Global Governance and Civil Society

Carr Center Annual Report: 2020-2021
Carr Center Human Rights for Policy. 9/14/2021. Carr Center Annual Report: 2020-2021. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Kennedy School. Publisher's VersionAbstract

The Carr Center is pleased to release its 2020-2021 Annual Report. Take a look at our work, and learn how to get involved. 

This past academic year has been a year like no other. In many ways, our mission and work have never felt more relevant since the Center’s founding in 1999. Our 2020–2021 Annual Report highlights the Center’s mission, people, programs, and reach over the past year. In addition to the research, publications, and books developed by our experts, the Center has utilized podcasts, live virtual events, and social media to remain connected remotely with our ever-growing audience around the world. We’d like to thank the community of people who make our work possible: the Carr Center’s faculty, fellows, staff, and Advisory Board; the students at the Harvard Kennedy School; and each of you who has joined us in this unpredictable journey over the past year.

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

 

2021 Sep 09

Afghanistan: The Path Forward

Registration Closed 11:00am to 12:00pm

Location: 

Virtual Event (Registration Required)

The rapid withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan in August and the ensuing Taliban takeover has left the nation and its people facing immediate uncertainties and peril. What is the path forward for Afghanistan? Yalda Hakim, Broadcast Journalist at BBC World News; Wazhma Sadat, Co-Founder of Firoz Academy; and Rory Stewart, Senior Fellow at the Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, will join us for a panel discussion on the current situation in Afghanistan and will share their thoughts on the nation’s future. This event is part of the Carr Center’s Human Rights in Hard...

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Artificial Intelligence and the Past, Present, and Future of Democracy
Mathias Risse. 7/28/2021. “Artificial Intelligence and the Past, Present, and Future of Democracy.” Carr Center Discussion Paper Series. See full text.Abstract

Located at the intersection of political philosophy, philosophy of technology and political history, this essay reflects on medium and long-term prospects and challenges for democracy that arise from AI, emphasizing how critical a stage this is. Modern democracies involve structures for collective choice that periodically empower relatively few people to steer the social direction for everybody. As in all forms of governance, technology shapes how this unfolds. Specialized AI changes what philosophers of technology would call the materiality of democracy, not just in the sense that independent actors deploy different tools. AI changes how collective decision making unfolds and what its human participants are like (how they see themselves in relation to their environment, what relationships they have and how those are designed, and generally what form of human life can get realized). AI and democracy are not “natural allies:” it takes active design choices and much political will for AI so serve democratic purposes.

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Practice What You Preach: Global Human Rights Leadership Begins at Home
John Shattuck and Kathryn Sikkink. 4/20/2021. “Practice What You Preach: Global Human Rights Leadership Begins at Home .” Foreign Affairs, May/ June 4/20/2021. Read the article. Abstract

The international standing of the United States has taken a serious hit over the past four years. Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s strident “America first” foreign policy is partly to blame, but so are his attacks on democracy and human rights, both internationally and domestically. Abroad, Trump set the cause of human rights back by embracing authoritarians and alienating democratic allies. At home, he launched an assault on the electoral process, encouraged a failed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and systematically undermined civil rights protections, leaving his successor to grapple with multiple, overlapping human rights crises. As if that were not enough, a host of other problems await, from the pandemic to increasing competition with China and the overall decline of American power.

Read the full article. 

2021 Apr 20

Innovating Our Approach to Human Rights in North Korea

Registration Closed 6:00pm to 7:30pm

Location: 

Virtual Event (Registration Required)

Join the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, for a conversation on Innovating Our Approach to Human Rights in North Korea: Investing in the Freedom & Empowerment of the North Korean People.

Due to global awareness campaigns around the North Korean regime’s crimes against humanity against its people, the world now knows of just how much North Korean people suffer at the hands of their totalitarian regime. Given that there is a baseline of public knowledge regarding the deplorable human rights...

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2021 Apr 15

Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know by Erica Chenoweth

Registration Closed 3:00pm to 4:00pm

Location: 

Virtual Event (Registration Required)

Join us for the book launch of Dr. Erica Chenoweth’s new book, Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know. We will be discussing the relevance of nonviolent social movements with a cross-section of activists and scholars. In Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know, Erica Chenoweth -- one of the world's leading scholars on the topic--explains what civil resistance is, how it works, why it sometimes fails, how violence and repression affect it, and the long-term impacts of such resistance. 

Panelists:

  • Alice...
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2021 Mar 03

Human Rights and the Military Coup in Myanmar

Registration Closed 10:00am to 11:00am

Location: 

Virtual Event (Registration Required)

Join us for our first Human Rights in Hard Places event this semester, a discussion on Human Rights and the Military Coup in Myanmar with leading activists in the region. The Carr Center’s Human Rights in Hard Places talk series offers unparalleled insights and analysis from the frontlines by human rights practitioners, policy makers, and innovators. The series is moderated by Carr Center Executive Director, Sushma Raman. 

Speakers: 

  • Matthew Smith | co-founder and Chief...
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Criminal Justice and Public Safety
John Shattuck and Mathias Risse. 2/10/2021. “Criminal Justice and Public Safety.” Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities in the United States, 011. See full text.Abstract

Starting with the Nixon administration in the early 1970s, and gaining steam throughout the next decade, the prevailing view on criminal justice was that “tough on crime laws make crime rates go down.” That sentiment was predicated on the notion that criminals were not being sufficiently punished for their offenses, and that sentences must be increased—including mandatory minimums and “three strikes laws”—both to remove criminals from communities, and to deter others from committing crimes. The incarceration rate more than tripled between 1980 and its peak in 2008, from 310 to 1,000 prisoners per 100,000 adults—some 2.3 million people in all. Today, the United States leads the world in incarceration, with a rate more than 4 times that of comparable democracies in Western Europe.

Reform of the criminal justice system must take into account each stage of the process, respecting the due process rights of individuals throughout their interaction with the system while at the same time bringing criminals to justice and improving overall public safety.

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See other issues of the Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities series.

2021 Feb 18

The Cause of all Humanity: Why the United States Should Support the International Criminal Court

Registration Closed 10:00am to 11:00am

Location: 

Virtual Event (Registration Required)

Join the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy for a presentation by Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, President of the International Criminal Court on "The cause of all humanity: Why the United States should support the ICC.” His talk, moderated by Professor Kathryn Sikkink, will be followed by brief remarks by Dr. Geoff Dancy and Dr. Phuong Pham about their research on the effectiveness of the ICC.

Panelists: 

  • Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji | President, International Criminal Court 
  • Dr. Geoff Dancy |...
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Immigration
John Shattuck and Mathias Risse. 2/4/2021. “Immigration.” Reimagining Rights and Responsibilities in the United States, 10. See full text.

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