Communications & Technology

books

Faculty Book Publications: 2017 in Review

January 5, 2018

Faculty members at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy published a series of groundbreaking books in 2017, addressing diverse policy issues from the role of women in Rwanda's post-conflict reconciliation; the prevalence of human trafficking and modern slavery; to making human rights work in the 21st century. 

 

Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy Kathryn Sikkink, ...

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2017 Sep 26

The UN and Human Rights

11:45am to 1:00pm

Location: 

Rubenstein-229, Carr Center Conference Room, Harvard Kennedy School

Carr Center Fellow Leonardo Castilho will host a lunchtime seminar providing an introduction to the United Nations' engagement with human rights policy issues.

Leonardo joined the United Nations in 2005 and has since then served the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the UN Population Fund. He has worked on non-discrimination, development and economic, social and cultural rights.

Leonardo will lead the Carr Center's human rights delegation to the United Nations General Assembly in October 2017. Apply and learn more here:...

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Conference Report: Technology & Human Rights in the 21st Century
Steven Livingston and Sushma Raman. 2/21/2017. “Conference Report: Technology & Human Rights in the 21st Century.” Technology & Human Rights in the 21st Century. Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA: Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. See full text.Abstract
Technology & Human Rights in the 21st Century:
 

On November 3 - 4, 2016, the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School hosted a symposium that aimed to:

1. Strengthen collaboration among stakeholders working on issues at the intersection of human rights and technology and

2. Deepen our understanding of the nature of collaboration among different technical and scientific communities working in human rights.

The symposium brought together practitioners and academics from different industries, academic disciplines and professional practices. Discussion centered on three clusters of scientific and technical capacities and the communities of practice associated with each of them. These clusters are:

  • Geospatial Technology: The use of commercial remote sensing satellites, geographical information systems (GIS), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and geographical positioning satellites (GPS) and receivers to track events on earth.
     
  • Digital Networks: The use of digital platforms to link individuals in different locations working towards a common goal, such as monitoring digital evidence of human rights violations around the world. It often involves crowdsourcing the collection of data over digital networks or social computation – the analysis of data by volunteers using digital networks.
     
  • Forensic Science: The collection, preservation, examination and analysis of evidence of abuses and crimes for documentation, reconstruction, and understanding for public and court use. Among the more prominent evidential material in this area includes digital and multimedia evidence as well as corporal and other biologic evidence.  When considering the use of digital technologies, we might say that forensic science involves the recoding of material objects into binary code. This domain includes massively parallel DNA sequencing technologies as well as document scanning and data management technologies.

In their landmark 1998 book, Activists Beyond Borders, Kathryn Sikkink and Margaret Keck wrote that “by overcoming the deliberate suppression of information that sustains many abuses of power, human rights groups bring pressure to bear on those who perpetuate abuses” (Keck and Sikkink, 1998, Kindle Locations 77-78).  The Carr Center’s symposium on technology and human rights explored the ways modern human rights organization use science and technology to overcome the deliberate suppression of information.

Speakers discussed the latest advances in each of the key technologies represented at the symposium and used today by human rights organizations.

Steven Livingston and Sushma Raman co-organized the event. Livingston is Senior Fellow at the Carr Center and Professor of Media and Public Affairs and Professor of International Affairs at the George Washington University; Raman is the Executive Director of the Carr Center at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Full online version here.

 

2016 Nov 03

The Future of Human Rights: Technology and Fact-Finding in the 21st Century

Registration Closed(All day)

Location: 

Allison Dining Room Taubman 520 (Keynote in NYE A, Taubman)

The Future of Human Rights: Technology and Fact-Finding in the 21st Century, hosted at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government on November 3rd and 4th, to strengthen technical collaboration among stakeholders working on issues at the intersection of human...

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Telling the True Story of Human Trafficking

October 13, 2016

In the latest edition of HKS Policycast, HKS Lecturer Siddharth Kara of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy explains how his research into the tens of millions of girls around the world who have been forced into sexual slavery led him to Hollywood, where he wrote and produced the new feature film “Trafficked.” The film, based on true stories, follows three enslaved teens who end up in a Texas brothel after being trafficked across the globe.

...

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Classroom technologies narrow education gap in developing countries

Classroom technologies narrow education gap in developing countries

September 16, 2016

Carr Center's Steven Livingston argues that classroom technology can narrow the education gap in his latest blog via the Brookings Institute.

"Well before the invention of laptops and the World Wide Web, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology mathematician, computer scientist, and education visionary Seymour Papert realized that connected electronic devices could improve the educational experience of students, even for those who face poverty and geographical...

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2016 Sep 20

Human Rights and Technology (Study Group)

Repeats every 2 weeks every Tuesday until Tue Nov 15 2016 .
2:30pm to 3:30pm

2:30pm to 3:30pm
2:30pm to 3:30pm
2:30pm to 3:30pm
2:30pm to 3:30pm

Location: 

Taubman 401

*Please note - Registrations are now closed for the semester*

The Carr Center for Human Rights Policy is delighted to announce that Senior Fellow Steven Livingston will lead a study group on “Human Rights & Technology” this semester.

The group will meet every other Tuesday from 2:30pm – 3:30pm throughout the Fall semester (Sept 20th, Oct 4th, Oct 18th, Nov 1st, Nov 15th).

Together,...

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shattuck2

John Shattuck

Senior Fellow
Program Lead for Renewing Rights and Responsibilities
Professor of Practice in Diplomacy, Fletcher School, Tufts University

John Shattuck is Professor of Practice in Diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, a Senior Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and chairs the international advisory board of the Center on Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis University. His many publications include Freedom on Fire, a study of the international response to genocide and crimes against humanity, Rights of Privacy, and many articles on democracy, human rights, civil liberties, international relations and higher education. 

Shattuck comes to the Carr Center after a distinguished career spanning more than three decades in higher education, international diplomacy, foreign policy and human rights. Shattuck served as the President and Rector of Central European University, CEO of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, a national public affairs center in Boston, and Senior Fellow at Tufts University, where he taught human rights and international relations.... Read more about John Shattuck

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p: 617-495-8450

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