Vincent Manno
Vincent P. Manno is an engineer, engineering educator and academic leader. Currently a full-time grandfather and a part-time consultant, Vin dedicates his time to family and to assisting institutions developing programs to enhance student success and advance human-centered engineering.
Vin received a BS from Columbia University and MS and Sc.D. degrees from M.I.T. in nuclear/mechanical engineering. His fields of interest are engineering education, power generation, electronics thermal management and semiconductor manufacturing processes. His research has been supported by the government agencies and industry including the DOE, NSF, and U.S. Navy. He has authored numerous journal articles, conference papers, book chapters and technical reports. He is a frequent keynote speaker and has served on several advisory boards including the that of the Tufts University Institute for Global Leadership.
Vin worked in the private sector, served as a U.S. Navy Senior Summer Faculty Fellow, and holds a US patent. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the recipient of Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award, the Harvey Rosten Award for Excellence in the Thermal Analysis of Electronic Equipment, the ASME Curriculum Innovation Award, the Tufts University Engineering Teacher of the Year, and the Seymour Simches Award for Distinguished Teaching and Advising.
From 1984 through 2011, Vin was on the faculty of Tufts University and held the rank of Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the time of his departure. At Tufts, he also held a number of leadership positions including Department Chair, Associate Dean of Engineering for Graduate Education, Dean of Engineering ad interim, and Associate Provost. In the latter role, he was responsible for cross-disciplinary initiatives at Tufts including the Institute for Global Leadership during Sherman Techiman’s directorship. From 2004-2011, Sherman and Vin worked together to advance IGL’s role as a cross campus catalyst for student growth and interdisciplinarity, as well as enhance the resilience of the Institute’s infrastructure. Among their numerous collaborations, co-organization of the symposium The Genie Travels On: The Challenge on Emerging Nuclear States, stands out as prescient of the evolving world order.
From 2011-2019, Vin was Provost and Dean of Faculty as well as Professor of Engineering at the Olin College of Engineering in Needham, MA. At Olin, he led efforts to redefine faculty assessment and development, encourage systemic curricular innovation, and develop sustainable collaboration partnerships with other institutions. In 2020, he was named Provost Emeritus and Professor of Engineering Emeritus by the Olin Board of Trustees.
Truly, without Vin as our adviser and guide, we would not have been able to drive the Institute forward wisely. We were grateful for his astute questions, for his advice on governance, and for his sagacious sense of interactions with our faculty and the Tufts administration. I am ever thankful for his trust and extensive consultative time.
Vin found a unique formula for management and human oversight, one of equanimity, co-joined with passion. As one of the most open-minded and fairest of people I have ever had the pleasure of working with, Vin created an atmosphere of trust. He understood our role as an innovative center and encouraged the Institute’s development, specifically helping us to develop Engineers Without Borders, nurturing the Tufts Energy Initiative into the far broader onging Tufts Fletcher Energy Forum, supporting my creating Tufts's first formal adoption of Scholars at Risk, and the Institute's Synaptic Scholars program that I tasked with invigorating intellectual life at Tufts, with now such enduring campus programs as Tufts TED-X.
My introduction to this NIMEP "Beyond the Politics of Fear" Insight journal, speaks to the controversies Vin helped the Institute manage, especially regarding the sensitive security and political concerns of our NIMEP research groups' visit to Lebanon
I sincerely doubt that such efforts would be supported in this educational era, as they were then by Vin, and then Tufts President Larry Bacow, who praised our efforts as "prudent risk-taking."
Together with the professional nuclear workshop that Vin mentions, he and I created the Vannevar Bush Award recognizing Bush’s accomplishments, as science adviser to presidents and the Director of the US Office of Scientific Research and Development, which we brought forward to the School of Engineering. Vin reminded me at the time of the value of allowing its cautious Dean to think of it as her own idea.
Its first recipient was Dick Meserve, the brother of Bill Meserve, a long-standing wonderful member of the Institute's External Advisory Board. We also co-sponsored the Vannevar Bush Forum on Science, Ethics and Public Policy. Bush was a brilliant and fascinating man and It was part of my desire to create programming in the spirit of the Nobel Prize for Peace-winning Pugwash initiatives, as an exploration of science as morally neutral, with such questions as what were the ethical issues that confronted scientists in successfully completing the atomic bomb? What are the ongoing ethical dilemmas and social responsibilities scientists face in the nuclear arena and beyond?
At his formal Tufts University goodby party Vin spoke of his involvement overseeing the Institute as encouraging and reinforcing his desire to enter Olin Engineering as its Provost for as he described it, "being engaged in the programmatic and personal dimensions of IGL afforded me the opportunity to navigate the colliding constraints of student safety, education in the broadest terms, and prudent institutional risk-taking. The role of Provost, especially at an idiosyncratic and mission-driven place like Olin, required an analogous set of navigation skills.
Vin surprised me when he spoke at the gathering of Tufts faculty and administration with a reference to myself as a "Six Sigma". It is a lovely moment to think that I had any impact on his life, as surely, he did on mine.
When I spoke I found the word that I think characterizes Vin best, “Decency.” Such a rare quality in an all too often indecent world. A superb teacher and mentor, greatly respected by all, I am proud that he will remain involved with the Trebuchet into the future.
Richard (Dick) Lanza
On New Year's Day, 2023, Richard Lanza had an extra reason to celebrate. Lanza, a Senior Research Scientist in the MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, had just become an IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Fellow - an honor annually bestowed on just one-tenth of one percent of the members of what's called "the world's largest technical professional organization." His fellowship appointment was "for developing novel imagers and radiation detectors applied to medicine and security problems." That, however, is an abbreviated version of a much longer, and more involved, story.
Lanza earned a PhD in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1966 and came to MIT later that year as a postdoctoral fellow. He soon took part in investigations into the structure of the proton-work that ultimately validated the quark model of particle physics. Lanza's primary role was in designing and building the radiation detectors used in experiments carried out in the late-60s and 70s at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC).
