Harvard University Committee on Human Rights Studies

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August, 2011:
Life Returns to this Web Resource

Just in time for the start of the 2011-12 academic year, work has begun on reviving the Human Rights at Harvard website (this web site). Going forward, the site will be mainatained by vounteers from Harvard's three major human rights centers. Those centers are:

the FXB Center at the Harvard School of Public Health,
the Human Rights Program at the Harvard Law School,
and the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Together, these centers wil be working to assume the essential functions of the former Harvard University Committee for Human Rights Studies (HUCHRS).

June 2010:
UCHRS to End its Work

It has been ten years since UCHRS began its work. Since that time, the Committee has achieved many of its original goals, most notably the development of undergraduate courses. UCHRS will end its work on June 30, 2010. After that time, its programming will be absorbed by other Harvard centers. Please see this letter from the Office of the Provost explaining these changes in further detail.

January 2010:
UCHRS Trip to Honduras

In January 2010, UCHRS undertook a week-long pilot project for J-term human rights studies and research. A small group of students, under the supervision of UCHRS Associate Director Monica Maher, had the opportunity to travel to Honduras, meeting with labor, women’s, religious, public health, and peasant rights leaders.

Latest News:

8/30/2011 - The Human Rights at Harvard website (this website) begins to be revived with updates and cleanup happening throughout. With the deactivation of the Harvard University Committe on Human Rights Studies (HUCHRS), maintenance of the site has been handed off to volunteers at the three Harvard human rights centers now charged with continuing the Committee's work.

For events information, please use our new University-wide Human Rights Events calendar

GO TO THE NEW CALENDAR

Old "News," Archived from the 2009-10 Academic Year:

8/5 - The UCHRS has finished its annual report for 2009-2010.

5/19 - The Harvard Gazette has a feature on Harvard graduating senior and Computer Science concentrator Lahiru Jayatilaka, who worked for two years with former Harvard Scholar at Risk Thrishantha Nanayakkara on a robot that would detect land mines.

5/12 - Yo-Yo Ma will perform the world premiere of Former Harvard Scholar at Risk Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky's Cello Concerto at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra this week. See the Chicago Tribune story, "Emigre composer sings a lament for a lost homeland."

5/11 - UCHRS Director Jacqueline Bhabha has been appointed Director of Research for the Francois Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights.

5/6 - The Harvard Crimson reports on the upcoming changes at UCHRS: "University Committee on Human Rights Studies to Disband."

4/20 - The Harvard Gazette reports on this year's annual Writers at Risk event organized by Scholars at Risk Committee member Jane Unrue: "World writers find their voice at Harvard."

4/19 - UCHRS Director Jacqueline Bhabha, interviewed for a Harvard Crimson article on a new study released by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and Oxfam America documenting the rise of civilian sexual violence in the Congo: “It’s a very important study and a very disturbing study because it documents how the use of rape in times of war can then spill over into peacetime and devastate a whole community."

4/13 - The Harvard Crimson reports on Writers at Risk event: "Writers Series Event Breathes Life into Censored Authors’ Works."

4/2 - Scholars at Risk program featured in Harvard Crimson article on the case of a Chinese intellectual.

2/3 - Former UCHRS Visiting Scholar & Radcliffe Fellow Thrishantha Nanayakkara has an op-ed, "The Sri Lankan Dilemma," in The Harvard Crimson.

Click here for more news on human rights at Harvard and beyond.

Videos of Past UCHRS Events Available Online:

60 Years of Human Rights Part 1
60 Years of Human Rights Part 2

Professor Darius Rejali Lecture "Torture and Democracy: What Now?"

Ambassador Peter Maurer Lecture "Promoting Human Rights and Protecting Human Dignity Through the UN"

Justice Goldstone Lecture "The Legacy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights"

JFK Forum video: "60 Years of Human Rights: The Idea and the Reality" Featuring Harvard President Drew Faust, Professor Amartya Sen, Doctor Paul Farmer

Watch a video of the program at the JFK Forum (link above) with a dramatic reading directed by the A.R.T. in collaboration with Physicians for Human Rights and see and hear a concert by Mali's Diva, Oumou Sangar e!

Find out more about the Harvard Scholars at Risk program.

There are no new opportunities postings
at this time.

Human Rights Courses at Harvard:

In the past, the HUCHR has manually compiled a university-wide listing of human rights-related courses available at Harvard. No such listing is being compiled at the present time, however, Harvard's excellent new on-line catalog lookup feature can provide much of the same information. Clcik the link below to launch an on-line search for "human rights" in the on-line Harvard course catalog.

LIST HUMAN RIGHTS COURSES

August, 2011:Life Returns to this Web Resource

June 2010:UCHRS to End its Work