9:00 a.m. - 10:15 a.m. |
Global Health & the Right to Health: Critical Perspectives from Latin America
The intersection of Global Health and Human Rights has generated concepts, methods, and political debates, as well as legislation and programs. In official accounts, the importance of local activism, social movements, and regional trajectories in the history of global health and the right to health is often overshadowed by international organizations and foundations’ universalizing narratives of what human rights are and how to measure progress. In this panel, leading scholars and activists from Latin America will challenge these top-down accounts by sharing incredible conceptual, methodological and political contributions of subaltern proposals from Latin America. Panelists will not only shed light on the regional specificities of their struggles, but also show how this region is at the forefront of challenging Western perspectives on the right to health, for instance by proposing novel decommodified and pluriversal perspectives on the social determination of the health-disease-treatment process, intercultural health, and healthcare systems.
Panelists:
Jaime Breilh Paz y Miño, Director of the Collective Health Research Center and of the doctorate and postdoctorate programs of the Health Sciences Area, Universidad Andina Simón Bolivar, Ecuador
Vivian T. Camacho Hinojosa, General Director, Traditional Ancestral Medicine of the Bolivian Ministry of Health
Mario Hernández, Coordinator, Interdisciplinary Doctorate in Public Health Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Moderator: César E. Abadía-Barrero, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Human Rights, University of Connecticut
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10:30 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. |
The US National Action Plan on Responsible Business Conduct
On June 16, 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on behalf of the Biden-Harris Administration that the federal government would soon begin updating and revitalizing the United States’ National Action Plan (NAP) on Responsible Business Conduct. Interested parties were provided the opportunity to submit written comments for federal government agencies to consider in developing the NAP. Submissions from business, civil society, and academia were followed by informal consultations between these groups and the government in 2022. The United States published its first NAP in December 2016, one of about 30 countries throughout the world to have done so. The panel will consider the role of NAPs and how the NAP could and should take forward the business and human rights agenda in the United States.
Panelists:
Jena Martin, Robert L. Shuman Professor of Law and Ethics, West Virginia University
David Sullivan, U.S. National Contact Point (NCP) for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (on Responsible Business Conduct), and Senior Adviser on Corporate Social Responsibility, U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs
David McKean, Director, International Corporate Accountability Roundtable
Eric Biel, Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB), U.S. Department of Labor
Moderator: Rachel Chambers, Assistant Professor of Business Law, University of Connecticut School of Business
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12:00 p.m. - 1:15 p.m. |
Lunchtime Breakout Sessions, Student Union, 3rd Floor |
1:30 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. |
Human Rights Measurement and Monitoring: Challenges and Methodological Approaches
In order to document and describe the extent of human rights conditions and abuses, advance our understanding of their causes and consequences, and inform policy and advocacy requires that we accurately and systematically observe and measure these phenomena. Because human rights abusers seek to obfuscate their actions and deny access to evidence, this is a tremendous challenge. The Human Rights Research and Data (HuRRD) Hub workshop session brings together scholars working on cutting edge techniques to improve and expand the measurement of human rights fulfillment and violations, as well as the institutional and policy approaches to prevent or address them, around the world. Panelists will explain the key challenges to human rights measurement and observation that their research aims to address, introduce their innovative methodological approaches to meeting these challenges, and discuss how their data can be used in human rights research, policy, and advocacy. Panelist presentations will lead to an open format discussion to 1) elicit critical feedback on the projects from the audience, 2) make these cutting edge methodological advances in human rights research accessible to the audience, and 3) identify present limitations in human rights measurement and the needs for innovation and future research to address these gaps.
Panelists:
Rebecca Cordell, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Texas-Dallas
Chris Fariss, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan
Kelebogile Zvobgo, Assistant Professor of Government, William & Mary and Director, International Justice Lab
Skip Mark, Assistant Professor and Director, Center for Nonviolence & Peace Studies, University of Rhode Island
Moderator: Mike Rubin, Assistant Research Professor, Human Rights, Engineering & Business and Director, Human Rights Research and Data Hub
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3:00 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. |
Transforming Human Rights Education for Contentious Times
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “every individual and every organ of society…shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms” (1948). Since then, human rights education has evolved from a field that aims to raise awareness about respect for human rights to one through which a person or community has the potential to transform as a result of realizing human rights and one’s ability to influence positive social change. At the same time, scholars and practitioners have critiqued human rights and human rights education for privileging Western and Eurocentric contributions to the fields over non-Western knowledge, values, and perspectives. As a result, they have been engaged in the work of decolonizing human rights education. In this panel, leading human rights education scholars will draw on their decades of experience to reflect on the past and discuss how human rights education needs to continue to evolve at present to meet these contentious times. They will discuss how human rights education can address global challenges such as prejudice and discrimination, economic injustice, and the effects of the climate crisis, and examine how scholarship can inform practice to contend with the human rights challenges of today.
Panelists:
Audrey Osler, Professor Emerita of Human Rights Education and Citizenship, University of Leeds
Michalinos Zembylas, Professor of Educational Theory and Curriculum Studies, Open University of Cyprus
Andre Keet, Chair of Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation, Nelson Mandela University
Moderator: Sandra Sirota, Assistant Professor in Residence, Experiential Global Learning & Human Rights, University of Connecticut
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4:30 p.m. - 5:45 p.m. |
Gladstein Visiting Professor Keynote Address: "Accountability and its Discontent – Between Hope and Despair"
Rashida Manjoo, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its Causes and Consequences, and Professor Emerita, University of Cape Town |