Derechos: Human Rights Listings

The World Bank Unveiled: Inside the Revolutionary Struggle for Transparency
David Ian Shaman
October, 2009; 672 pages, 6” x 9”; hardcover, $38.95, ISBN 978-1-935166-03-0 and simultaneous trade paperback, $26.95, ISBN 978-1-935166-15-3

New Book About the World Bank’s Transparency Brings Into Question
Its Ability to Help the Poor

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The global financial crisis that escalated in 2008 endangers one and a half billion people who currently live in abject poverty. Estimates from key development institutions suggest the economic contraction will push as many as 100 million more people into poverty. Rich countries believe it is critical to target financial resources to poor countries on the verge of economic collapse through key lending institutions such as the World Bank. A newly released book about the Bank, however, questions whether the institution is capable of effectively implementing new aid initiatives and reducing poverty.

The Washington Statistical Society Data Collection Methods and Human Rights Groups, and the Washington-Baltimore Chapter of the American Association for Public Opinion Research are pleased to invite you to the seminar, "Is it Culturally Ethical? Human Rights Challenges in International Survey Research," to discuss examples from around the world of challenges faced in social and behavioral projects, along with the use and abuse of cross-cultural ethics, lessons learned and future considerations.

RSVP: If you are planning on attending this seminar, please email Carol Joyce Blumberg at carol.blumberg@eia.doe.gov. It is, however, fine to come to seminar without sending an RSVP.

Background on Seminar: In a global research world the need continues to arise for an umbrella of standards to shield human participants' rights and research ethics. When a team of survey researchers works on an international project where a mix of cultures, languages, or regions is handled, careful eyes should look at ethical and human rights issues. Although the basics of research ethics tend to seem simple, cultural considerations, differences of laws and regulations, level of vulnerability of the population, and many other factors add a twist to the situation. This calls for special handling due to inherent differences in the population of interest and their surrounding environment.

Speaker: Safaa Amer, Senior Statistician, NORC at the University of Chicago

Discussant: Mary Gray, Professor of Mathematics and Statistics, American University

Chair: Michael P. Cohen, Senior Consultant, NORC at the University of Chicago

For further information, please contact Carol Joyce Blumberg at carol.blumberg@eia.doe.gov or (202) 586-6565.

12 Months Maternity Cover
Lawyer, Security and the Rule of Law (SEROL)
£36, 830 pro rata, per annum

For over 25 years Interights has played a leading role in promoting human rights through the use of international and comparative law. We have pursued this through strategic litigation and capacity building and providing information to lawyers, judges and civil society partners worldwide. Interights currently focuses its activities in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa and South Asia, and thematically on economic and social rights, equality and security and the rule of law.

Under the guidance of the Team Leader for the Horn of Africa/Kenya, the Researcher will support the work of HRW staff in implementing a human rights research and advocacy agenda focusing on the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia) and Kenya.

Responsibilities will include, but are not limited to: curbing abuses of human rights and humanitarian law in the Horn of Africa and Kenya through monitoring, investigating and documenting violations; writing and publicizing concise and accurate reports, briefing papers, letters, press releases, op-eds and submissions to international bodies as needed, with a quick turnaround time; developing and implementing local, regional and international strategies to bring violations to the attention of the government and the international community and change abusive laws, policies and practices; effectively advocating for the improvement of human rights with regional governments, the African Union, the United States, the European Union and intergovernmental organizations; monitoring related legislative and/or policy developments; responding to inquiries from the press, public and colleagues in the human rights community; and other tasks as may be assigned. Travel to the region will be required.

The Film Festival Department in Human Rights Watch’s (“HRW”) San Francisco office is seeking a consultant to act as Outreach Coordinator in order to launch the second year of its “Youth Producing Change” program in San Francisco. We anticipate that this project will commence the week beginning January 19, 2010 and conclude on March 13, 2010.

WITNESS uses video to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations. We empower people to transform personal stories of abuse into powerful tools for justice, promoting public engagement and policy change. www.witness.org.

The WITNESS Video Advocacy Institute (VAI) is an intensive course that trains human rights defenders from around the world to successfully integrate video advocacy into their campaigns. The VAI will be held in Spring 2010, with a focus on HIV/AIDS and human rights.

Training: Aiding Survivors of Torture - Physical and Psychological Documentation of Asylum Seekers
Date: Saturday, February 6, 2010, 7:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
Location: Tulane University, New Orleans, LA

Physicians for Human Rights is pleased to invite you to a training for health professionals on how to diagnose, evaluate and document the physical and psychological after-effects of torture and other severe human rights violations.

There is no cost to attend this course. Registration is required to attend the course. Register at: http://actnow-phr.org/phr/events/nola_asylum_training/details.tcl

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Islamic Human Rights Commission
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IHRC is looking to commission a researcher to work on its forthcoming report on Germany, civil society and citizenship. The researcher should be available to start at short notice. This position is not office based and the work can be done remotely.

The role requires fluency in written and spoken German and English, and requires the ability to research and review existing literature in the field of citizenship. Applicants should have an educational background in the social sciences. The commission fee is UK£750. The final write up should be in both German and English, all working drafts should be in English.

