Genocide in the 21st Century: The Uyghur Crisis

What is unfolding in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (also referred to as East Turkestan) is considered one of the worst human rights abuses in the world today. 

The Uyghur Region, Xinjiang, is often referred to as a dystopian surveillance state and an open-air prison. The actions of innocent civilians are heavily monitored through cell phone applications, frequent home inspections, and an array of checkpoints throughout the region. 

Anywhere from 1-3 million people, including Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Tajiks, and other ethnic minorities are arbitrarily detained by the Chinese government — simply because they speak a different language, practice a different religion, and embrace a different culture. Within these concentration camps built by the Chinese government, Uyghurs are forced to take “re-education” courses, and are subject to mental & bodily harm and torture. In many cases, they are coerced and trafficked into state-sponsored forced labor schemes to ramp up production in factories across the country. 

Featuring spotlight speakers and engaging panelists, this 2-day event aims to provide participants with a holistic and multi-dimensional understanding of the genocide unfolding in the region. Participants will leave inspired and equipped with concrete ideas on how they can help stand up against these atrocities.

Register here.

This event is jointly produced by Human Rights Foundation, Harvard University’s Human Rights Working Group, Jewish Movement for Uyghur Freedom, Harvard Law School Advocates for Human Rights, and The Trebuchet.

Free Ekpar: Commemorating Five Years of Unjust Detention

Join Rayhan Asat (Harvard Law School ‘16) in commemorating the fifth anniversary of her brother Ekpar’s unjust imprisonment by the Chinese government. Speakers include Sophie Richardson (Human Rights Watch), Thor Halvorssen (President of the Human Rights Foundation), Irwin Cotler (Raoul Wallenberg Center), and Professor Gregory Niemeyer, (University Of California, Berkeley). Burst the Bubble UK, a Youth advocacy organization, and LyLena Estabine (Harvard College) will be presenting live special tributes. Additionally, Senator Chris Coons and former Dean of Harvard Law School Martha Minow will also deliver pre-recorded messages. We hope that you will join us in calling for Ekpar’s release and shedding light on the Uyghur genocide.

This event is co-sponsored by the Human Rights Foundation, the Raoul Wallenberg Center, the Jewish Movement for Uyghur Freedom, the Trebuchet, Harvard Law School Advocates for Human Rights, and Harvard Jewish Law Students Association.

RSVP here for the Zoom link >> 

CONSIDERING CONFEDERATION: A PLAUSIBLE FUTURE FOR ISRAEL AND PALESTINE

Monday April 5th, 12:30pm ET

As physical separation between Israel and a future Palestinian state seems increasingly difficult to accomplish, the confederation model is gaining momentum among scholars, analysts, and activists, sometimes from opposing ideological camps. To discuss the possible benefits of such a model, please join the co-authors of a recent New York times article on the topic [2/12/21], Bernard Avishai and Sam Bahour. They will be joined by Avrum Burg and Dahlia Scheindlin to discuss various federal ideas in the context of current Israeli and Palestinian politics, and a more progressive U.S. Biden Administration.

Panelists:

Bernard Avishai teaches political economy at Dartmouth and the Hebrew University and is the author of “The Tragedy of Zionism,” “The Hebrew Republic,” and “Promiscuous,” among other books. He writes regularly for “The New Yorker.” He was selected as a Guggenheim Fellow in 1987.

Sam Bahour is a PalestinianAmerican business consultant from Ramallah/Al-Bireh in Occupied Palestine. He is a frequent independent political
commentator and is co-editor of “Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians”
(1994). He blogs at ePalestine.ps.

Avraham (Avrum) Burg is an author, public intellectual, political activist, and professorial lecturer. He is a former Speaker of the Knesset, and former Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel.

Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin is a public opinion expert and strategic consultant who has advised eight national campaigns in Israel. A co-founder and columnist at +972 Magazine, she is a fellow at The Century Foundation. She co-hosts The Tel Aviv Review podcast and "Election Overdose," a podcast at Haaretz newspaper.

The conversation will be moderated by Sherman Teichman, the Founding President of The Trebuchet.

Pandemic Ethics: Where Do We Go from Here?

Penn's Professor Jonathan D. Moreno discusses some of the pandemic's effects on national security and describes the dangers of the type of polarization that ...

The pandemic has made us all shockingly aware of the way that a highly infectious disease exposes the moral frailties of our social systems. In this virtual event, leading ethicists and historians will discuss their work, how it has been affected by the pandemic, and what lessons we may take away from this global crisis.

Nita A. Farahany is Robinson O. Everett Professor of Law and professor of philosophy at Duke Law School. She is a leading scholar on the ethical, legal, and social implications of emerging technologies. She is Founding Director of Duke Science & Society, Chair of the Duke MA in Bioethics & Science Policy, and principal investigator of SLAP Lab. In 2010, she was appointed by President Obama to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues and served until 2017.

