Justice Matters

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates speaks with Albert Fox Cahn, founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP). STOP litigates and advocates for privacy to ensure that technological advancements don't come at the expense of age-old rights. As a lawyer, technologist, and activist, Albert has become a leading voice on how to govern and build the technologies of the future. He is a frequent commentator with more than 100 articles in publications, including the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Guardian, Wired, Slate, and Newsweek, and he serves on the New York Immigration Coalitions Immigrant Leaders Council.In today’s conversation, Albert discusses: walking the tactical line between radical change and instrumental victories, police surveillance technology, the risk of children’s privacy technology, anti-abortion digital surveillance, how STOP has taken on the NYPD’s surveillance system, and the ways in which Artificial Intelligence are already

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Megan Minoka Hill, the Senior Director of the Project on Indigenous Governance and Development and the Director of the Honoring Nations program at the Harvard Kennedy School. The Project on Indigenous Governance and Development works with Indigenous people to provide them with the tools they need to build or rebuild their nations and govern themselves effectively. Together, Mathias and Megan discuss: the Project on Indigenous Governance and Development, the background and major trends around Indigenous governance, the Honoring Nations program, and Hill’s membership in the Oneida nation and the structure of the tribe's governance.

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Diego Garcia Blum speaks with Kimahli Powell, former executive director of Rainbow Railroad, a Toronto-based organization that relocates LGBTQI+ refugees from nations where they are at risk. Powell is a senior leader in the INGO field with expertise in community-building and strategic advocacy with a focus on international development, law and policy, HIV/AIDS, and internally displaced persons. In this episode’s conversation, they discuss: how Rainbow Railroad’s work has evolved over time, lessons learned working with LGBTQI+ refugees about the challenges they face, his experience forming partnerships with both the U.S. and Canadian governments, the gaps that exist in how we address the needs of LGBTQI+ refugees in policy and public awareness, and where he sees opportunities for innovation in the field.

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Matthias Risse talks with Archon Fung, Harvard Kennedy School’s Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Democracy, about the state of democracy around the world and the upcoming U.S. presidential election. Fung is the director of the Ash Center for Innovation and Democratic Governance, and his research and teaching have long aimed to understand what kinds of participation, deliberation, or transparency can make governance fairer and more effective. Together they discuss democratic backsliding around the world, the stakes for the upcoming U.S. presidential election, the assassination attempts on Donald Trump, the possible use of generative AI in political campaigning, concerns leading up to and after the election, and if there are any predictions to be made about the election in November. This episode was recorded on September 24, 2024. Links mentioned in this episode:https://www.statista.com/chart/28353/democracies-and-autocracies-around-the-world/

"One of the great virtues of human rights is that it's very alert to the dark side of human nature. All the human rights covenants are a systematic inventory of all the horrible things that human beings can and have done to each other. I respect human rights for their moral realism, and I want human rights that are very realistic in their conception of human capacities and propensities." In this episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse talks with Michael Ignatieff, former president of the Central European University and founding director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. He is an author, academic, and former politician who served as the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2008 until 2011. Together, Risse and Ignatieff discuss the state of human rights in the world today, Hungary under the leadership of Victor Orbán, and revisited topics from Ignatieff's Tanner Lecture series—given at the turn of the 21st century—including the politics of human

On this week's episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates speaks with Dr. Charity Clay, Assistant Professor of Sociology and UNCF Mellon Fellow at Harvard's Hutchins Center for African and African-American Research. As a sociologist of the African Diaspora, Clay's research interests are varied but center around the dispersal, preservation, maintenance, and adaptability of African culture throughout the diaspora. In this conversation, Gates and Clay discuss Clay’s upbringing in Minneapolis, the importance of Black spaces and place-making, commodified Blackness in New Orleans, her theory on systemic police terrorism, using drones for socioeconomic mapping of Black spaces, and how she sees her role as a multi-hyphenate scholar, musician, and athlete.Listen to Dr. Charity Clay's Hutchins Center Lecture on 'Systemic Police Terrorism: A Conceptual Framework', Part of the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute Colloquium Series.

