Activities

 
The Center’s research and activities coalesce around four principal issue areas—Business and Human Rights, Environmental Justice, International Institutions, and Forced Migration and Human Rights—and are informed by the Kenan Institute’s “think and do tank” model of a reciprocal relationship between theory and practice.

Continuing programs at the Center include DukeEngage Dublin, DukeImmerse: Uprooted/Rerouted, the “What are Human Rights?” informal dinner discussions, and the Human Rights Visiting Fellowship.

New people in 2012-2013 include

  • Brianna Nofil joins the center as the first Stephen and Janet Bear Post Graduate Fellow in Business, Law and Human Rights.
  • Amber Diaz (Ph.D Political Science) will stay on as the Center’s Human Rights Postdoctoral Fellow.

New collaborations in 2012-2013 include

  • Collaboration with the UN Working Group on business and human rights. Brianna Nofil, the Stephen and Janet Bear Post-Graduate Fellow in Business, Law and Human Rights, is providing research to support the five members of the UN Working Group. This fall, Brianna traveled to Mongolia for one of the working group’s country missions.  Read about her experience on the DHRC at KIE webpage. Her research will be supplemented by Professor Wayne Norman’s group independent study project in Spring 2013, in which undergraduates will develop a set of business case studies on the challenges of and best practices for these new business and human rights principles across sectors. Cases will be for use in a variety of classes at Duke and beyond and will be available on the Aspen Institute’s CasePlace.Org.
  • Collaboration with Paul Quinn College, a historically black college/university (HBCU) in Dallas, led by Deb Gallagher. With the Nicholas School for the Environment, the Kenan Institute will work with college officials in Dallas to study the relationship between HBCUs and locally undesirable land uses, participate in a student exchange to create social capital and promote environmental justice, and examine public policies to support sustainable development.
  • Collaboration on Statelessness with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Through March 2013, the photography exhibit by Greg Constantine, Nowhere People: The Face of Global Statelessness, will be on display at the Kenan Institute. The exhibit, organized by student Christine Delp, opened on November 1 with a panel discussion on the Ethics of Photography for Social Change. The panel, which included photographer Greg Constantine, Pediatrician John Moses, and UNHCR Communications Director Charity Tooz, was be moderated by Tom Rankin.

2012-2013 workshops include

  • Conservation and Development in Madagascar. On December 3 the Institute partnerned with the Lemur Center and Duke Africa Initiative to host a day long workshop on the ethical dimensions of conservation and development in Madagascar, specifically the illegal harvesting of precious woods from the island’s rain forests. The workshop was concluded with an evening concert with Malagasy musician and political activist Razia Said.
  • Conflict, Migration and Humanitarianism: The Ethics and Politics of Intervention . KIE Postdoctoral Fellow Nadia El-Shaarawi is organizing this workshop for January 25, 2013. The workshop will bring together scholars and practitioners to consider the theoretical and practical dimensions of humanitarian intervention in contexts of conflict-induced displacement.
  • Interdisciplinary Perspectives on LGBT Human Rights Advocacy. On February 8, 2013, the Duke Human Rights Center at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, the Center for International and Comparative Law at Duke Law School, Women’s Studies and Sexuality Studies, and the Center for LGBT Life at Duke will hold a conference providing provide an opportunity to bring together a small group of scholars and practitioners whose work focuses on LGBT advocacy internationally, comparatively, and in different regions of the world.  Participants will share the findings of their research and professional activities, exchange insights about strategies for achieving legal and policy reforms, and engage in a dialogue that is enriched by insights from law, social science, and various types of advocacy and practice.  This event is being organized by KIE Senior Fellow and Duke Law Professor Larry Helfer.
  • Theorizing Human Rights: A Conference in Honor of James Nickel. This conference will be held March 22-23, 2013, with panels including Morality to Law, Human Rights and Democracy, Global Justice and the Resource Curse, Justifying Human Rights with Linkage Arguments, and Human Rights and Dignity. For thirty years, James Nickel has taught in human rights law and theory, jurisprudence, and political philosophy. KIE Senior Fellow and James B. Duke Professor of Philosophy Allen Buchanan is organizing a conference in celebration of his career.
  • National Minorities in Europe. In collaboration with the Center for European Studies, the Center will host a one-day workshop that explores the historical antecedents to growing tensions between national minority policy and human rights law in contemporary Europe. Date to be announced. 

Speakers and series in 2012-2013 include

  • Series on Environmental Justice and Ethics. In collaboration with the Nicholas School of the Environment, the Center will host a series of lectures on environmental justice and ethics, with speakers including:
  • Tori Hogan (Duke Alum) gave a talk on her recent book publication Beyond Good Intentions: A Journey Into the Realities of International Aid, an extension of her National Geographic Explorer film series of the same name on October 18.
  • Mark Massoud (University of California, Santa Cruz) spoke on November 5 on the topic “Aid Agencies, Bureaucracy, and the New Legalism in South Sudan: From Civil War to Spreadsheets.” His visit was co-sponsored by Duke Law.
  • James Scott (Yale Anthropology and Political Science). On Monday, March 25, Scott will give a talk co-sponsored by the Graduate Student Working Group on Justice on his forthcoming book Two Cheers for Anarchism about the anarchist design of institutions. Proceeds from the visit will be donated to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which provides medicine, food, family visits, and aid to prisoners and their families in Burma.
  • Will Kymlicka and Sue Donaldson. The authors of Zoopolis will be in residence from March 19-21 to give a public lecture based on the recent work. Professor Kymlicka will also give a seminar on political theory and multiculturalism.