About 15 scientists collaborated in the last experiment Lanza worked on at SLAC, which took place around 1975. But the trends in particle physics were clear to him: the next experiment would likely have more than 100 scientists, and before long there'd be thousands. It would become harder to try out new ideas, and the enterprise would allow less room for creativity — a prospect he was not enthused about.
Upon returning to MIT from Stanford, he spoke with a friend, a radiologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), who asked him what he'd been up to. When Lanza mentioned the proton's structure, his friend quickly changed subjects. "With all your cleverness in detectors," he asked, "why not help us out in medicine and radiology?"
An unexpected tilt from quarks to medicine
Intrigued by that proposition, Lanza soon joined a group, based jointly at MIT and MGH, which was building one of the first computed tomography (CT) scanners that could rotate fully around a patient. He got started in this work in 1975 and spent more than 20 years as a radiology associate at the Harvard Medical School, though his primary affiliation has always been with MIT.
Lanza and colleagues set out to improve single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), an imaging technique that used gamma rays. One challenge is that gamma rays can't be focused with lenses or mirrors. "You could use a pinhole, but then you'd end up throwing away almost the entire signal," Lanza explains. One way around that was to utilize a so-called coded aperture-a sheet of tungsten with dozens, hundreds, or thousands of holes-and then rely on a computer to combine the separate, overlapping images into a single composite view. Coded apertures had been important in x-ray astronomy since 1965, and Lanza felt that medical imaging could benefit from them as well. "A big advantage is that you can get 3D images with no moving parts," he says.His career took a dramatic turn in December 1988, when a bomb that had been concealed aboard a Pan Am aircraft exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, destroying the plane and killing everyone in it — all 259 passengers and crew members - plus 11 people on the ground. "A complete panic set in after that plane blew up," Lanza says. He was immediately approached by his colleague, MIT physicist Lee Grodzins, who asked, "Do you have any idea how we can detect explosives in luggage?"
Security concerns come blazing to the fore
Lanza turned his attention to that problem. Conventional explosives (like TNT), he reasoned, contain dense clusters of nitrogen, in particular, as well as oxygen and carbon. One could send a beam of neutrons through the materials inside a suitcase. If gamma rays of a particular energy were produced through this interaction, he says, "that would tell you if large quantities of nitrogen were concentrated." The detection system he devised again incorporated coded apertures.
There was a catch: Although military explosives contained a lot of nitrogen, he says, "we discovered that there is a whole world of homemade explosives that terrorists might use that don't have any nitrogen at all, making it a very complicated business." Lanza also explored ways of finding improvised explosive devices (IEDs), such as those planted in cars during the Iraq war, which posed similar imaging and detection challenges.
In the late-1990s, Lanza got involved in humanitarian demining. Landmines can be made for less than $2 apiece - one reason why millions of them are still left in former or current war zones, waiting to go off if anyone ventures close enough. He designed a simple device, consisting of portable neutron sources and gamma ray detectors, which could effectively survey small areas. He determined that additional approaches - including magnetic detectors and ground-penetrating radar - could be helpful in clearing larger regions, such as the border zones between nations.
Lanza also applied his expertise to the matter of nuclear materials proliferation, finding ways to detect faint radioactivity signals from uranium and plutonium that terrorists might try to smuggle into the country. In a project with Raytheon, he developed a system that could detect radioactive materials at a distance while carried in a moving vehicle.
"Just about everything I've done involves imaging of some sort, which is basically a tool that enables you to pick out objects in a background," Lanza says. He even figured out a method, utilizing neutron imaging, that enabled the De Beers company to find diamonds more efficiently in rock.
In his lengthy career, Lanza has contributed to many other areas (one could almost fill an article just listing them), and he still has a few projects underway, even though he's now in his 80s and semi-retired. He credits the wide range of work he's undertaken to MIT itself, "which makes it very easy for people to cross borders. It really is a remarkable place" - remarkable enough that he extended his original two-year appointment into one that's going on six decades, and still going strong.
I am tremendously grateful for my adopted Brookline neighborhood of my last five years, located off Harvard Street, significantly marked and centered by Coolidge Park, its Sumner children's playground, and its designation as an off-leash dog park which my goldendoodle Remi, considers her domain and front yard.
It is inhabited by an extraordinary, eclectic and accomplished set of folks. Dick is assuredly one of its most remarkable characters, a very thoughtful, never querulous, and independent thinker, with whom I enjoy many wonderful and fun conversations, always sharing anecdotes with a twinkle in his eye.
We share book reviews, banter across a full spectrum of issues and topics, be it U.S. politics, Israel/Palestine, climate change, risk analysis, the future of hypersonic weapons, arms control, inequality, university politics, wokedom, race relations, our families, even the architectural future of our community
I always look forward to encountering him as I wander our park with Remi, as I do his wife Sylvia. He is unfailingly a gentleman.
I think our first conversations began when we both knew we had enjoyed conferences on nuclear concerns in Erice, Sicily, that we had old common friends at MIT, including Kosta Tsipis, and Phil Morrison, and that we both admired the work of his friend and colleague, Dick Garwin, and others of our generation,
A warm-hearted and humble man, he has generously allowed me to nudge him to consult with the graduate students of MIT, and the undergraduate students starting Pugwash chapters at Dartmouth. Sharing his depth of extraordinary experiences, and those of his formidable generation of scientists, is so invaluable to our younger generation of citizens.
Shoshana Grossman
Shoshana Grossman-Crist is a consultant helping impact champions move the world forward. What does that actually look like? It looks like helping NGOs fundraise without headaches and helping companies achieve profit + purpose without spending their entire budget on a consultant. Find out the details here.
With 15 years of experience, her superpowers are in project design, communications and fundraising, and she is obsessed with figuring out how to ensure impact for communities. As someone who has worked with the Inter-American Development Bank, the Danone Ecosystem Fund, Chemonics, TechnoServe, and local NGOs across the world, though particularly in Latin America, Shoshana brings a unique set of tools to the table, as well as a ton of respect for the challenges of implementing projects with impact. Recently, she has been building a gender inclusion lens into her work more and more.