Jonathan Moreno is David and Lyn Silfen University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is a Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) professor. . He has been called “the quietly most interesting bioethicist of our time” by the American Journal of Bioethics. At Penn he is also Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, of History and Sociology of Science, and of Philosophy. He is the co-author of Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven But Nobody Wants to Die: Bioethics and the Transformation of Health Care in America.    

Ulf Schmidt is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and professor at the University of Hamburg. His work is embedded in the historiographical tradition of social and political historians, historians of medicine and medical humanities as well as scholars of cultural history and history of science. His work has looked at the history of European eugenics and racial hygiene, especially in relation to Germany and Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the history of the Nazi 'euthanasia' programme, the killing of mentally and handicapped patients during the Third Reich.

Jason L. Schwartz is assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Yale School of Public Health. He has written widely on vaccines and vaccination policy, decision-making in medical regulation and public health policy, and the structure and function of scientific expert advice to government. His general research interest is in the ways in which evidence is interpreted, evaluated, and translated into regulation and policy in medicine and public health.

Wendell Wallach is a Carnegie-Uehiro Fellow and co-director of the Carnegie AI & Equality Initiative. He is a consultant, ethicist, and scholar at Yale University's Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics. He is also a scholar with the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics, a fellow at the Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technology, and a senior advisor to The Hastings Center.Wallach is the author of A Dangerous Master: How to Keep Technology from Slipping Beyond Our Control.

This event is hosted by Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, with whom we have begun a co-sponsorship series. See the recording of our first event with the Council, Right/Wrong: How Technology Transforms our Ethics.

Right/Wrong: How Technology Transforms Our Ethics

Many shifts in the right vs. wrong pendulum are affected by advances in technology. In "Right/Wrong," Juan Enriquez reflects on the evolution of ethics in a ...

Tuesday January 26th, 12:00pm ET

Many shifts in the right vs. wrong pendulum are affected by advances in technology. In Right/Wrong, Juan Enriquez reflects on the evolution of ethics in a technological age.

How will accelerating technology challenge and flip your ideas of right and wrong? What are we doing today that will be considered abhorrent tomorrow because of tech change?

Juan Enriquez is an author, speaker, and research affiliate at MIT’s Synthetic Neurobiology Lab. He is Managing Director of Excel Venture Management, a life sciences VC firm, and also the author of Evolving Ourselves, As the Future Catches You, and The Untied States of America. We are privileged to have him as a Convisero mentor.

Kit McDonnell is a biologist-turned-communicator operating at the intersection of biotech, design, and sustainability. She is currently director of corporate affairs at the agtech start-up Enko Chem. Kit was a member of the Synaptic Scholars Program of the Institute for Global Leadership.

Wendell Wallach is a Carnegie-Uehiro Fellow and co-director of the Carnegie AI & Equality Initiative. He is the author of A Dangerous Master: How to Keep Technology from Slipping Beyond Our Control.

This event is hosted by Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, thanks to the intervention of Wendell, a Carnegie-Uehiro Fellow with the Council. We have begun an exciting event partnership - our next webinar co-sponsored with them will be with Professor Jonathan Moreno on his new book Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven but Nobody Wants to Die: Bioethics and the Transformation of Health Care in America.

In Conversation with Timothy Snyder and FASPE

Join us on December 14th at 10am ET, for a webinar co-sponsored with the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics. FASPE Executive Director Thorsten Wagner will speak with Timothy Snyder, noted historian specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe and the Holocaust, and author of eight groundbreaking books including #1 New York Times Bestseller On Tyranny. They will discuss Professor Snyder’s latest book, Our Malady, an impassioned condemnation of commercial medicine, America’s coronavirus response, and an urgent call to rethink the connection between health and freedom.

“The word freedom is hypocritical when spoken by the people who create the conditions that leave us sick and powerless. If our federal government and our commercial medicine make us unhealthy, they are making us unfree.”

Timothy Snyder is the Levin Professor of History at Yale University and the author of The Road to Unfreedom, On Tyranny, Black Earth, and Bloodlands. His work has received the Hannah Arendt Prize, the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding, and an award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

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The Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE) challenges graduate students and future leaders to recognize and confront their ethical responsibilities as professionals by analyzing the decisions and actions of Nazi-era professionals. FASPE offers programs for graduate students and professionals, integrating history and contemporary ethical issues.

This is the second event in our co-sponsorship with FASPE. Our first was a conversation with three alumni of both FASPE and the IGL, as well as Talia Weiss, a new ally in our concern of science, technology, ethics, and international security.

Civil-Military Relations During A Biden-Harris Administration

This is the second event in a series on US civil-military relations, hosted by the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin, and co-sponsored by The Trebuchet, the Scowcroft Lecture Series at USAFA, the America in the World Consortium, and VIA Unlimited. Our first event was held on October 27th.

