HUMAN RIGHTS AT UCONN Examining the most pressing human rights questions and preparing the next generation of human rights leaders.
Human Rights for the Next Generation
On October 1, 1946, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg delivered its verdict, convicting 19 Nazi leaders of conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
Seventy-five years later, as the world faces new challenges to democracy and rule of law, we dedicate The Dodd Center for Human Rights, extending the legacy of Nuremberg for the next generation.
Learn more about the event we hosted on October 15, 2021 featuring Senator Chris Dodd and President Joe Biden.
Evolving Landscapes of Human Rights
Celebrating 20 Years of Interdisciplinarity & Innovation March 29-31, 2023 • Storrs, CT
Human Rights and the Global Assault on Democracy October 25-27, 2023
The Human Rights Summit at The Dodd Center for Human Rights brings together scholars, activists, policymakers, artists, and business leaders from across the world to examine the key human rights challenges of our time and generate new ideas to promote global justice and human dignity.
Through a mix of high-profile lectures, practical workshops, and roundtable discussions, the Human Rights Summit will serve as a critical venue for sharing insights, building relationships, and inspiring action.
Human rights education and rights-based approaches to learning can help cultivate transformative agency for both teachers and students and contribute to securing human rights for all.
Human Rights graduate student Sage Phillips ’22 (CLAS), ’24 MA, speaks with U.S. Treasurer Lynn Malerba ’08 MPA, Chief of the Mohegan Tribe, on the significance of her role as both a tribal leader and senior U.S. official, as well as the values of representation and inspiration.
Kiana Foster-Mauro, an alum of the Neag School of Education and an undergraduate minor in Human Rights, was announced as the 2024 Connecticut Teacher of the Year by Governor Ned Lamont and Education Commissioner Charlene M. Russell-Tucker. Foster-Mauro is a a fourth-grade teacher at Nathan Hale Arts Magnet School in New London, CT.
The Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute invites all undergraduate students interested in human rights to attend an information session about our 4+1 Accelerated Master of Arts Program! HRI’s Director of Graduate Studies, Dr. David Richards, and Educational Program Administrator, Dr. Alyssa Webb, will be present and ready to answer questions about the MA program, and how it may complement prospective students’ professional aspirations.
Is there a topic that you believe demands discussion but that you fear will prove too polarizing for civil conversation? Do you avoid organizing such a discussion because you are unsure of how to ensure meaningful engagement across difference? Are you interested in honing your skills of engaging in conversation with people who think differently from you? If so, please join us for this workshop which will focus on the following subjects:
basic theories of, and approaches to, conflict resolution-based dialogue;
facilitating difficult conversations in a structured-dialogue setting;
creating and hosting dialogues (focusing on the Encounters dialogue model)
Projecte Úter is a collaborative drawing initiative focused on sexual and reproductive freedom. Beginning as a research project on abortion stories in Spain, it evolved into a large visual representation of these stories, along with themes of abortion, community building, and bodily autonomy. Claiming visual and oral storytelling as an organic and universal language, it takes the shape of a large format drawing that is presented through oral presentations.
Our Purpose:
To share and communicate personal stories related to sexual and reproductive health.
To map the forces that shape our current reality regarding abortion, and provide a comprehensive view to help visualize how everything is interconnected.
To create a space for dialogue and connection among diverse individuals, scholars, feminists and social movements advocates.
About Our Guest
Carles García O’Dowd
Artist and Organizer
Carles García O’Dowd, born in 1988, is an artist based in New York with Spanish-Irish roots from Palma, Mallorca. His work is influenced by activism, pop culture, and cartoons. Using drawing and printmaking, he delves into the complexities of modern societies through a fictional universe. His detailed drawings encourage viewers to rethink their perspectives and spark discussions by creating new narratives for our globalized world.
The Residue of Memory is an interactive two-part workshop exploring the ways past events leave their mark in art.
Learn more about art objects that forge a tangible link to the past through close looking and discussion of work by Yishai Jusidman and Binh Danh. Then make your own cyanotype print using autumn leaves.
21st-century America is increasingly polarized over policing. From yard signs to public protests, from political rhetoric to legislative acts, tension over the role and status of police grips us daily. Why are we so divided over this issue? Are there new approaches that might find broader support? Join us for a dialogue on this most critically important subject in which we will explore the development of policing in our democracy and discuss the present-day landscape of law enforcement, community relations, individual rights, and possible ways forward from our current landscape. Facilitated, small-group conversations will be followed by a Q&A with guest scholars and activists. You are warmly and respectfully encouraged to come speak from your heart about this subject that lies at the shared heart of the “Land of the Free.”
The US National Contact Point is a unique human rights complaints mechanism. David Sullivan serves in this role and will outline what the mechanism does, how it is being improved in line with international developments and US policy commitments, and where it fits within the landscape of remedy for corporate human right violations.
About Our Guest
David Sullivan was named the U.S. National Contact Point (NCP) for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (on Responsible Business Conduct), and Senior Adviser on Corporate Social Responsibility in November 2021. In this capacity he promotes business conduct that is not only commercially viable, but also conducted in a manner consistent with high standards related to labor, the environment, human rights, and other sustainability factors. The role of the NCP is to promote awareness of the OECD Guidelines, to facilitate their practical application, and to seek to resolve, through mediation or conciliation, disputes or “specific instances” regarding an enterprise’s conduct.