When Shoshana is not chugging away with her clients, you can find her volunteering in the fields harvesting for the Vermont food bank. She holds a Bachelor's in Community Health and Latin American studies from Tufts University, she got a Master’s in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University.
Shoshanna was one of the more mature and engaged of the students I had the privilege to attract to the Institute and its intellectual and activist pursuits. She exuded a strong, independent, yet sensitive leadership sensibility. and powerful determination. She was exuberant and infectious. Her smile radiated.
As one of the student founders and co chairs of Pangea whose mantra was "global awareness, advocacy, and action,” it was not surprising to learn of her leadership role in inspiring scores of students to engage in a three-day “sleep -out,” staying overnight in small tents on the main quadrangle of the University to simulate a symbolic refugee camp.
They programmed to promote consciousness of the plight of refugees, not only those who migrated beyond their country’s borders, protected by international law, however fragile, but the even more severe reality of IDPs. internally displaced peoples, fleeing violence, ethnic cleansing, and severe discrimination.
They also raised thousands of dollars to support Mapendo International, the first organization created by Convisero's Sasha Chanoff, who then founded RefugePoint.
Another of the Pangea organizations Shoshana supported was STAND, originally Students Taking Action Now: Dafur, an anti-genocide initiative then also concerned with violence in the Congo.
“Shosh,” had already come to Tufts with a finely honed sensibility about the struggles of marginalized peoples, but also their determination and agency.
In January 2007, under Institute sponsorship she returned to Herradura, Costa Rica where she had lived and taught English before studying at Tufts, this time to study the high levels of out-migration to the United States and the effects this migration was having on the town.
She learned about the confluence of international coffee prices, socio-economic levels of residents in the canton, interpersonal relationships, and the immigration laws of the United States that create the high level of out-migration that distinguishes the region from most other cantons in Costa Rica.
Not surprising for me to see what she is currently doing.
Olga Gavrina
My name is Olga Gavrina (also transliterated from Ukrainian as Olha Havrina). I am a Ukrainian musicologist, research-scientist in music, lecturer, and music teacher. My home town is Chernivtsi in Western Ukraine.
I graduated with a master’s degree from the Ukrainian National Tchaikovsky Academy of Music in 2018. Among the disciplines I studied at the Academy, my favorites were Contemporary Issues and Methods of Ethnomusicology, Fundamentals of Management in Culture and Arts, Psychology of Creativity, Modern History of World Music and the Fundaments of Electroacoustic Composition. I particularly enjoyed lecturing on the history of music for undergraduate students in the vocal department of our music academy.
Beyond the required curriculum for my Bachelor of Arts degree program, I chose to acquire bibliographic and archival skills. I researched and wrote articles about Ukrainian, American, German and Latvian composers, and presented at musicologist conferences,
From 2017 to 2021 I taught Solfeggio and the History of Music in a specialized school of art and music for children aged six to fifteen in Kyiv. During that period, I also organized concerts and lectures and participated in pedagogic conferences.
In the summer of 2019, I worked as the Social Media Manager of the international project “Musical Bridges”. As part of that project, I helped organize a charity concert by the Austrian percussionist Christoph Sietzen who performed with the Ukrainian New Era Orchestra.
I have actively participated as a volunteer in several international arts festivals since 2015, including Gogol-Fest, Kyiv Contemporary Music Days, and the international cinema festival Molodist.
As part of my citizen activism, I participated in several environmental and animal protection rallies in Kyiv.
My hobbies are playing piano, singing traditional Ukrainian folk songs, painting, piano and hiking.
I arrived in Boston in January 2022 with my husband, an IT Engineer, where I hope to pursue my music career.
I met Olga walking our dogs. I was immediately drawn to her story and status as a new resident of my town at a time when the war in Ukraine had just broken out. Olga is an impressive young woman, whose warmth, intelligence, and gentleness affected me and impressed a circle of my good friends, who initially banded together to help her support one of her friends, a cellist, who suddenly found himself as a leader of a territorial defense group in Kyiv called The Defender. We coalesced to begin to support this group, and I am continuing to appeal to friends to find ways to support various Ukrainian organizations. I had the pleasure of meeting Olga's husband attending a benefit concert for Ukraine at Harvard.
Tomer Cohen
Tomer Cohen, Co-Founder & Chairman of Tech2Peace, is a social impact entrepreneur who was selected lately to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in Israel.
Tech2Peace connects Palestinian and Israeli young leaders through hi-tech, dialogue, and entrepreneurship training (partners with Google, Microsoft, MIT, McKinsey, U.S. Dep. of State, etc.)
Last year, before starting his MBA studies in the U.S., Tomer was in the leading team of an Impact Fund from CA and started his journey in the climate & impact tech investing arena. Additionally, he plans to launch an international organization that will promote partnerships and investments in the climate-tech field between Israel and its neighboring countries.
Pursuing Justice: The RWCHR Newsletter
Hello!
As the Centre’s new Director of Communications, I’m delighted to share our most recent newsletter - Pursuing Justice - with you.
In my short time on the team, I’ve witnessed not only bright legal minds in action, but passionate hearts willing to take on some of the biggest human rights issues facing our world - both at the systems level and person by person.
I’m humbled to be in this role, and look forward to showcasing our talented team’s vision, leadership, and results with you.
The convergence of a global rise in authoritarianism and climate and ecological breakdown mean that what we do now - and what (and who!) we choose to stand for - has the potential to affect the course of history.
As a partner, supporter, or friend of the Centre, thank you for standing with us as we advocate for justice, freedom, and democracy.
This issue holds some special updates, including an invitation to meet the man who issued Vladimir Putin’s arrest warrant and a teaser from our new podcast, The Price of Conviction.
Happy reading!
Warmly,
Simone
(Pronouns: she/her)Our Work
ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan to Deliver 2023 Elie Wiesel Distinguished Lectureship in Human Rights
The International Criminal Court (ICC), under the direction of Chief Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan KC, has just issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for crimes committed against children in Ukraine, as outlined in our landmark report on Russia’s breaches of the Genocide Convention.