This series is inspired by the Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services (ALLIES), a civil-military program I created with my students at the Institute for Global Leadership, with subsequent chapters at West Point, Annapolis, USAFA, Wellesley College, and Boston University. In this fraught time, we remain alarmed at developments that threaten the apolitical professionalism of the military, and the ethos we sought to develop and spread through ALLIES - respect for the Constitution and the demonstration of strong ethical leadership, perhaps best exemplified in the ALLIES National Security and Civil Liberties program we convened with the Law Library of Congress.

IBO Summit - Building the Justice Layer of the Internet

This Summit was a three-day gathering of the legal community, technology industry, and policymakers, aimed towards building the “Justice Layer of the Internet”, a global marketplace accessible to anyone with a mobile device and a secure and trusted digital identity, and proving access to opportunity for all. It is designed to build on and amplify the success of IBO’s initiatives such as Peacetones, which students of the Institute for Global Leadership helped create.

I spoke during the forum on how the Peacetones vision was developed with the integral help of EPIIC students, and how our Convisero community has now already begun to meet the vision of the Justice Layer.

The Internet Bar Organization (IBO), founded in 2005 by Jeff Aresty, is an organization dedicated to creating networks and digital norms across borders in order to address deficits in trust, legal infrastructure, and verifiable identity - particularly between the developed and developing worlds. I first met Jeff and began our collaboration when I asked him to become an INSPIRE Fellow for the 2007-08 EPIIC year on Global Poverty and Inequality. I have tremendous admiration for him and confidence in his visionary work.

The Constitution on the Edge

Akhil Reed Amar, the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, teaches constitutional law at both Yale College and Yale Law School.

Amar joined the Yale faculty in 1985 after clerking for Judge Stephen Breyer, 1st U.S Circuit Court of Appeals.

Of his many publications, Amar is co-editor of a leading constitutional law casebook, “Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking.” He is the author of several books, including The Constitution and Criminal Procedure: First Principles, Yale University Press, 1997; The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction, Yale University Press, 1998; and America's Constitution: A Biography, Random House, 2005. His book The Law of the Land: A Grand Tour of our Constitutional Republic, Basic Books, 2015 was released last year. Amar’s next book The Constitution Today: Timeless Lessons for the Issues of Our Era will be published in September 2016.

Amar was awarded the Devane Medal—Yale’s highest award for teaching excellence in 2008. He served as a consultant on the popular show The West Wing and his work has also been showcased on several TV shows, including The Colbert Report, Charlie Rose and The MHP Show. Amar has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic and Slate.

Amar received his J.D. in 1984 from Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of The Yale Law Journal, and his B.A., summa cum laude, from Yale College in 1980.

Philip Bobbitt is a leading constitutional scholar and influential writer on constitutional law and theory. His early work including Constitutional Fate and Constitutional Interpretation first identified the six fundamental forms of constitutional argument. His later work has concerned the nature of the constitutional order and its relationship to international security. His recent teaching, essays, and best-selling books address the most challenging issues of the day, including presidential impeachment, responses to terrorism, and coming changes in world order.

Bobbitt has written 10 books, including the award-winning The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History. His most recent work is a new edition of the authoritative Impeachment: A Handbook, written in 1974 by former Columbia Law Professor Charles Black. Impeachment, he notes, will not tell law students what to think about constitutional problems, but “how to think’’ about them.

Bobbitt, who began teaching at the Law School in 2007, has served in the federal government through seven presidential administrations. He was formerly Associate Counsel to the President for intelligence and international security; the Legal Counsel to the Senate's Iran-Contra committee; the Counselor on International at the State Department; and the senior director for strategic planning at the National Security Council. He has been a member of the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on International Law and most recently, a member of the External Advisory Board of the CIA.

Caroline Fredrickson served as the President of the American Constitution Society from 2009-2019, where she helped grow ACS, which now has lawyer chapters across the country, student chapters in nearly every law school in the United States, and thousands of members throughout the nation. She was an eloquent spokesperson for ACS and the progressive movement on issues such as civil and human rights, judicial nominations and the importance of the courts in America, marriage equality, voting rights, the role of money in politics, labor law, and anti- discrimination efforts, rule of law, congressional oversight, and separation of powers, among others. This fall, she joined Georgetown Law as a Visiting Professor.

Fredrickson has published works on many legal and constitutional issues and is a frequent guest on television and radio. She regularly contributes opinion pieces for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other news outlets. She is also the author of Under The Bus: How Working Women Are Being Run Over, The Democracy Fix: How to Win the Fight for Fair Rules, Fair Courts, and Fair Elections, and most recently, The AOC Way.

Before joining ACS, Fredrickson served as the Director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office and as General Counsel and Legal Director of NARAL Pro-Choice America. In addition, she served as the Chief of Staff to Senator Maria Cantwell, and Deputy Chief of Staff to then-Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle. She served as Special Assistant to President Clinton for Legislative Affairs.