If you are interested in applying, please email the IHRC office with your CV, requesting a reference form. Two suitable references are required before commencing work. Contact huda@ihrc.org.

0Amnesty International has published six papers so far in its No safe haven series on universal jurisdiction in each of the 192 UN Member states (as well as links). The International Justice Project of Amnesty International is now engaged in a multi-year project to update, expand and revise its 722-page global study of state practice in 125 countries, Universal jurisdiction: The duty of states to enact and implement jurisdiction, AI Index: IOR 53/002 - 018/2001, September 2001, available at http://web.amnesty.org/pages/legal_memorandum.

Each paper includes information about:

- territorial and extraterritorial jurisdiction;

- whether the state has incorporated into national law crimes under international law (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture, extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and aggression) and other crimes of international concern (such as hostage-taking, transnational organized crime);

- whether national courts can exercise universal criminal jurisdiction over crimes under international law, crimes under national law of international concern and ordinary crimes;

- whether victims can obtain civil reparations in civil suits or in civil claims made in criminal cases, such as the action civile in civil law countries;

- what obstacles exist to exercising universal criminal and civil jurisdiction, including statutes of limitation, ne bis in idem, bars on retrospective criminal law and immunities;

- what obstacles (such as dual criminality and political offence exceptions) and human rights safeguards (risk of unfair trial, death penalty, torture or other ill-treatment) exist with respect to extradition and mutual legal assistance;

- whether there is a specialized immigration unit to screen those seeking to enter the country with a view to identifying persons who should be investigated on suspicion of responsibility for crimes under international law and specialized police and prosecution units to investigate and prosecute such crimes; and

- whether there is any relevant jurisprudence.

Each paper then concludes with several pages of detailed recommendations for reform of law and practice.

The papers are all researched and drafted by volunteers from around the world, primarily in law firms, institutes of international criminal law and international law clinics in law schools, under the direct supervision of the International Justice Project, then checked by independent experts on the law of the state concerned and finally sent to police, prosecutors and ministries of justice, foreign affairs and defence for comment before publication.

Anyone interested in assisting Amnesty International in this exciting project should contact the International Justice Project at: ijp@amnesty.org.

The Center for Social Innovation of Standford University has a website that includes podcasts of interviews with human rights campaigners, among others. They also offer a widget that allows you to publish their podcasts to your website.

You can find their site at http://sic.conversationsnetwork.org/series/humanRights.html

New Tactics in Human Rights

Join us for this important on-line dialogue featuring Documenting Violations: Choosing the Right Approach from January 27 to February 2, 2010. This dialogue will feature practitioners that have developed database systems to document human rights violations, organizations on the ground documenting violations, and those that are training practitioners on how to choose the right approach and system for their documentation. We will look at options for ways to collect, store and share your human rights data safely and effectively. If you are trying to figure out the best documenting system for your work - or if you have found something that works well, please join us for this conversation to share your questions, ideas, resources and stories!

Need help participating?

This online dialogue is a conversation among human rights practitioners focused on the topic: Documenting Violations. The conversation is not in 'real time,' so that people in any time zone can feel free to participate. To participate in the dialogue, register or login, and reply to a comment below. For help participating in this dialogue, please visit this help page or take a moment to watch our online training video. If you are experiencing problems, please contact us.

Join us for this dialogue January 27 - February 2, 2010
http://www.newtactics.org/user/login

INTERNSHIP OPENING
Health and Human Rights Division
New York Office
Spring 2010
Apply Immediately

Internship Description: The Health and Human Rights Division is seeking a part-time intern for the Spring 2010 semester to assist with a range of small tasks related to research on health related human rights concerns in China. The internship requires fluency in both oral and written Mandarin Chinese.

February 12-13, 2010, 8:30am-5:00pm
Location: Yale University Law School, 127 Wall Street, New Haven, CT
Cost: General public - $75; Non Yale Student/Faculty - $25.

The Access to Knowledge and Human Rights Conference seeks to lay the groundwork - conceptual and strategic - to build bridges between the A2K and human rights communities pursuing common goals of promoting greater access to knowledge, culture, technology and tools for innovation worldwide.

Genocide Intervention Network (GI-NET) is changing the way the United States and the international community respond to the world's worst crimes by empowering individuals, communities and other stakeholders with the tools to prevent and stop genocide.

GI-NET seeks to fill an Analyst position in its Conflict Risk Network (CRN) program. CRN coordinates a network of institutional investors, financial service providers and related stakeholders interested in addressing the role corporate actors (i.e. the companies they are invested in) play in areas affected by genocide and severe conflict. With this network behind it, CRN is leveraging the collective weight of billions in assets to push for responsible action by companies materially involved in certain GI-NET Areas of Concern. CRN’s work currently focuses on Sudan, but it is expanding to address an additional conflict-affected area in 2010. CRN’s work focuses on three core areas:

Do you feel passionate about Human Rights issues? Are you interested in applying your social science education towards a great cause?

