Fall 2009
War Crimes Trials! What are they good for?
This discussion of the negative consequences of prosecuting war crimes in international law for human rights featured Robert Hayden, anthropologist at the University of Pittsburgh, expert in the former Yugoslavia.
Film Screening of Armes, Trafic, & Raison d’etat
A French documentary subtitled in English highlighting the work of Amnesty International to investigate the globalized arms sell and transfer of arms in third world countries, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Arms dispersal in the Congo to various militias fuels the deadliest conflict in civilian casualties since World War II, totaling 5 million deaths in the last decade. A Congo Month event.
Master’s Tea with Tom Parker
We had the honor of hosting Tom Parker (Policy Director for Terrorism, Counterterrorism and Human Rights at Amnesty International USA) for a Master’s tea, dinner, as well as an intimate dining hall luncheon. We were heavily engaged with and learned much from the discussion of his many great experiences with terrorisim, counterterrorism, and human rights throughout the world.
He was previously Executive Director of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center in New Haven, Connecticut and has worked extensively during the past five years as a consultant on post-conflict justice issues for clients such as USAID, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Open Society Institute on projects in Darfur, Iraq, Russia and Georgia. Tom has also served as a war crimes investigator with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and as a counterterrorist official with the British government.
Tom has held adjunct lectureships with both Yale University’s Residential College Seminar Program and Bard University’s Globalization and International Affairs Program teaching courses on trends in international terrorism and counter-terrorism. He has also been a member of the adjunct faculty of the Defense Institute for International Legal Studies (DIILS) serving as an instructor on counterterrorism training programs in countries as diverse as Mexico, Peru, Rwanda, Nepal, Albania, Thailand, Lebanon and Sri Lanka. He is a graduate of the London School of Economics, the University of Leiden and Brown.