One of the nation’s leading appellate attorneys, Caitlin J. Halligan has argued six cases and served as counsel of record in more than 45 matters in the U.S. Supreme Court, and has handled scores of cases in the federal appellate courts, the New York Court of Appeals, and other state appellate courts. She has been praised for her “impressive track record” by Chambers USA, and named a “Litigation Star” and one of the “Top 250 Women in Litigation” by Benchmark Litigation.

Caitlin served as solicitor general for the State of New York from 2001 to 2007, after serving as deputy solicitor general. Before that she served as the first chief of the New York attorney general’s Internet Bureau, where she developed cutting-edge law enforcement and policy initiatives regarding online consumer fraud, securities trading, and privacy practices. Caitlin also served as general counsel to the New York County District Attorney’s Office. She currently teaches a seminar on states and public law as a lecturer on law at Harvard Law School, and previously taught a course on statutory interpretation and administrative law at Columbia Law School. She speaks frequently on topics that include appellate advocacy, the Supreme Court’s docket, and the impact of litigation brought by state attorney general offices.

Caitlin earned her J.D., magna cum laude, from the Georgetown University Law Center, and her B.A., cum laude, from Princeton University. She clerked for the Honorable Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Honorable Patricia Wald of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Sanford Levinson joined the University of Texas Law School in 1980. Previously a member of the Department of Politics at Princeton University, he is also a Professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas. Levinson is the author of approximately 400 articles, book reviews, or commentaries in professional and popular journals. He has also written six books: Constitutional Faith (1988, winner of the Scribes Award, 2d edition 2011); Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies (1998); Wrestling With Diversity (2003); Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and How We the People Can Correct It)(2006); Framed: America's 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance (2012); An Argument Open to All: Reading the Federalist in the 21st Century (2015); and, with Cynthia Levinson, Fault Lines in the Constitution: The Framers, Their Fights, and teh Flaws that Affect Us Today (forthcoming, September 2017). He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association in 2010.

He has been a visiting faculty member of the Boston University, Georgetown, Harvard, New York University, and Yale law schools in the United States and has taught abroad in programs of law in London; Paris; Jerusalem; Auckland, New Zealand; and Melbourne, Australia. He was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1985-86 and a Member of the Ethics in the Professions Program at Harvard in 1991-92. A member of the American Law Institute, Levinson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001.

Jennifer Selendy is a seasoned trial and appellate lawyer, and the Secretary of The Trebuchet. She has been named a "Distinguished Leader" by the New York Law Journal, a “Litigation Star” by Benchmark Litigation, one of the “Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers in America” by Lawdragon, and noted for her skill in complex commercial litigation by The Legal 500.

In addition to representing plaintiffs in high-stakes disputes, Jennifer also specializes in complex defense work and is frequently tapped for sensitive internal and governmental investigations into antitrust, financial misconduct, and employment-related matters. She has represented private equity and investment companies in precedent-setting litigation, represents renewable energy companies and related interests in cutting edge litigation aimed at protecting competition in power generation for the benefit of consumers, and has extensive expertise in RICO, bankruptcy, domestic and international arbitration, and cross-border disputes.

Jennifer received her law degree, cum laude, from Harvard Law School after completing an M.Phil. in International Relations at Oxford (St. Antony’s) as a Marshall Scholar. Jennifer maintains an active public interest practice, focusing on poverty and women’s rights, climate change, and education. Since 2012, she has served as the board chairman for the National Center for Law & Economic Justice. Jennifer is also the co-founder and board chairman of The Speyer Legacy School, an independent K-8 school for gifted children that focuses on educating low-income, high-achieving children in New York City.

Professional Ethics and the FASPE experience

“Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE) challenges graduate students and future leaders to recognize and confront their ethical responsibilities as professionals by analyzing the decisions and actions of Nazi-era professionals, integrating history and contemporary ethical issues.”

A conversation on a remarkable program and organization, with Executive Director Thorsten Wagner, three alumni of the IGL who participated in the Fellowships - Ben Perlstein, Duncan Pickard, and Tomo Takaki - and Talia Weiss, a Yale Phd student in physics who has written and led programs on science, technology and ethics for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

Thorsten Wagner is a German-Danish historian. Born and raised in Sønderborg, Denmark, Thorsten completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Tubingen, Germany, and has lived in Berlin since 1993. He conducted graduate work at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Technische Universität Berlin, and the Freie Universität Berlin, earning his MA from the TU and FU Berlin in 1998 in modern history, political science and German literature. After serving as an educator at the Jewish Museum of Berlin and a research fellow at the Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, since 2010 Thorsten has held a permanent position as associate professor at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad (DIS)/University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Ben Perlstein is in his final year of rabbinical training at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he is also completing an M.A. in Jewish Thought focused on ethics and mysticism. Ben was a 2018 FASPE Seminary Fellow and previously graduated summa cum laude from Tufts University, where he studied political science and participated in the Institute for Global Leadership's EPIIC and Synaptic Scholars programs. Through the international Jewish education organization Kivunim, Ben has spoken at the U.N. on the complexities of Holocaust commemoration and participated in the first Holocaust conference in the Arab world. Now serving as a rabbinic intern at Romemu, Ben is passionate about creative, multidisciplinary and multifaith applications of spiritual wisdom and practice to issues of public concern and pastoral need.