By taking this step, the ICC has affirmed that nobody - not even a sitting head of state - is above the law. And, as our Canadian Co-Chair Professor Payam Akhavan (Special Advisor to the Prosecutor of the ICC) said in a recent interview “the arrest warrant is only the beginning.”
We are delighted to invite you to join us in Ottawa in early May for an unforgettable evening with the ICC’s Chief Prosecutor. He will share his vision for the future of global justice under the Rome Statute, and will invite us to consider the opportunity that this painful moment in our collective experience offers: an opportunity to create a more just world for all, anchored in the rule of law.The RWCHR’s Elie Wiesel Lectureship in Human Rights convenes leading members of bench, bar, and academe — along with parliamentarians, students, media, and civil society representatives to learn from and engage with a distinguished lecturer and role model in the pursuit of justice. Anchored in the horrors of the Holocaust and its lessons for humanity, the pursuit of international justice and accountability for the world’s worst crimes are at the heart of the Lectureship, just as they were central to the life of its namesake, our distinguished co-founder, Professor Elie Wiesel.
We are delighted to co-host this event in partnership with the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Law and its Human Rights Research and Education Centre.
Registration will open soon, so please stay tuned for your invitation!Podcast: The Price of Conviction
Our podcast will be launching soon!
The Price of Conviction takes you behind prison bars to hear the stories of some of the world’s most courageous individuals: political prisoners who are risking it all for freedom, justice, and our shared future.It is more than a podcast.
It is a platform for international action and solidarity.
Listen to the trailer now.
Learn more here.
Sign up here to be among the first to know when we launch.
DEFENDING POLITICAL PRISONERS
We defend political prisoners, wherever they are. We provide legal counsel and advocate for their release. Each prisoner’s case is about their individual rights as well as about the just causes for which they stand, and for which they have been incarcerated - often in illegal and inhumane conditions, and often for decades.
Raoul Wallenberg, hero of the Holocaust and political prisoner of the Soviet Union until his death, taught us that one person with the compassion to care and the courage to act can transform history. We aim to keep political prisoners - each one an agent of change - in the public conscience until they are free.One Year of Detention: International Advocacy for Vladimir Kara-Murza
Vladimir Kara-Murza, Russian opposition leader and political prisoner (and RWCHR Senior Fellow) has now been behind bars for a year.In support of his case, we are co-organizing A Year of Injustice: The One-year Anniversary of Vladimir Kara-Murza’s Wrongful, Unlawful, and Arbitrary Detention - a high profile event in Washington, D.C., alongside other pro-democracy groups.
We have just submitted a joint letter to United States Secretary of State Antony Blinkenasking that he be declared unlawfully or wrongfully detained and that responsibility for his case be transferred to the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs. The letter is co-signed with Vladimir’s wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza, the McCain Institute, Free Russia Foundation, Human Rights First, and the Human Rights Foundation.
We have also supported a major joint international statement calling on the Russian government and Vladimir Putin to release Kara-Murza and acquit him of all charges. Signatories include a coalition of scholars, advocates, and officials from Forum 2000, Freedom House, Women’s Peace Network, Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, International Partnership for Human Rights, National Endowment for Democracy, World Uyghur Congress, Human Rights Foundation, and the European Parliament, among others.“The only court that matters is the court of global public opinion… The best hope, the best defence, for political prisoners in our country is international attention.” – Vladimir Kara-Murza in 2019 (prior to his arrest in 2022)
Huseyin Celil’s Birthday Behind Bars
This month, Uyghur-Canadian citizen Huseyin Celil turned 54 years old in a Chinese prison. He has been illegally detained since 2006 after speaking up for Uyghur Rights, and has spent much of these past 17 years in solitary confinement.Let’s not let this Canadian citizen spend another birthday behind bars!
Alexey Pichugin Marks 18 Years Behind Bars
Alexey Pichugin (Russian federation) was arrested on March 30, 2005, and has now spent 18 years behind bars for his refusal to bear false witness. He is being held incommunicado at the notorious Lefortovo prison. Alexey holds the awful distinction of being the longest serving political prisoner in Putin’s Russia.Learn their names. Be their voice. Share their stories, and don’t let the international community forget them!
RAISI’S IRAN
Human rights abuses in Iran have been a long-standing priority for the Centre, and we proudly stand with the Iranian people during these especially potent and perilous times.
Celebrating Iran’s Expulsion from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women
This March, we partnered with UN Watch to host a celebration in New York of the successful campaign to expel Iran from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.
Electing Iran - a regime that severely restricts women’s freedom and beats, blinds, tortures, and kills women protesters - to protect women’s rights on the global stage was always a terrible idea. We are proud of the role we played in supporting this successful campaign.“The UN’s unprecedented expulsion of Ayatollah Khamenei’s murderous and misogynistic regime sends the right message. But let us be clear: this is only the beginning. The free world must now move forward to sanction the killers, expel their diplomats, and do everything possible to remove the Ayatollah’s brutal and barbaric regime from Iran.” – Hillel Neuer, UN Watch Director
At the event, we paid tribute to those who contributed to this achievement, and heard from leading voices on how to show solidarity with Iranian women - and all Iranians. These included Canada’s representative to the United Nations (and RWCHR Senior Fellow) Bob Rae, and our friend and collaborator Masih Alinejad, author, journalist and women’s rights activist, who was recently named among TIME’s Women of the Year.
“What happens in the Middle East does not stay in the Middle East… The Islamic republic is more deadly than Coronavirus, and they will infect the rest of the world.” – Masih Alinejad
Our own Director of Policy and Projects, Brandon Silver, used the opportunity to appeal for further concrete action to hold the Iranian regime to account.
“If there's no punishment for the crimes, the crimes will continue – it's time to be proactive, and not reactive” – Brandon Silver
PUTIN'S RUSSIA
Our team advocates for the rights and freedom of victims of the Kremlin’s human rights violations, both inside and outside Russia.