On this week's episode of Justice Matters, co-host Diego Blum talks with Kristopher Velasco, Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Princeton University about his research on the global anti-LGBTQI movement. Professor Velasco’s research centers on the intersections of global & transnational sociology, organizations, political sociology, culture, and sexuality. Globally, he investigates how transnational advocacy networks, NGOs, and international institutions facilitate the expansion of LGBTQI rights around the world by changing cultural understandings of gender and sexuality. This line of research, and the backlash these processes invite, is the subject of Kristopher's current book project. In this episode he discusses the global anti-LGBTQI movement, how it is organized and who are the primary players, what connection it has to global geopolitical trends, how the movement is financed, regional success and backlash to the movement, and what advice he has for LGBTQI activists.

On this week's episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse talks with Desirée Cormier Smith, the Special Representative for Racial Equity and Justice for the U.S. State Department. In this position, she is the face of the United States for all matters regarding racial equity in the world outside of the United States. Together they talk about her role as the inaugural Special Representative for Racial Equity and Justice, what led to the creation of this position at the U.S. State Department, her own journey graduating from HKS to her current position, and the recent convening of the Symposium on Global Anti-Blackness and the Legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade that Special Representative Cormier Smith presented in collaboration with the Carr Center and UNESCO.

On this week's episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates talks with Jessica Yamoah, the CEO and Founder of Innovate Inc., an organization that provides awareness and access to underrepresented communities at the intersection of business, entrepreneurship, and technology. Together they discuss Innovate's work to provide awareness and access in the technology sector, why diversity and inclusion matters, and her work with the African Descendant Social Entrepreneurship Network.

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Danson Kahyana, a fellow at the Carr Center and Associate Professor in the Department of Literature at Makerere University in Uganda. His recent work includes an examination of the effects of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023 on artistic freedom; exploring the representations of the right to healthcare in Ugandan literary and other cultural productions and investigating the right to dignity among the elderly citizens as depicted in selected East African fiction. Mathias and Danson discuss these research areas as well as the current political situation in Uganda, his work using poetry to teach his students to articulate issues they face in society, the backlash he has faced to his work including the circumstances that led to being violently attacked in April 2022, his 2018 publication of a book of creative writing from inmates inside a Ugandan prison, his own poetry, as well as his current position as a Scholar at Risk at the Carr C

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates talks with Diego Garcia Blum, Program Director of the Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. His work is dedicated to advocating for the safety and acceptance of LGBTQI+ individuals globally, particularly in regions where they face significant risks. Together they discuss the state of anti-LGBTQI+ legislation across the globe, the backlash against this population globally, and what the Carr Center is doing to make a difference with the launch of its new Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program. 

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse talks with Gay McDougall, distinguished scholar in residence at Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham University School of Law and member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.Professor McDougall has worked for decades on the frontlines of race, gender, and economic exploitation in the American context and in countries around the world. In this episode she discusses the function of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, her early years growing up in Jim Crow-era Georgia, working with Nelson Mandela, the impact of George Floyd’s murder, the Biden Administration’s policies on race, and what’s at stake in the upcoming 2024 US Presidential election.  

On today's episode of Justice Matters, co-host Kathryn Sikkink talks with Phuong Pham and Geoff Dancy about the Carr Center’s Transitional Justice Program, the culmination of the program’s research, and the creation of a research repository on the newly released Transitional Justice Evaluation Tools (TJET) website that compiles data on human rights prosecutions, truth commissions, and more around the world.Phoung Pham is an Associate Professor in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a leading expert in the collection and evaluation of victim centered surveys in post-conflict societies. Geoff Dancy is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto who specializes in transitional justice and human rights accountability. Together they discuss the research of the Transitional Justice Program, along with numerous topics focused on evidence-based, victim-centered transitional justice and its implications for peace, democracy, a

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse talks with Angela Riley, Chief Justice of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and Professor of Law and American Indian Studies at UCLA, about indigenous sovereignty and human rights in the United States. Together they discuss: the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, what sovereignty means for tribes in the US compared to indigenous communities globally, the tribal government’s relationship to the US federal and states governments, recent changes to the Citizen Potawatomi Nation’s constitution, the Potawatomi judiciary system, and Intellectual Property law in the US and its relation to indigenous knowledge.