Duncan Pickard is an associate in the International Dispute Resolution Group of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, a global law firm based in New York, where he represents States, international organizations, and public companies. He previously worked for Democracy Reporting International, a Berlin-based organization promoting democracy worldwide. He was a 2017 FASPE Law Fellow. Duncan is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and he holds degrees from Stanford Law School, the Harvard Kennedy School, and Tufts University.

Tomo Takaki is a recent graduate of Yale Law School, where he was a member of the Veterans Legal Services Clinic. He was a 2018 FASPE Law Fellow. Prior to law school, Tomo worked as an AmeriCorps Fellow and served in the U.S. Army, most recently at the Office of the Chief Prosecutor in the Office of Military Commissions. He previously graduated from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service with a M.A. in Security Studies in 2015 and from Tufts University with a B.A. in International Relations and a minor in Arabic in 2011, where he was a member of the IGL's EPIIC and ALLIES programs.

Talia Weiss is a physics PhD student at Yale University. Previously, she received a B.S. in physics from MIT and an M.A. in political science from the University of Chicago, where she focused on political theory and international affairs. Talia’s masters thesis investigated how scientists who invented gene editing technologies understood the ethics of their research and acted in response. Talia has developed and moderated expert panel discussions on climate, nuclear, and emerging technology policy for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. She also wrote for the Bulletin on the moral failings of Nazi physicists. While in college, Talia worked for the MIT Washington Office, where she reported on federal R&D policy developments for university leadership.

Civil-Military Relations and Democracy in Polarized America

Whereas this event was not recorded, we are working to collect the written remarks delivered by our panelists:

Sherman Teichman - Introduction and the ALLIES Program

Professor Damon Coletta - Moderator

Professor Suzanne Nielsen on Morris Janowitz and Samuel Huntington

A significant constituency for this forum will be the community of the Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services (ALLIES). We are particularly excited to utilize this forum and our subsequent panel on December 1st for the virtual convening of our ALLIES community.

Two of our panelists are ALLIES “veterans:” Dr. Jim Golby, a former ALLIES academic liaison at West Point, who has written or spoken publicly on these issues in War on the Rocks, the Washington Post, and his podcast with CSIS; and Professor Suzanne Nielsen, Head of West Point’s Department of Social Sciences, another West Point ALLIES chapter academic liaison, and the co-editor of “American Civil-Military Relations: The Soldier and the State in a New Era.” A new valued ALLIES ally, USAFA Scowcroft Professor Damon Coletta, will moderate.

The concept for this forum originated in my conversation with our wonderful friend, Ben Paganelli, the former ALLIES faculty liaison at USAFA who also led our ALLIES Joint Research Project to Rwanda. We shared a concern over the unsettling nature of the election, threats of disruption and violence, and the role that the military may take, or be pressured to take, in any outcome. We were, and remain, deeply alarmed at developments that threaten the apolitical professionalism of the military, and the ethos we sought to develop and spread through ALLIES - respect for the Constitution and the demonstration of strong ethical leadership, perhaps best exemplified in the ALLIES National Security and Civil Liberties program we convened with the Law Library of Congress.

Dr. Risa Brooks is the Allis Chalmers Associate Professor of Political Science at Marquette University, and a non-resident senior associate in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Dr. Brooks' research focuses on issues related to American and comparative civil-military relations, military effectiveness, and militant & terrorist organizations; she also has a regional interest in the Middle East. Her research on the United States focuses on issues of military professionalism, military advice and civilian control of the military. For the 2017-2019 academic years, she was an adjunct scholar at the Modern War Institute at West Point. She is currently an associate editor of International Security.

Dr. Jim Golby is a Senior Fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at The University of Texas at Austin and a Lecturer in the Department of Government. Jim is also the co-host of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' "Thank You for Your Service” podcast. Jim served twenty years in the United States Army. He previously served as a defense policy advisor at the United States Mission to NATO, as a special adviser to the Vice President of the United States, as a special assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and as an assistant professor of American Politics, Policy, and Strategy at the US Military Academy at West Point. Jim was the US Mission to NATO co-lead for the 2018 Brussels Summit.