Russian Breaches of the Genocide Convention
In an interview with TIME magazine, RWCHR Legal Counsel Yonah Diamond argued that the forcible transfer of Ukrainian children by Russian officials amounts to a particularly grave violation of the Genocide Convention.“Beyond working to stop and prevent continued genocide during the war, states will also be responsible for finding ways to hold Russia accountable for the crimes into the future.” – Yonah Diamond
Yonah also testified this month as part of a briefing at the Italian Senate on Russia’s breaches of the Genocide Convention in Ukraine. The Senate briefing also included Azeem Ibrahim (Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy), Matteo Angioli (Global Committee for the Rule of Law), Professor Vittorio Pagliaro, Sergio Germani (Instituto G. Germani), and Italy’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs Giulio Terzi.
Read our full groundbreaking legal analysis on Russia’s state responsibility for incitement to genocide in its invasion of Ukraine.
TARGETED SANCTIONS ADVOCACY
Targeted Sanctions allow democratic nations to respond to human rights abuses and corruption happening anywhere in a way that curtails abusers and corrupt actors while also supporting - both symbolically and materially - victims and survivors.
Our team played a lead role in Canada’s adoption of the Magnitsky law and now advocates for its effective implementation. We also advise other democracies on how to use targeted sanctions to ensure that their countries are no longer safe-havens for perpetrators, and are proud to have become the go-to-organisation for dissidents and human rights defenders around the world seeking to implement sanctions.
Asset Repurposing to Support Ukraine Reconstruction
This March, Irwin Cotler and Brandon Silver led a discussion with the Parliament of Canada’s Social Innovation Caucus on the legal aspects of asset repurposing, and how new laws can be used to help support reconstruction in Ukraine.
Hosted by MP Ryan Turnbull and Senator Ratna Omidvar, their enlightening discussion on seizing and repurposing frozen Russian assets featured leading Canadian and Ukrainian parliamentarians.Improving the Magnitsky Sanctions Framework
As RWCHR Senior Fellow Suzanne Berger points out in her recent article, this relatively new human rights sanctions regime holds great promise, but still faces many obstacles.In a recent article for Policy Magazine, Irwin Cotler and Brandon Silver propose ten concrete ways Canada can strengthen its Magnitsky Sanctions framework.
“Canada can be a global leader in protecting dignity and democracy by strengthening the use of targeted sanctions. These ten recommendations provide a pathway. In acting upon them, Canada can rise to the occasion at a moment in history that so urgently needs it. The safeguarding of peace, order and good government at home and internationally demands no less.”
- Irwin Cotler and Brandon SilverCOMBATTING ANTISEMETISM, GENOCIDE, AND ALL FORMS OF HATE
Never again. Not for Jews, and not for anyone.
Making Justice Trustworthy
In my previous 2 posts, I talked about the new Internet and how some artists who are entrenched in poverty can use the rule of law to restructure and shape a better society for all of us. Just how are they doing it?
Artists from conflict zones or who are stateless refugees have been given the first opportunity to access InternetBar Institute (IBO)’s online marketplace on the new Internet which makes trustworthy e-commerce accessible to all. IBO has been building an online justice system for over a decade to reach over one billion people across the globe who have no legal proof of their existence. By first organizing peripheralized artists and their fans into electronically linked networks of trust and interaction, cyberspace communities self-organize and learn new ways to communicate and work together.
And, what have these artists and their fans been telling us? They want a marketplace which is fair and just for all. And, they want to be able to tell their stories to a global audience and escape their entrenched poverty without having to resort to traditional justice systems where they will not have to face costs, delays and burdens that are disproportionate to the value they are trying to create and optimize.
To build such a marketplace on the new Internet is not only possible but is also happening now. So how will an online marketplace on a new Internet function globally? To start with, the communities of artists and fans have to trust each other across national boundaries in a global marketplace. So the first step, is for the artists themselves to undertake an obligation to their fans to tell the truth and only sell what they legally are able to. In exchange, their fans will interact with their artists fairly and respect their artists’ creations.
The trustworthy interactions taking place in these first online communities are a starting point for the development of new norms for cyberspace where we can count on being able to access both justice and opportunity. By starting with youth across the globe, we can build a new society based on a rule of law which is fair and justice.
If you want to find out more about IBO’s work, and, be the first to hear the stories, see the art and photography and hear the music of our artists from our current work in Poland, Jordan, Cameroon, The Gambia, Zambia and South Africa, contact jeffaresty@internetbar.org.
Nathaniel Teichman
Nathaniel Teichman is the Director of Sales and Strategic Partnerships at the distributive energy clean technology firm, Voltus. Formerly he was the Head of Strategy & Business Development for Master & Dynamic, a premium audio company, where he leads the company's strategic direction, B2B business, and investor relations. In his time at Master & Dynamic, Nathaniel has led multimillion-dollar partnerships with industry leaders such as Louis Vuitton, Lamborghini, and Nike. Previously, Nathaniel was a management consultant at A.T. Kearney where he specialized in financial modeling and strategic guidance for Fortune 500 companies.
Nathaniel has extensive startup experience. He served as the COO and raised $2 million in funding at Ense, a social audio company from the co-founder of Venmo. Nathaniel also started Stance, an app to ensure citizens' voices could be heard by members of Congress. His activism was widely acknowledged, and recognized by his university. Nathaniel is currently an advisor for Ward's Manufacturing, a new metal fabrication company focused on serving the green energy, agriculture, marine, and manufacturing sectors. Nathaniel also helped Grasshopper Bank, a de novo digital bank built for the business and innovation economy, earn the first new bank charter in New York in over a hundred years.
Earlier in his career, Nathaniel served as Assistant Vice President at State Street Bank in its Global Markets strategy division helping plan and implement a company-wide transformation. Nathaniel has also held positions at the Center for Sport in Society at Northeastern University, designing and piloting SportsCorps, an AmeriCorps-type program focused on leveraging sport for social good, the United States Army's Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute, helping to create PKSOI's - Stability Operations Lessons Learned & Information Management System (SOLLIMS), and at the Nobel Prize-winning Physicians for Human Rights where he researched human rights violations in Burma against the Rohingya people for use in the International Criminal Court.