Ensaaf is now seeking undergraduate human rights interns!

Ensaaf (which means “justice” in many South Asian languages) is a non-profit organization working to end impunity and achieve justice for mass state crimes in India, with a focus on Punjab. This is done through documenting and exposing specific human rights violations, bringing perpetrators to justice, and organizing survivors to advocate for their rights. For more information, please visit: www.ensaaf.org.

The International Institute of Humanitarian Law will hold the 136th Foundation Course in International Humanitarian Law (Law of Armed Conflict) at Sanremo, Italy from March 8th ­ 19th 2010. TThe course will be run in English with a class in Arabic.

For 2010 our Foundation Course has been completely revised and updated by a team of leading experts in the field to reflect the contemporary operating environment and the IHL challenges it poses to military forces and civilian personnel around the globe.

The Centre for Applied Human Rights and York Law School are offering 2 tuition scholarships for a new LLM in International Human Rights Law & Practice for 2010-11.

The scholarships cover fees at the rate for UK/EU students. The deadline is 30 April 2010. Applicants must have already been offered a place for full-time study on the LLM.

Our new LLM is distinctive because students:

work on real human rights issues through a compulsory law clinic, which gives them practical skills, hands-on experience and improved job prospects;
get the opportunity to work alongside human rights defenders during a two-week field visit to Malaysia;
learn from international human rights defenders based at the Centre; and
explore international human rights law from a socio-legal and public policy perspective.

For more information about the LLM and scholarships, please see http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/cahr/LLM/llm%20index.html.

Physicians for Human Rights (“PHR”), a human rights organization that mobilizes health professionals to advance health, dignity, and justice and promotes the right to health for all, is seeking a creative and experienced Chief Communications Officer (CCO) to assume leadership in designing, articulating and implementing a comprehensive communication strategy for the organization. This position offers an exciting opportunity for the CCO to partner with PHR’s leadership and play a central role in growing the communications function towards its full potential at a critical moment in the organization’s history.

The CICC is looking for one on-site French Information Intern to assist the French Information Services Coordinator with various translation needs, including background and information papers, CICC fact sheets, articles for the CICC African newsletter and other translations as needed. The French Information Intern will also assist with the development of the CICC French website and some media-related work, such as developing our database of Francophone journalists for our Universal Ratification Campaign. The French Information Intern should be available at least 2-3 days a week for 3-4 months starting mid-May 2010. Please note that this is an unpaid internship.

The University of Pennsylvania Press,with support from The Mellon Foundation, announces the launch of our new journal, Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development.

In recent decades, the traditional contest of left and right has been displaced by a politics of humanity. In both domestic and international contexts, the languages of human rights and humanitarianism are often marshaled as moral claims that bolster diverse global enterprises of governance, intervention, and reform. And development­a Cold War project­has evolved beyond economic or institutional concerns. Now encompassing matters once targeted in human rights activism, it has also expanded to address the acute humanitarian crises once treated as episodic and temporary.

Conference: Fratricide (25 - 26 February 2010) Human Rights Consortium, School of Advanced Study, University of London

This interdisciplinary conference will explore the causes and consequences of neighbourly atrocities across history, cultures, and continents and is part of a Mellon Sawyer seminar series: "Fratricide and Fraternite: Understanding and Repairing Neighbourly Atrocitiy."

The conference is free but advance registration is required. For further information and to register please visit http://www.sas.ac.uk/733.html

You can now get all your Human Rights Listings directly to your twitter account. Find us at http://twitter.com/hrlistings/.

Note: The account was just created so it's bare right now, but all the listings posted to our website will be automatically twitted from now.

EHRAC-MEMORIAL JOINT PROJECT

Memorial Human Rights Centre works in partnership with the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC), which is based at London Metropolitan University. This joint initiative operates from a dedicated project office within the Memorial HRC in Moscow and in five other regional offices. This project was previously funded by the European Commission and is now supported by multiple grant-making trusts and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British Government.

Reporting to the Managing Director of Campaigns, this position requires a variety of campaigning skills in order to support the five focus areas within the Campaigns Unit: the Death Penalty Abolition Campaign; Counter Terror with Justice, our campaign to stop torture and abuse resulting from the War on Terror; Individuals at Risk, which obtains freedom for prisoners of conscience and safety for human rights defenders; Crisis Prevention and Response; and the campaign to Demand Dignity, which focusses on the right to housing and health, spotlighting the relationship between poverty and human rights.

AIUSA Field Organizers (FO) report to one of five Regional Directors, and are assigned states within which they are responsible for organizing and coordinating the work of AIUSA members and activists, consistent with Amnesty International's approach to human rights work. FOs support local member groups within their territory with recruiting and engagement events, human rights education and activist training. We currently seek a Field Organizer for the Mid-Atlantic Regional Office, located in Washington, DC.

Survivors Connect

Goal: To assist in the activities and programmatic development of the Connection GeoMap Project.

Responsibilities
• Conduct research on anti trafficking networks and organizations located in assigned countries
• Organize data according mapping guidelines
• Interview (in person or phone) key individuals who may help in your data collection