Colonel Suzanne Nielsen is a Professor of Political Science and the head of the Department of Social Sciences at West Point. An intelligence officer by background, she has served on the personal staff of the Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq, and she has also been a Special Assistant to the Commander, U.S. Cyber Command and Director, National Security Agency. Her research interests include change in military organizations, civil-military relations, and cyber policy and strategy. Her most recent book, American National Security, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2018. She serves on the governing council of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Colonel Heidi Urben is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University and an active duty colonel in t he United States Army with more than 23 years of service. Dr. Urben’s research interests include civil-military relations, public opinion, political behavior, and national security strategy. Dr. Urben recently finished command of a military intelligence brigade at Fort Meade, Maryland. Her previous positions include: Vice Deputy Director of Current Analysis and Warning in the Joint Staff Directorate for Intelligence; Deputy Director for Intelligence in the Joint Staff’s National Military Command Center; and Military Aide to Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates.

Moderated by Dr. Damon Coletta is Scowcroft Professor in the Dept. of Political Science at the United States Air Force Academy. He edits the Eisenhower Center peer-reviewed journal, Space & Defense, and recently completed a book on technology and international security, Courting Science: Securing the Foundation for a Second American Century (Stanford University Press, 2016). He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Duke University; a Master’s in Public Policy (S&T) from the Harvard Kennedy School; and a Master’s in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. Dr. Coletta recently was a visiting scientist at the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Our second forthcoming session will be convened by Benjamin Paganelli (LtCol Ret USAF). A combat veteran of Operations Northern and Southern Watch, Enduring and Iraqi Freedom, and the International Security Assistance Force, Ben holds a BS in Int Affairs (Air Force Academy) and an MS in Int Relations (Troy Univ). Ben finished his military service as Assistant Professor of Political Science back at the Air Force Academy, and while there he started the USAFA chapter of ALLIES, and conducted research in civil-military relations in Turkey and Rwanda. Upon retirement, he founded Viable International Applications Unlimited, LLC (VIA Unlimited) a consulting firm helping organizations build culturally strategic success.

Impact of COVID: The Human Dimension

At November’s Brink

What Will Decide The Election of Our Lives?

The most consequential US presidential election in living memory is fewer than fifty days away. At stake are the foundations of US democracy, growing contempt for the rule of law, and the politicization of justice and public institutions.

What factors will decide the outcome? What lessons have we learned or ignored from 2016? How will our most pressing problems - a chaotic response to COVID, racial discrimination, a coast ablaze, and staggering wealth inequality - play in this election season?

We convened an urgent exploration of these questions with Tufts Professor of Political Science Eitan Hersh, author of Politics is for Power: How to Move Beyond Political Hobbyism, Take Action, and Make Real Change, and Matt Bai, former NYTimes journalist, Washington Post political columnist, author and screenwriter. Their interlocutor was my wife Iris Adler, former News Director and Executive Director for Programming, Podcasts and Special Projects at NPR affiliate WBUR.

Matt’s writings on the dangers of our current politics can be found in his column for the Washington Post. Eitan’s research and findings are summarized in a recent article for The Atlantic and interview with NPR’s Hidden Brain. 

Nasrin Sotoudeh: Iran's Mandela

On August 10th, Nasrin Sotoudeh began a hunger strike to protest the conditions and risk of COVID-19 infection in Tehran’s Evin prison, where she is currently being held. Nasrin was arrested and sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes, on charges of acting against Iran’s national security through her advocacy on behalf of detained women who had protested the compulsory hijab law. 

We have become involved in the PEN campaign to bring attention and support to the woman called “Iran’s Mandela,” through the intervention of Amir Soltani, a dear beloved longtime friend and a former student from my first full year at Tufts University, 1985-86. Amir has been a consistent human rights campaigner and activist whose consuming passion has been to restore dignity and justice to people.  Here is but one example – Zahra’s Paradise.

On September 21st, 42 days into Nasrin’s hunger strike, we convened the first in a series of webinars with PEN America, featuring a panel with Amir and other new and old friends:

• Karin Karlekar, Director of Free Expression at Risk Programs at PEN America. 

  Here is the PEN America petition demanding Nasrin’s release, signed among many others by Kweku Mandela, Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah, Hillary Clinton, Geralyn Dreyfous, Azar Nafisi, Samantha Power, and Gloria Steinem.

• The Honourable Irwin Cotler, former justice minister and attorney general of Canada, Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR) and Nasrin’s international legal counsel. 

• Roya Boroumand, Executive Director, and Ladan Boroumand, co-founder and Senior Fellow, Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran.

  ABC’s goal is to "prepare for a peaceful and democratic transition in Iran and build a more just future in which citizens’ rights are respected and mass killings and crimes against humanity belong in the history books.” Here is ABC’s library documenting pro-democracy movements and human rights violations in Iran.

  Here is ABC’s report of the threat of COVID in Iran’s prisons.