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates is joined by Bevin Croft and Ebony Flint from the Human Services Research Institute for a conversation about the intersections of mental health and human rights in the wake of new guidance on mental health issued in October 2023 by the World Health Organization and the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights. They discuss the guidance and the Human Services Research Institute, a rights based approach to mental health system, peer to peer support, the importance of centering those with lived experience, and person-centered care.

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse talks with Claire Charters who was recently named in the role of Rongomau Taketake to lead work on the Te Kāhui Tika Tangata Human Rights Commission in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Charters is a Professor at the University of Auckland Faculty of Law specializing in indigenous peoples’ rights in international and constitutional law. Together they discuss her new position on the commission, the status of Māori representation in government, the right wing pushback against indigenous rights, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi and its implications for Māori sovereignty, and the importance of the 2007 UN Declaration on  the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates talks with Karla Torres and Catalina Martinez Coral from the Center for Reproductive Rights. On November 8, 2023, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) held a landmark hearing on the human rights violations caused by the reversal of Roe v. Wade and the move to ban abortion in the United States.The IACHR is a principle and autonomous body of the organization of American States that monitors human rights across the Americas. The hearing was requested by the Center for Reproductive Rights and 13 other US organizations focused on reproductive health rights and justice, disability rights, and human rights. In this conversation, Torres and Coral discuss the hearing, abortion as an essential human right, the Dobbs decision in the U.S., the feminist-led Legal and Social decriminalization of abortion in Latin America and its impact on the world, and the future of abortion rights in the U.S.Karla Torres has been senior human rights counsel at t

Today on Justice Matters we take a deep dive into the UN Business Human Rights Forum, which just wrapped up its 12th iteration at the end of 2023. Co-host Aminta Ossom attended the forum and interviewed working group member Robert McCorquodale to get some background on the inner workings of the Forum. Ossom also spoke with long-time attendee of the Forum, Corinne Lewis, a legal consultant who has worked on business and human rights with organizations of all types, to get her perspective on how the Forum has evolved over the years. Together, these two interviews paint a picture of the origins of the Forum; how it has led to the development of a robust sector of business and human rights; the interplay between attendees from business, government, civil society, and rights holders; and the future of the Forum.

On today's episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates talks with Jill Collen Jefferson, a civil and human rights lawyer and the founder of Julian, a national organization based in Mississippi that works to attack discrimination in all forms through legal advocacy, organizing, policy, and innovation. With experience on Capitol Hill, at think-tanks, Organizing for Action, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Public International Law and Policy Group, and big law, Jill brings a tremendous depth of knowledge and personal experience to her effort to build the future of civil and human rights. Together she and Maggie discuss: the founding of Julian, how they draw on  international human rights movements to build their civil rights strategy in the US, why focusing on Mississippi is so important, modern day lynchings, and how building community is central to building a new civil rights movement.

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Daniel A. Bell, Chair of Political Theory with the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. They discuss topics from Professor Bell’s most recent book, “Just Hierarchy: Why Social Hierarchies Matter in China and the Rest of the World” which include: academic freedoms in mainland China vs. Hong Kong, what constitutes a morally justified hierarchy, what benefits might be found in a just hierarchy,  perceptions of hierarchy and equality in the West and China, what can the rest of the world learn from China’s particular combination of intellectual histories, the role of international hierarchies, China and the US as global superpowers, censorship in China, as well as Professor Bell’s personal experiences serving as the Dean of Shandong.