Yale Bulletin and Calendar

March 30, 2001

Volume 29, Number 24

Human rights during the Bush
administration is topic of symposium

The prospects for an effective U.S. human rights policy during the Bush administration will be considered in this year's annual Robert L. Bernstein Human Rights Symposium at the Law School, being held Friday and Saturday, March 30 and 31.

Titled "Politics and Human Rights: A Bipartisan Agenda for U.S. Foreign Policy," the event is sponsored by the Law School's Orville H. Schell Jr. Center for International Human Rights. All events will take place at the Sterling Law Building, 127 Wall St.

According to organizers of the event, President George W. Bush has assumed leadership at a critical moment in international human rights.

"The end of apartheid, the establishment of two war crimes tribunals, and the adoption of a treaty to establish a permanent international criminal court have been seen as signs of hope," says Riva Khoshaba, student director of the Schell Center. "But the genocide in Rwanda, ethnic warfare in Kosovo, massive destruction of civilian life in Chechnya and the persistence of abuses against ethnic, racial and religious minorities and women throughout the world have served as reminders of the difficulty of building an effective international human rights regime."

Among the topics the symposium will examine are the legacy and lessons of the Clinton administration with regard to human rights and the extent to which a clear bipartisan human rights agenda has emerged. Participants will also debate what constitutes an appropriate and effective U.S. human rights policy for the beginning of the 21st century.

The symposium will open on Friday at 12:30 p.m. with a discussion by this year's Bernstein Fellows, Fiona Doherty LAW '99 and Robert Sloane LAW '00, of their current work. The Robert L. Bernstein Fellowships provide financial support to two Yale Law School graduates to pursue full-time international human rights work for one year. Doherty is working for the Committee on the Administration of Justice in Northern Ireland, while Sloan is involved in the International Committee of Lawyers for Tibet.

Over the remainder of the weekend human rights advocates will discuss strategies for bringing international human rights issues to the attention of Washington policy makers, whether the United States has a bipartisan human rights agenda, and the Clinton administration's legacy on human rights. Speakers for the latter event are John Shattuck, former assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor (1993-99) and his successor in that post, Harold H. Koh, the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Proressor of International Law at the Law School.

Other participants include Susan Waltz, former president of Amnesty International; Elisa Massimino, Washington director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights; Steve Rickard, director of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights; David Abramovitz, Democratic chief counsel for the House Committee on International Relations; Charlotte Oldham-Moore, a legislative assistant in the office of Senator Paul Wellstone; and Radhika Coomaraswamy, a United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, among others.

"Raising the Roof," an Amnesty International film on how to be an effective lobbyist, will also be screened.

For further information, contact the Schell Center at(203) 432-7480.

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