Commonwealth Matters
Institute of Commonwealth Studies Summer Term September 2010
Geneva Study Tour 2010
Inside this issue: Geneva Study Page 1 Tour 2010 Par Engstrom Article
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NZ-UK News
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MA Student Article
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Dates for your Diary
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Forthcoming Events
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Tony Benn Lecture
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Alumni Don’t lose touch with the Institute once you have graduated - let us know your contact details and employment destinations by completing our on-line alumni form at: http://commonwealth.sas.ac.uk/ alumni.html
The Institute’s annual study trip to Geneva took place from Sunday 31st May to Friday 4th June 2010. Students from the MA in Understanding Securing Human Rights programme descended upon Geneva as so many of the ICwS alumni have before, to explore the city and learn more about many of the international organisations that are based there. MA Staff accompanied some 40 students on a trip that is one of the unique aspects of the Human Rights course. Previous students have commented on how the trip gave them a valuable insight into the machinations of international organisations and what working life in Geneva was like. Jenny Rosenberg, current MA USHR student, recalls “The trip to Geneva was great. It gave us the chance to see how the UN and other international organisations work in reality, and to meet people that we'd been learning about all year. It was also a nice way to for us all to celebrate the end of taught course together”. Students had the opportunity to visit the Palais des Nations and observe sessions of the Human Rights Council. Other organisations that were visited included the International Committee of the Red Cross and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Whilst this study tour gives the MA USHR programme a unique position amongst other Human Rights postgraduate degrees throughout the country, it is also a personal experience that many students thoroughly enjoy and remember fondly. We are grateful to the organisations which participated in the Study Tour. Year on year they have supported the Institute and our MA programme.
Commonwealth Matters
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Dr Par Engstrom - New Lecturer, Human Rights Consortium
As my first year as a lecturer in human rights at the School’s Human Rights Consortium (HRC) is drawing to a close I can look forward to a new stimulating and eventful year. The HRC is an exciting new initiative by the School of Advanced Study and brings together the multidisciplinary expertise in human rights found in several Institutes of the School and beyond. The main aim of the HRC is to facilitate, promote and disseminate academic and policy work on human rights issues. Joining the HRC in September 2009 represented a personal return to the Bloomsbury area where I spent four years as a student; reading Philosophy and Economics across the street at University College London, and then doing my MSc at what was then known as the Institute of Latin American Studies (currently the Institute for the Study of the Americas).
After these years of study I
decided to do a stint at the United Nations and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva where I worked on issues related to the rights of migrant workers and freedom of religion respectively. However, the lure of independent research was eventually too difficult to resist so I took up the offer of doing doctoral research at Oxford University. My doctoral research on the Inter-American Human Rights System led to many encounters with people and places across the Americas, from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington D.C., through the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in San JosĂŠ (Costa Rica), to Buenos Aires. Before joining the School I also taught International Relations theories and International Security at various Oxford colleges, and at Oxford Brookes University, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), and Warwick University.
These experiences in various ways feed into the courses that I teach at the School. I currently teach two courses on the Politics of Human Rights in Latin America, which focus, respectively, on the recent history and ongoing processes of transitional
justice, and challenges to democratization in the region. The former deals with questions related to how and why the idea of human rights has come to play an important role in the domestic and international politics of Latin American countries and the role of human rights in the transition from authoritarian to democratic forms of governance, and the latter course seeks to locate the politics of human rights in the context of contemporary processes of democratization, and addresses the nature of challenges to contemporary citizenship.
The various questions addressed in these courses overlap with some of my ongoing research related to the Inter-American Human Rights System; transitional justice; and human rights, humanitarianism, and foreign policy. In the coming year or so I intend to build on this research in a number of directions. I am therefore delighted to be part of a vibrant research and teaching community both at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and at the School.
New NZ-UK Link Visiting Professorship The School is delighted to announce that the first NZUK Link Foundation Visiting Professorship has been awarded to Professor Margaret Wilson. Professor Wilson, Professor of Law and Public Policy at Waikato University, has had a distinguished career as an academic and also in public life being an MP, Minister, and, from 2005-2008, Speaker of the New Zealand Parliament. Professor Wilson will take up the three-month Professorship, based at the School, in October 2010. During this time, Professor Wilson will be closely associated with the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. In addition to carrying out research and engaging with staff and students at the University of London and elsewhere, Professor Wilson will give at least four public lectures in areas in which she is a recognised expert both as an academic and a practitioner. Further information can be found at: http://www.sas.ac.uk/nzukpr ofessorship.html
Summer Term
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The MA Experience Jocelyn James, MA USHR, (2010) I wasn’t sure what to do with sociology but I was certain that, whatever career I chose, it would require a Masters degree. I was overwhelmed with choice when trying to decide; looking at transcultural mental health, trauma therapy, and refugee studies before deciding on human rights as it offered a wider range of possibilities. I chose the MA in Understanding and Securing Human Rights at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, because it was one of the only human rights courses that offered an internship as a planned part of the degree and I knew I wanted the hands-on experience that an internship offered. I’ve wanted to live abroad for several years, so when I decided to start applying for postgraduate programmes, it made sense to look in the UK.