Previously, David was a senior State Department attorney. He joined the Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser in 1998, and since then served as an Attorney-Adviser in offices for international claims, law enforcement, the Western Hemisphere, employment and ethics, human rights, and economic and business affairs. He also served as the senior legal adviser to the U.S. Mission to the UN in Geneva.
David’s prior legal work has been with the Department of the Treasury, White & Case, and the Alaska Supreme Court. He has also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Eswatini and worked for IBM. David has a law degree from Yale Law School, a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and a bachelor’s degree from Yale College. He is from Cleveland, Ohio.
This workshop is sponsored by the Business & Human Rights Initiative, part of the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute’s Dodd Human Rights Impact Programs.
UConn’s El Instituto (Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies) awarded small seed grants to support faculty-led workshops, reading groups or other research, on any theme of relevance to Latine, Latin American or Caribbean studies in the academic year 2023. Please join us this fall semester in this 4 part series of events to hear about their research accomplishments. Light Refreshments Served. There is limited space, RSVP today!
2nd Event:
“Humility in Practices of Transitional Justice: the case of Campo Algodonero, Mexico,” by Dr. Robin Adèle Greeley
In 2009, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered the Mexican state to carry out a comprehensive program of reparations in the landmark case of Campo Algodonero. The Court found the Mexican state had failed to prevent the murders in 2001 of three young women in Ciudad Juárez. Part of a wave of femicides that continue to afflict women in Mexico, the Campo Algodonero murders sparked a pivotal turn in the Court’s rulings in cases of gender violence. As part of the reparations, the Court ordered the Mexican state to apologize and to build a memorial. Yet since its inauguration in 2011, the Campo Algodonero memorial has been a site not of public commemoration, but of vociferous contestation by the principal audience for which it was intended: the families of the murdered women. This talk explores why the seemingly humble State apology, delivered at the memorial site, was vehemently rejected by the victims’ families, and what this can tell us about the role of humility in practices of transitional justice.
The Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute invites all undergraduate students interested in human rights to attend an information session about our 4+1 Accelerated Master of Arts Program! HRI’s Director of Graduate Studies, Dr. David Richards, and Educational Program Administrator, Dr. Alyssa Webb, will be present and ready to answer questions about the MA program, and how it may complement prospective students’ professional aspirations.
Structured dialogues increase student engagement and foster inclusive learning environments. By incorporating dialogic modalities into the classroom, students can learn to communicate across difference and navigate challenging conversations, while engaging deeply with course content. In this collaborative workshop, participants will:
Gain firsthand experience by participating in a structured dialogue
Learn to build the foundation for a successful dialogue in diverse classroom contexts
Around the world children born to migrant parents with precarious status face difficulties obtaining birth certificates, and may become stateless as a result. This has important implications for migrant families’ economic and social rights. Conversely, points of access to social and economic rights are often the very sites where migrant families’ exclusion from birth registration becomes apparent. Nevertheless, global campaigns to achieve “legal identity for all” in pursuit of the SDG target 16.9 promote the linkage of birth registration with social welfare entitlements or health service delivery. How might such ‘good practices’ have negative outcomes for migrant families? And what would inclusive and non-discriminatory birth registration look like?
Dr. Allison Petrozziello will join us virtually from Toronto Metropolitan University to discuss selected findings from her dissertation (and forthcoming book) Birth Registration as Bordering Practice, which garnered the International Studies Association-Human Rights section’s 2024 Best Dissertation Award.
While our guest speaker will join us virtually, we welcome you to join us on UConn’s campus in Dodd 162, or online via Zoom.
Assistant Professor, Toronto Metropolitan University
Allison Petrozziello is Assistant Professor of Global Migration & Inequality at Toronto Metropolitan University. Dr. Petrozziello is a global governance scholar specialized in gender and human-rights based approaches to the governance of migration and citizenship. Her academic work builds on over 15 years of experience in international research, teaching, and policy advocacy work, mostly in Latin America and the Caribbean, with stakeholders ranging from grassroots organizations to policymakers to the United Nations. She has consulted for UN Women, the International Labour Organization (ILO), Inter-American Development Bank, and the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), among others. At TMU, she teaches courses in comparative and global politics for undergraduate programs in the Department of Politics and Public Administration as well as the PhD program in Policy Studies.
The Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute invites all undergraduate students interested in human rights to attend an information session about our 4+1 Accelerated Master of Arts Program! HRI’s Director of Graduate Studies, Dr. David Richards, and Educational Program Administrator, Dr. Alyssa Webb, will be present and ready to answer questions about the MA program, and how it may complement prospective students’ professional aspirations.
The Culture of Collage is an interactive two-part workshop exploring collage as a tool for subversion.
Learn more about the ways artists use collage as a tool for subversion through close looking and discussion of work by Melvin Edwards, Paul Scott, and Sukanya Rahman. Then make your own collage.