As part of Convisero’s effort, we have also reached out to secure support and social media activity from Samantha Power, Ken Roth, Michael Ignatieff, Jianli Yang, the Human Rights Foundation, and the Senior Fellows of the Wallenberg Centre.

The Olympic File of Israel and Palestine

A Convisero discussion with San Charles Haddad on his recent book, The File: Origins of the Munich Massacre. San was a participant in the IGL's 2000 EPIIC year on Global Games: Sports, Politics, and Society, and shortly thereafter became Founding President of the Palestinian Rowing Federation. He has served as a consultant to the Palestine and Qatar Olympic Committees.

San presented the remarkable and troubling history of sport in Mandate Palestine between the world wars. That history, meticulously researched and unrivaled, includes the true story of the first Palestine Olympic Committee, the influence of Nazi Germany in Mandate Palestine, and the long-forgotten attendance of a Palestinian delegation to the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.

These elements, buried until San unearthed them, fueled a distorted and dangerous narrative that he argues contributed, in part, to the tragic 1972 Munich Massacre, the 48th anniversary of which will be observed this year on 5-6 September. The same false narrative helps sustain the Palestinian-led movement to sanction Israel in international sport, which further encourages activists of anti-normalization and the Boycott Sanctions Divestment (BDS) movement.

San discussed the potential reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians through recognition and commemoration of their shared sport history. He proposed joint sport initiatives to promote the spirit of friendship, solidarity, fair play, and “the harmonious development of humankind” that is foundational to Olympism.

San’s interlocutor was the award-winning journalist Ken Shulman.

The File can be purchased here in print, ebook, and audio formats. San is also contributing a series of articles to the Journal of Olympic History on the research he has chronicled in The File, and further findings he has made since the book’s publication. Here are his first (pp. 35-50) and second (pp. 20-35) contributions thus far.

San Charles Haddad graduated from University of Rochester in 1997 with a BA in Art History and Italian Studies. He moved to Cambridge to train for a spot on the 2000 U.S. Olympic rowing team. However, the Oslo Peace Process presented a unique opportunity to qualify a Palestinian rowing team for the Sydney Games. Haddad founded the Palestinian Rowing Federation and served as its president for eleven years.

In 2002 and 2003, Haddad was a consultant at the Palestine Olympic Committee. From 2009 to 2015, he advised the Qatar Olympic Committee on strategic, financial, and executive training as part of its increasing presence in the Olympic Movement.

Haddad holds an Executive Masters in Sport Organisation Management and a Masters of Arts in Teaching. He is author of Managing Finances in Olympic Solidarity’s textbook Managing Olympic Sport Organisations (2007). He is an adjunct and visiting professor in organizational behavior, organization development, and corporate strategy with a focus on international trans-organizational systems. He was a participant in the IGL EPIIC Colloquium in 2000’s Global Games: Sports, Politics, and Society.

Ken Shulman is a longtime international correspondent for NPR’s “Only A Game,” and host and executive producer of “Away Games,” a television travel show and learning platform based on sport and social justice. He is a two-time RTDNA Edward R. Murrow winner for excellence in broadcasting, and was named a Champion of Justice by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

A veteran print and broadcast journalist, Ken has explored the intersection of sport, politics, and human rights for The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, Newsweek, The International Herald Tribune, National Public Radio, and the BBC.

Ken is a graduate of Middlebury College, and holds a Masters Degree in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Confronting the Deportation Machine

On Tuesday August 4th, Professor Adam Goodman (EPIIC ‘00) discussed his new book, The Deportation Machine: America's Long History of Expelling Immigrants, and contemporary U.S. Trump Administration policies, with Diane Rish (EPIIC ‘05), Associate Director for Government Relations of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Though the iniquities of our immigration system have rarely been as stark as in the present moment, they are preceded by 140 years of unjust expulsion policies. The Deportation Machine is a meticulous, passionate, and devastating rendering of that history, unveiling the underlying fear, economic realities, and human costs. It delivers a painstaking understanding of the systemic mechanisms of use-of-force, militarized borders, mass incarceration, and consistent violations of due process.t

The question at the core of these issues has immense importance today: is the United States to be a nation of immigrants - multiracial, multicultural, and multilingual - or a nation of anti-migrant sentiment, racial prejudice, and xenophobia? Public involvement and action are urgently needed to tackle that question, and to begin confronting the past that has gotten us here.

The event entailed an engaging discussion of The Deportation Machine with Adam, and then turned to ways in which individuals can help challenge the machine by advocating for those who are currently detained and calling for a more humane and just treatment of immigrants in our communities. 