I’d say the most difficult bit about moving to a foreign country was attempting to open a bank account! However, once classes began, it was actually fairly easy to settle into life in the UK and adapt to being a student again. It really
helped that a lot of the students on my course, even the UK nationals, were also new to London and were really open to making new friends. Nearly every human rights postgraduate programme in the US is law-based and I didn’t want to be limited to the legal aspects of human rights. The course consisted of three modules: understanding human rights (focused on history and philosophy of human rights), securing human rights (focused on human rights actors and mechanisms, such as NGOs and the UN), and translating human rights into law (focused on international human rights law and its processes). One of the really useful things about this course has been the internship. I learn best through handson experience and having the opportunity to actually prepare funding proposals and write press releases has been a great experience for me and is something I did not have when doing my undergraduate degree. My experience has definitely been a positive one, but not without a few bumps along the way! It
took me some time to adapt to the different teaching style and grading system and I had to learn to structure my work accordingly. Once you’ve completed the first few essays and presentations and received feedback, it’s easier to know what to expect. I’d like to stay in London and work for an antitrafficking NGO or possibly do some work with a community arts organisation. I’ve finished the taught portion of my course but am still working on my dissertation (due in September), which focuses on the benefits of utilising art and writing therapy to rehabilitate trafficking victims. The reason I chose human rights is because the career options are so varied: it is possible to work for NGOs or the UN, for small non-profits or large organisations, domestically or abroad, depending on your specific area of interest or expertise. Jocelyn James graduated with an undergraduate degree in Sociology, with a minor in French from Gordon College, just north of Boston , and joined the Institute’s MA programme in October 2009
DATE FOR YOUR DIARY 2010 COMMONWEALTH CONFERENCE CUMBERLAND LODGE, WINDSOR 10TH-12TH NOVEMBER DATE FOR YOUR DIARY MINORITY AND INDIGENOUS RIGHTS: EMERGING THEMES AND CHALLENGES 18th-19th NOVEMBER THE CHANCELLOR’S HALL RSVP to troy.rutt@sas.ac.uk DATE FOR YOUR DIARY THE RT. HON. PETER HAIN MP MANDELA: THE MAN AND HIS LEGACY MONDAY 29TH NOVEMBER THE BEVERIDGE HALL 5.30PM RSVP to troy.rutt@sas.ac.uk
Institute of Commonwealth Studies
School of Advanced Study University of London 2nd Floor, South Block, Senate House Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HU
Phone: 020 7862 8853 Fax: 020 7862 8813 E-mail: troy.rutt@sas.ac.uk
ICwS Forthcoming Events: September 14th - Black Britain Seminar Series; Malcolm X: Visits Abroad, April 1964 February 1965 September 24th - Counterinsurgency and Colonialism - Negotiating with the ‘Enemy’: Perspectives Past and Present September 24th - Fratricide and Fraternité (Mellon Sawyer Seminar Series): The Everyday Afterwards October 11th - Decolonization Seminar Series: The Joint Intelligence Committee and Colonial Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire October 12th - Black Britain Seminar Series: History and Contributions of African Churches in Britain October 14th - Linguistic Human Rights: Policy/Practice in the Commonwealth: Portuguese Linguistic Legacies in the Indian Ocean Commonwealth: Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, India, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Malaysia October 20th - Commonwealth Research Seminar Series: Domestic Migration in India: A GujaratSouthern Rajasthan Remittance Corridor Study October 20th - Caribbean Seminar Series: Policing the Caribbean: Transnational Security Cooperation in Practice October 25th - Decolonization Seminar Series: A discussion of Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya: Counterinsurgency, War and Decolonization October 28th-29th - Fraternité: Closing Conference of the Mellon Sawyer Seminar Series November 3rd - Caribbean Seminar Series: Trans-national Associative Practices: The Case of Haitians in France November 10th-12th - "Citizenship and the Commonwealth" - 2010 Commonwealth Conference
www.commonwealth.sas.ac.uk
November 17th - Commonwealth Research Seminar Series: Bombs, burdens, and book reviews: Africans at war 1939-47 November 17th - Caribbean Seminar Series: Settler Society in the English Leeward Islands, 16701776 November 17th - Black Britain Seminar Series: Mother Country November 18th-19th - Minority and Indigenous Rights: Emerging Themes and Challenges For further information on these events please see: http://commonwealth.sas.ac.uk/events.html or contact Troy Rutt (troy.rutt@sas.ac.uk)
Serving the Next Generation - The Commonwealth in the 21st Century The 60th Anniversary Series Serving the Next Generation - The Commonwealth in the 21st Century concluded on 9th June 2010 with a lecture by the Rt. Hon. Tony Benn on ‘The Movement for Colonial Freedom’. Over 300 guests gathered in the Beveridge Hall to listen to Tony recall his memories of his involvement with the MCF. Founded by the Labour MP Fenner Brockway in 1954, the Movement for Colonial Freedom was one of Britain’s most prominent anti-colonial pressure groups in the 1950s and ‘60s. The Movement championed the cause of nationalist movements around the world and worked to expose human rights abuses perpetrated in the counterinsurgency campaigns that preceded the end of colonial rule. It was also a fierce critic of the racist policies of Rhodesia and South Africa. As the Movement’s Treasurer, Tony Benn, witnessed these struggles at first hand. His lecture provided unique insights into this fascinating chapter in the history of decolonization and offered important lessons for today’s campaigners against racism and oppression. We thank Tony for giving his time and contributing to this successful series. For those who were unable to attend, a video and audio file of the lecture are now available on the Institute’s website at: http://commonwealth.sas.ac.uk/events/videos-and-podcasts/movement-forcolonial-freedom.html
The Rt. Hon. Tony Benn
If you would like to contribute an article or have any suggestions for the Newsletter, please contact Troy Rutt (troy.rutt@sas.ac.uk)