Nathaniel holds a B.A. from Tufts University, where he served as co-captain of the fencing team, and an MBA from Columbia Business School, where he played on the school's soccer team. Nathaniel is an avid sports fan - he worked as a vendor at Fenway Park for ten years, has travelled to four World Cups, and plays volleyball every week on the sand courts of New York and Cape Cod
New HRF Podcasts: March Recap
Episode #78 - When Systems Fail: Understanding the Intersection of Authoritarian Regimes & Modern Slavery
This episode, recorded at the 2022 Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF), explores the correlation between the rise in authoritarian regimes and modern slavery. Participants discuss how slavery has been used to maintain power and how affected communities have stood in resistance to change in the future. Panelists include:
Amy Rahe, managing director at the Freedom Fund & anti-trafficking advocate Filmon Debru, Eritrean human trafficking survivor Leonardo Sakamoto, Brazilian journalist & anti-forced labor advocate Jessie Bruner, strategy & program development associate director at the Center for Human Rights & International Justice at Stanford University
Iraklis Gkritsis
Iraklis Gkritsis is a management consultant and entrepreneur. He is currently pursuing an MBA at Columbia Business School with a concentration in finance. Iraklis was a consultant at McKinsey & Company where he worked extensively in banking, energy and public sector projects including helping a European government tackle the economic impact of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to that he worked in the technology sector developing software for European institutions for a major enterprise software company and as a founder of two tech startups in the news aggregation and face animation spaces.
He studied philosophy at University College London and the University of Warwick in the UK. His master’s thesis focused on the contradictions of the concept of time leveraging the work of Immanuel Kant and John M. E. McTaggart. He has been active in political and debating forums since high school and he represented Greece in the European Youth Parliament.
Outside his professional and academic pursuits Iraklis is an avid mountaineer, having climbed over fifty mountains in 6 countries over the past decade and an aspiring author having recently completed his first philosophical novel, “The Birth of Man”.
The First Arab-Israeli Rhodes Scholar
Lian Najami is the first Arab-Israeli Rhodes Scholar, an inclusion advocate, and the youngest member on two executive boards of Israeli NGOs: Mabat and 50:50 Startups. Fluent in five languages, she was featured at the 2016 Forbes 30 under 30 summit in Israel for her leadership role within the Arab community and served in the US Senate as a Lantos Congressional Fellow in 2017.
A Zoom link will be sent to those who register here: https://guestli.st/743826
The session will also be live-streamed on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Hillel.Harvard.
Harvard Hillel would like to acknowledge the generosity of the Brachman Family of Columbus Ohio in sponsoring this event. We are grateful to Merom '58, Judith '60, Lavea '84, Sarai '86, and Shael '90.
Zaki Raheem
Zaki Raheem is a Director at DAI’s Sustainable Business Group. He is an enterprise development and entrepreneurship professional with 20 years of project design, research, training, mentoring, and advisory experience. He has engaged in extensive short-term consulting and long-term field work with MSMEs, startups and corporates throughout Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Myanmar, Oman, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Timor-Leste, Uzbekistan), Africa (Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia / Somaliland, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe), Latin America (Guatemala, Guyana, Nicaragua, Panama and Trinidad & Tobago), and North America (TechStars Accelerator in Washington DC, accelerator design and support in Mexico City, Permian Basin, and Alberta & British Columbia).
He is presently serving as a Technical Director for global SME & entrepreneurship initiatives with Mastercard’s Center for Inclusive Growth (USA) and IKEA Foundation (East Africa). He supports the design, training curriculum development, mentorship, and impact investor engagement with a network of incubators, accelerators with a focus on agribusiness, climate innovation and local content. He has led market studies and value chain assessments in over 20 countries in the agribusiness, energy, manufacturing, financial services, and tourism sectors that have informed donor-funded MSME project designs with USAID, DFID, World Bank, and IFC. Before joining DAI, he engaged in related enterprise development activities with Earth Institute’s Millennium Cities Initiative, Chemonics, IRC, FINCA, AED, UNIDO, Plan International, CARE, Education Development Center, Practical Action, EcoVentures International (EVI), UN-Habitat, and Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) ESG advisory team.
He is an Adjunct Professor for Columbia University’s School of International & Public Affairs (SIPA) teaching a graduate-level Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Development class. He serves as a mentor for entrepreneurs at the Kosmos Innovation Center in Ghana, the Guyana Accelerate-HER program and the #StartupColumbia social entrepreneurship competition; and as a technical lead for DAI’s engagement with the Global Accelerator Network (GAN) and Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE).
Zaki was one of the most humanistic and formidable independent thinkers, I was privileged to work with. His initiative and boldness, together with a co-leader Jeannette Bailey, created what became a powerful Institute program, BUILD. Their leadership skills and ability to navigate complex bureaucracies, with the University, and beyond, in the countries they successfully sought to serve, was impressive and inspired successive generations of my students. .
Andrea Bartoli
Dr. Andrea Bartoli is the President of the Sant’Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue. He works primarily on peacemaking and genocide prevention.
Andrea is a member of the Steering Group of the Global Action Against Mass Atrocity Crimes (GAAMAC), a fellow at the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict and Complexity AC4 at Columbia University, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Peacemaking Practice (CPP) at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, and an active member of the Insights Conflict resolution community (ICI).
Andrea has been a member of the Community of Sant’Egidio since 1970. He was its Representative to the UN and the USG (1992-2018). He was the Convener of the Genocide Prevention Advisory Network (GPANet); the Dean of the School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University and of the School of Diplomacy at Seton Hall University. He was also the Founding Director of the Center for International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University.
Andrea is also a premier teacher who has taught courses on conflict prevention, genocide prevention, peacemaking, Christianity and peace, United Nations, and Insight approach to conflict resolution.
He has been involved in many successful diplomatic activities and peacemaking processes including in Mozambique (1990–1992), Guatemala (1995), Algeria (1995), Kosovo (1998), Burundi (1999-2000), Democratic Republic of the Congo (1996-current) Casamance (1994- current), Central African Republic (2015 – current), South Sudan (2017 – current) .