Apartheid In Israel and the West Bank

A conversation with Benjamin Pogrund, prominent Israeli-South African journalist. Benjamin was deputy editor of the Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg, closed down because of its stand against apartheid. He has lived in Jerusalem since 1997 and was founding director of Yakar's Center for Social Concern. He is the author Sobukwe and Apartheid: How Can A Man Die Better, and Drawing Fire: Investigating the Accusations of Apartheid in Israel. Benjamin will speak on the nature of Israel’s internal governance, politics and social attitudes, its occupation policies, the looming annexation of large sections of the West Bank, and the potential reality of Israeli Apartheid. His interlocutor is Sherman Teichman, Founding Director Emeritus (1985-2016) of the Institute for Global Leadership, and Founding President of The Trebuchet. He was a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy from 2017 to 2019, and is the Senior Strategic Advisor of the Human Rights Foundation.

We convened a webinar conversation with my close friend Benjamin Pogrund, prominent Israeli-South African journalist. Benjamin was deputy editor of the Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg, closed down because of its stand against apartheid. He has lived in Jerusalem since 1997 and was founding director of Yakar's Center for Social Concern. We discussed the nature of Israel’s internal governance, politics and social attitudes, its occupation policies, the looming annexation of large sections of the West Bank, and the potential reality of Israeli Apartheid.

In 2007, I has asked “Benjie” to become an INSPIRE Fellow at the Institute for our EPIIC year on Global Poverty and Inequality, and to advise the New Initiative on Middle East Peace. I encouraged him to write a book on his experiences living in both Israel and in South Africa, where he was a close friend of Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe (he is the author Sobukwe and Apartheid: How Can A Man Die Better). In his time at the Institute, he wrote the original outline and first chapters of what became Drawing Fire: Investigating Accusations of Apartheid in Israel. The book was published in 2014, and now only a few years later, Benjie now warns that if Israel adopts policies such as the Nation State Law, and pushes to annex much the West Bank, it will take the reality of an Israeli-Palestinian Apartheid “right over the edge.”

Urban Violence and Aggressive Policing

A conversation with Teny Oded Gross, the Director of the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago; Chris Patterson, the Institute’s Senior Director of Programs and Policy, and Professor John Hoberman, author of Dopers in Uniform: The Hidden World of Police on Steroids. Over the July 4th weekend, many of Chicago’s neighborhoods erupted in a tremendous upsurge of violence, which resulted in ninety shootings and seventeen tragic deaths. In response, the Chicago Police Department is organizing a citywide “suppression” unit, to the concern of Chicago’s communities and advocacy groups, who remember the outcomes of similar police efforts in the past. What are the root causes of and solutions for urban violence and poverty, gang warfare, inter-community conflict, racial discrimination, and abusive police practices, in Chicago and other US urban communities? Teny has a unique perspective on these realities at street level, having spent decades on the front lines in Boston, Providence, and Chicago. He has consulted on community engagement and nonviolence strategies with police departments and municipalities, domestically and internationally. Chris is a Chicago native and a specialist on gang culture and its impact on society, with over a decade of experience in community engagement. His memoir is 21: The Epitome of Perseverance. Professor Hoberman is an expert on race and society. His research provides insight into Chicago’s history and ongoing policing dilemmas, particularly on the curtain of secrecy that protects both police brutality and police steroid culture. Along with Dopers in Uniform, he is the author of Black and Blue: The Origins and Consequences of Medical Racism, and Darwin's Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race. Their moderator is Sherman Teichman, Founding Director Emeritus (1985-2016) of the Institute for Global Leadership, and Founding President of The Trebuchet.

We held a webinar discussion with EPIIC ‘93 alumnus Teny Oded Gross, the Director of the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago; Chris Patterson, the Institute’s Senior Director of Programs and Policy, and a good friend, Professor John Hoberman, author of Dopers in Uniform: The Hidden World of Police on Steroids. 

Please learn more about the critical work of the Institute for Nonviolence here, and consider supporting.

Over the July 4th weekend, many of Chicago’s neighborhoods erupted in a tremendous upsurge of violence, which resulted in ninety shootings and seventeen tragic deaths. In response, the Chicago Police Department is organizing a citywide “suppression” unit, to the concern of Chicago’s communities and advocacy groups, who remember the outcomes of similar police efforts in the past.  What are the root causes of and solutions for urban violence and poverty, gang warfare, inter-community conflict, racial discrimination, and abusive police practices, in Chicago and other US urban communities? 

Teny has a unique perspective on these realities at street level, having spent decades on the front lines in Boston, Providence, and Chicago. He has consulted on community engagement and nonviolence strategies with police departments and municipalities, domestically and internationally. 

Chris is a Chicago native and a specialist on gang culture and its impact on society, with over a decade of experience in community engagement. His memoir is 21: The Epitome of Perseverance.

John is an expert on race and society. His research provides insight into Chicago’s history and ongoing policing dilemmas, particularly on the curtain of secrecy that protects both police brutality and police steroid culture. Along with Dopers in Uniform, he is the author of Black and Blue: The Origins and Consequences of Medical Racism, and Darwin's Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race.