Events
Over the past weeks, the widespread protests calling for justice after the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many others have grown beyond the U.S. and into a global movement. What can international human rights law, norms, mobilization, and organizing teach us about this moment of reckoning on racism and police violence?
What are the US's obligations under international law and norms? How do human rights activists build solidarity globally for the fight for accountability, the end of impunity for police brutality, and other racial justice issues? How can countries be held accountable for extrajudicial killings and curtailed freedoms of expression and assembly in a world with weakened international organizations? How can the growing global protest movements be leveraged for lasting change?
Join Perry World House, the Department of Africana Studies, and the Center for Africana Studies for this virtual event with Dominique Day, Vice Chair of the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, and Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Perry World House Professor of Practice of Law and Human Rights. We'll discuss these and more questions about race, justice, and international human rights.
SPEAKERS
Dominique Day is the vice-chair of the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, a fact-finding body mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate and report on the situation of people of African descent globally. She is a human rights attorney who also leads DAYLIGHT | Rule of Law • Access to Justice • Advocacy, an access to justice platform. Internationally, her policy and capacity-building work focuses heavily on racial justice. She has extensive criminal and civil litigation experience on behalf of individuals and communities within the Black diaspora, including in post-conflict and transitional States. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School.
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein is Perry World House Professor of Practice of Law and Human Rights, and served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2014 to 2018. He previously served as Jordan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, was Jordan's Ambassador to the United States, and represented Jordan before the International Court of Justice, as well as on the issue of nuclear security. Al Hussein played a key role in the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC), chairing the negotiations over the elements of individual offences amounting to genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Al Hussein holds a B.A. from John Hopkins University and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. In academic year 2018-19, he was Perry World House's Distinguished Global Leader-in-Residence.
