Rights Talk

This episode features Professor Zachariah Mampilly, Marxe Endowed Chair of International Affairs at the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at CUNY’s Baruch College and member of the doctoral faculty of The CUNY Graduate Center's Department of Political Science. Professor Mampilly discusses the ongoing wave of largely youth-led protest movements on the African continent. He gives special attention to "rural radicalism," centering political life in rural areas and the impacts of urbanization, international actors, and global power dynamics on these spaces.  He illuminates a profound shift underway: the decentering of the West and increasing involvement of Asian countries in trade partnerships on the continent. Professor Mampilly also shares his most recent research on LUCHA, a social movement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and situates this movement in regional comparative and global perspective. 

This episode features Columbia University’s Professor Jack Snyder, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science and the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. The discussion centers on his new book: Human Rights for Pragmatists: Social Power in Modern Times (Princeton University Press, 2022). Professor Snyder examines the historical development of rights-based societies and contemporary challenges facing rights advocates. He tells us, “Politics and Power Lead, Rights Follow,” asserting that the realization of rights has been grounded in the interest of the dominant political coalition empowered by modernization.  Activist approaches grounded in legalism, moralism, and universalism, as opposed to power, self-interest, and bargaining, he contends, hinder the effective defense of human rights and potential advance. The conversation covers a range of topics spanning the relationship between rights and economic development; China’s illiberal model and the middle-income trap; free speech, social media, and democracy in the United States; and populism, neoliberalism, and socioeconomic inequality. 

This episode focuses on challenges facing K-12 education, particularly at the intersection of racism and sexism in the US education system today.  Dr. Watson—Associate Professor of Education Leadership, Provost Fellow, and inaugural Director of the Office for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging—discusses Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s idea of the “beloved community” and a framework for education based on care, courage, critical reflection, and community. She engages the disproportionate suspension of Black girls, adultification, and the imposition of oppressive norms and expectations. Prof. Watson finds that the voices of Black girls are essential to realizing just and inclusive education. She also discusses her research on Black women leaders in education, the limitations often imposed on their leadership, and their rich contributions in all spheres of society, and the positive impact of Black teachers on education outcomes. She focuses on improving the educational experiences of all children, especially the most marginalized, emphasizing the importance of seeing the strengths, cultural wealth, talents, and assets of children. 

This episode grapples with the limitations of the legal definition of genocide in international law and its implications for international responses to mass civilian destruction. Prof. Dirk Moses—Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor of Political Science at The City College of New York—historically situates the development of the concept of genocide, examines the challenges posed by the narrow definition codified in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), and what killings of innocent civilians are obscured and “normalized” by its status as the “crime of crimes.” He discusses his latest major publication—The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression, published by Cambridge University Press in 2021. Prof. Moses illuminates gaps in international law regarding civilian protection and presents the concept of “permanent security,” which he argues captures genocide and other recognized mass atrocity crimes as well as the continuous “collateral damage” that we see in today’s low-intensity warfare. Prof. Moses concludes the episode with an analysis of the Ukraine conflict, what the UN can do to resolve it, and the war’s broader implications for the international system. 

This episode engages the theme of reproductive rights in the United States and beyond. Prof. Cynthia Soohoo—Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Human Rights and Gender Justice Clinic at the CUNY School of Law—illuminates the history of reproductive oppression in the United States. She examines the rights gains made with past US Supreme Court decisions—particularly Roe v Wade (1973) and subsequently Planned Parenthood v Casey (1992)—as well as the obstacles that have been erected over the past decades at the state level that have disproportionately impeded access to abortion for women of color, the poor, and those in rural areas. She discusses trends in regulation, criminalization, and heath care spending as well as foreign aid restrictions. Prof. Soohoo also examines the implications of the 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned a 50-year-long right to abortion in the United States. She argues that the post-Roe era is distinct owing to an expansion of state-level criminal law. She explains the impact of diminished rights resulting from forced pregnancy and childbirth, including the right to privacy, right to autonomy, right to health, and right to be free of torture, cruel and inhuman treatment. Prof. Soohoo also notes how the US Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision counters the global trend of reproductive rights liberalization worldwide. 

This episode engages with a range of themes at the intersection of human rights and medicine with Christian De Vos, Director of Research and Investigations, and Payal Shah, Director of the Program on Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones, at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). They discuss PHR’s work gathering evidence of grave human rights abuses to advance justice processes, supporting clinicians to provide survivor-centered, trauma-informed care, and advancing advocacy to change law and policy. They cover such issues as sexual violence in armed conflict contexts, support for asylum seekers, attacks on health workers and facilities, and instances of medical professionals’ complicity in torture and cruel and inhumane treatment. De Vos and Shah draw on a range of country examples, including Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Syria, Ukraine, and the United States. 

This episode explores the motivations for and the consequences of Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It features Dr. Rajan Menon, CCNY’s Anne and Bernard Spitzer Chair Emeritus in Political Science; Director of the Grand Strategy Program at Defense Priorities; Senior Research Scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University; and Global Ethics Fellow at the Carnegie Council on Ethics in International Affairs. Dr. Menon considers the geostrategic reasons, including NATO’s expansion, as well as potential psychological reasons for Moscow’s decision. He examines how Putin’s  war of aggression and his military’s atrocities on the ground in Ukraine have degraded Russia’s global position and the humanitarian and developmental consequences of this war for Ukraine and far beyond.  His 2015 book (with Eugene B. Rumer), Conflict in Ukraine: The Unwinding of the Post-Cold War Order (Boston: MIT Press), is available as an open access PDF at: https://www.dropbox.com/s/q88is5bc7593tz7/9780262029049MenonRumerConflictInUkraine.pdf?dl=0. 

This episode features Matthew Reilly, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at The City College of New York, and CCNY students Catie Hernandez and Eloisa Martinez Jimenez. Prof. Reilly and his students discuss the Hostile Terrain 94 initiative, a participatory global art installation that is part of the Undocumented Migration Project. The installation, located in the North Academic Center of CCNY (160 Convent Avenue, NY, NY), features a map of the US-Mexico border and the toe tags of more than 3,200 lost migrant lives, including those who remain unidentified. Prof. Reilly and the students engage such themes as forced migration stemming from a complex combination of climate change, neoliberal policy, and state fragility, and the process of humanizing mass loss of life resulting from 21st century survival migration and US policy.  

This episode focuses on the first days of Russia's military aggression against Ukraine. Louis Charbonneau, UN Director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), offers insight into HRW's monitoring of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, the crackdown on antiwar protestors in Russia, the UN's multifaceted response to the conflict, and the humanitarian crisis unfolding with already hundreds of thousands of forcibly displaced persons.