He oversaw the development and implementation of CICR, S-CAR and School of Diplomacy's interventions in Burma/Myanmar, East Timor, Colombia, Iraq and the African Great Lakes Region, Basque Country and with the Global Actin Against Mass Atrocity Crimes. Andrea has worked for and collaborated with both public- and private-sector partners such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the Global Coalition to Prevent Armed Conflicts, the Ford Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the European Union, Parliamentarians for Global Action as well as for the governments of Norway, East Timor, Portugal, Sweden, Poland and Switzerland.
I have been inspired by St. Egidio's work, whether in confronting global conflict, aiding abandoned migrants, people suffering from AIDS , refugees seeking asylum, the often-marginalized impoverished, shunned, powerless. Their ecumenicism, unique healing spirit, and their capacity to bridge divides in a highly eclectic and innovative manner is impressive. Andrea's passion for humanity dignifies the world we occupy. I had the privilege of Andrea's engagement with my Institute's colloquium students' efforts to understand religion's role in society and politics, and had the honor of presenting him with my Institute's Dr. Jean Mayer Award for Global Citizenship.
The VII Foundation newsletter (Frontline Report March)
Alona says goodbye to her husband Nikoli as she flees westward in Ukraine with her child on March 7, 2022. Photo by Ron Haviv / VII.
The challenge of living in a world where beliefs and actions are increasingly out-of-sync with facts and realities is never ending. The VII Foundation’s mission is to harness the power of first-person visual journalism to expose these truths by putting the story into the hands of people living with those realities.
Dear Friends,
After photographing war, injustice, and inhumanity of many kinds for two decades, I thought there were few acts of atrocity beyond my imagination. I was wrong; I could not imagine Ukraine.
In January, in our first report, I wrote that "when we turn on our screens and look at our news feeds, we witness politicians of every stripe constantly changing facts, politicizing information, and undermining our fragile societies." Even that seems understated now. For all of us, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has underlined the fragility of the universal desire for peace and a life without fear and the vulnerability every one of us faces when confronted by avarice, criminality, and unconstrained brutality and ambition.
War blinds peace, but when we are breaking frozen ground to bury children in mass graves, the urgency to summon the courage to find a path to peace could not be more profound. The VII Foundation's signature project, Imagine: Reflections on Peace, examines the realities of how post-conflict societies emerge from war and explores how to make better and more resilient peace agreements. It is exhibiting at two significant locations this spring. First, it opens at the National Museum of Bosnia in Sarajevo in April. This symbolic museum is situated on what we used to know as 'Sniper Alley' and was on the frontline during the siege of Sarajevo. Then, in June, we open the exhibition at the United States Institute for Peace in Washington DC, established by the US Congress in 1984 as an independent institution devoted to the nonviolent prevention and mitigation of deadly conflict abroad.
The necessity of trustworthy journalism and evidence-based reporting to free societies and democratic culture could not be more apparent. And the need to support the men and women who readily put themselves at risk to bring us the horrific stories that document war has rarely been more compelling.
Our sister organization VII Agency has eight photographers working in Ukraine and Poland, providing essential coverage. Ali Arkady, Eric Bouvet, Ron Haviv, Joachim Ladefoged, Maciek Nabrdalik, Ilvy Njiokiktjien, Espen Rasmussen, and John Stanmeyer have all been working in Kyiv, Lviv, and on the Polish border. VII Insider's online community hosts special audio dispatches from Kyiv by Eric Bouvet and Ron Haviv, and Ilvy Njiokiktjien in Lviv, sharing how they work in an active war zone. In solidarity with our Ukrainian colleagues, The VII Foundation supports hazardous environment training for Ukrainian journalists.
The VII Academy in Sarajevo has trained refugees and migrants in Bosnia to tell their own stories for the last year. "Dispatches in Exile" is the product of a partnership with the International Organization for Migration, and a selection of the stories was recently published in the Bosnian daily newspaper Oslobodenje. We hope that "Dispatches in Exile" will be replicated for other refugee populations, including those forced to leave Ukraine. In the meantime, VII Academy alumni have been photographing Ukrainians who have had to flee and seek sanctuary in Moldova and Romania.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, reminded us this week that even amid the war in Ukraine, "nowhere on earth are people more at risk than Tigray." John Edwin Mason will address Tigray's media coverage in an upcoming essay on VII Insider's blog. For those of us who seek a more inclusive, evidence-based picture of the world, the VII Foundation is the non-profit media education organization transforming visual journalism by giving local voices the power to have a real impact on global events. We continue to pursue our global mission by launching our first Level 1 Photojournalism and Documentary Photography Seminar for English speakers in Sub-Saharan Africa.
If you would like to support the programs and initiatives of the VII Academy or The VII Foundation, or if you would like to partner with us or join one of our programs, please don't hesitate to contact us.
I join you all in looking forward to better times,
Gary Knight
CEO
The VII Foundation
Irpin Bridge, Ukraine, March 8, 2022. Civilians, including patients from a hospice for the elderly, attempt to flee the fighting in the city of Irpin, Ukraine. Photo by Eric Bouvet / VII.
Projects
Hazardous environment training is essential for managing the risk to visual journalists working in conflict zones. The VII Foundation has been working with Silk Road Training to provide a safety, security and first aid learning experience that can help raise global safety standards as well as develop the skills of everyone living and working in hostile environments. This training is now being provided to VII Academy’s 13 mentees and 14 fellows, as well as journalists and producers from Ukraine currently operating in the current war.
Dispatches in Exile
VII Academy in Sarajevo has for the last year trained refugees and migrants in Bosnia to tell their stories of the journey to sanctuary. These stories have then been published on Dispatches in Exile, a media portal produced in partnership with the International Organisation for Migration that showcases these first-person accounts. A selection of the stories was recently published in the Bosnian newspaper Oslobodenje in an eight page insert (cover image above), edited by some of the participants in collaboration with staff from Oslobodenje and VII Academy. The VII Foundation is now in discussions to see how Dispatches in Exile can train refugees and migrants who have fled other conflicts around the world.
