract

See Carr Center Senior Fellow Alberto Mora's new Op-Ed in Defense One.

The president asked SecDef and Congress to ensure that detention policies support warfighting aims. That should mean shutting Gitmo down.

Will President Trump close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay?  

This question may sound preposterous. After all, President Obama, who called the prison a threat to national security and American ideals, actually tried to close it. President Trump, by contrast, is on record as vehemently favoring not only its continuation but its expansion. On Jan. 30 he reaffirmed that commitment both in his State of the Union address and in an executive order revoking President Obama’s order commanding its closure. 

Why, then, even raise the prospect of closing Guantanamo during this administration? The answer lies in two related actions recently taken by the president: his command to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to “reexamine our military detention policy” and report back to him within 90 days and his request to Congress to ensure that “we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists.” The two actions in conjunction represent an unexpected open-mindedness on the part of the president with respect to detention policy. By seeking a broad-focus, “blank-sheet-of-paper” review, asking Mattis to take charge, and inviting Congress to join with them, President Trump acted prudently and, dare I say it, wisely. 

Full Op-Ed in Defense One.

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