Alumni work on the border with Ukraine
According to the UNHCR, nearly 3.5 million Ukrainians have (at the time of writing) been forced to flee the war. Poland has taken in more than 2 million refugees, and Romania is the second most significant destination, with more than 500,000 people having crossed the border. VII Academy alumni Vladimir Zivojinovic, Ioana Moldovan, Andrei Pungovschi, and Alexandra Radu have been photographing on the border between Ukraine and Romania, and their work has been featured on the VII Academy Instagram feed. According to Ioana, “The border crossing in Siret has never been so crowded. Thousands of Ukrainians, relocating to what they believe is a safer place, are crossing into Romania. The waiting line on the Ukrainian side stretches for kilometers. Teenagers, mothers with small babies, grandparents accompanying their grandkids, are pushing or carrying the little they managed to pack in their escape from war."
Some customers comply with the COVID-19 protective measures enacted by the Congolese state, while others seem to live their lives normally without even wearing a mask, which is compulsory during this period of containment following the declaration of the state of emergency for DR Congo. Ngaliema, Kinshasa, DR Congo, 29 April 2020. ©Justin Makangara for VII Academy.
New course for African photographers
VII Academy is launching its first Level 1 Photojournalism and Documentary Photography Seminar for English speakers in Sub-Saharan Africa. VII Academy will offer scholarships to 10 photographers who are citizens and residents of the following countries: Angola, Botswana, the Comoros, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The course is led by South African picture editor, photojournalist and educator Paul Botes and will begin on 22 April. The participants will explore how to develop a lasting career in visual storytelling, including conceiving, researching and planning story ideas. The deadline for application is March 30 at 2359 EDT.
VII Insider’s online community continues to provide an open platform for public debate and discussion, including on the war in Ukraine. On the VII Insider blog, you will find special audio dispatches from Eric Bouvet and Ron Haviv in Kyiv, and Ilvy Njiokiktjien in Lviv, detailing how they are working daily in order to make their photographs. In addition, VII Insider has hosted a debate about ethics in a time of war, and published on its blog the first video - looking at Ron Haviv's coverage of the Irpin evacuation and Ukrainian resistance - from a new partnership with the visual culture and media literacy foundation Reading The Pictures.
Members of the VII Insider community get access to weekly live presentations, and can view the video collection, which contains nearly 100 recordings of educational discussions. Check out the upcoming events and new writing and video presentations on the VII Insider blog.
VII Insider is a program of The VII Foundation in partnership with PhotoWings and VII Agency.
Joe Koops
I am currently Chair and Professor of Security Studies and Director of the Institute for Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) at Leiden University (Campus Den Haag), The Netherlands. In addition, I also serve on the board of the Global Governance Institute (GGI) in Brussels. My passion lies at the intersection of teaching, scholarly research and policy-oriented think tank advice as well as academic management and educational reform.
I am particularly interested in the changing nature of security and global affairs as well as the role of regional and global organisations in the field of global governance, particularly (but not exclusively) in the field of peace & security. My recent publications in this field include European Approaches to United Nations Peacekeeping: Towards a Stronger Re-engagement? (co-edited with Giulia Tercovich, Routledge, 2018) the Oxford Handbook of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (co-edited with Norrie MacQueen, Thierry Tardy and Paul D. Williams, Oxford University Press, 2015), The Responsibility to Protect and the Third Pillar: Legitimacy and Operationalization (co-edited with Daniel Fiott, Palgrave MacMillan, 2015), The European Union as a Diplomatic Actor (co-edited with Gjovalin Macaj, Palgrave MacMillan, 2015) and the Palgrave Handbook of Inter-Organisational Relations in World Politics (co-edited with Rafael Biermann, Palgrave, 2017).
In the area of policy-oriented research and advice, I served as Lessons Learned Advisor of the Standby High Readiness Brigade for UN Operations (SHIRBRIG) in 2009, Advisor to the Head of the Partnership Unit of the Department of Policy, Evaluation and Training of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in New York (2012) and the Head of the UN Liaison Office for Peace and Security (UNLOPS) in Brussels (2012). At the European level, I have been an expert on the European Commission's Ethics Review Committee as well as an appointed expert for the Dual Use Expert Group. I also frequently advise the European Parliament (on the Responsibility to Protect, Comprehensive Approach to Security Sector Reform, EU-UN cooperation in peacekeeping and EU-IMF relations in Global Economic Governance).
Before my appointment at Leiden, from 2014 - 2018, I was Dean of Vesalius College, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and Research Professor for European Foreign & Security Policy at the VUB's Institute for European Studies (IES). At Vesalius College, I led the full academic turnaround and NVAO reaccreditation process and reformed with an excellent team of colleagues the College into an interdisciplinary College of Global Affairs. I devised and taught the award-winning International Affairs Capstone / Senior Seminar Course ("From Theory to Policy-Oriented Advice") and devised and directed the Executive Course in Global Risk Analysis and Crisis Management (GRACM). Before my appointment as Dean, I used to teach courses at the intersection of European, International and global affairs (Introduction to International Relations, The United Nations and Global Governance, the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy in Theory and Practice, International Organisations and Global Governance and Introduction to European Peace & Security Studies).
I first met Joe when I attended the annual international Council for European Studies gathering at Science Po in Paris in 2014 where he chaired a panel on peacekeeping.
Impressed, I subsequently invited him to participate in EPIIC’s 2016 Future of Europe symposium and Pugwash inspired professional workshop on the future of European security.
Passionate about the educational reform of higher education, he was impressed by EPIIC and Institute’s pedagogy and invited me to lecture at Vesalius College in Brussels, and to meet his Deans and faculty to discuss the creation of a new cross-Atlantic academic and policy entity he wanted me to lead VITAL – The Vesalius Institute for Trans-Atlantic Security in collaboration with NATO and the EU.
Plans were discarded as Joe left Vesalius College to assume his new responsibilities at the University of Leiden. He recently reached out again to resume our relationship with Leiden and the Global Governance Institute which intrigues me once again, as much for renewing with Joe, who I admire and care about, as the content.