Judges of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights visited UPEACE

Seven Judges of the newly constituted African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights visited the University for Peace (UPEACE) on Monday, 14 May, and were the highlight of a session on the Prospects and Challenges of the African Human Rights System, organized by the UPEACE Human Rights Centre.

Following some opening remarks by the Vice-President of the Court, Judge Modibo Tounty Guindo (Mali), Judge Ouguergouz (Algeria) gave a presentation on the work of the Court.  Students, faculty, and special guests had the opportunity to participate in the discussion and ask questions to the Judges.

Judges Jean Emile Somda (Burkina Faso), Sophia A.B. Akufo (Ghana), Kellelo Justina Masofo Guni (Lesotho), Jean Mutsinzi (Rwanda) and Bernard Ngoepe (South Africa), also participated in the discussion, answering specific questions on various topics related to the main challenges facing the Court, including funding for the Court, gender mainstreaming, and access to the Court by individuals and non-governmental organizations. Juan Amaya-Castro, Professor at the Department of International Law and Human Rights, acted as moderator of the discussion panel. The Judges received copies of the CD-Rom Human Rights Concepts, Ideas and Fora, which includes the full text of all key human rights cases and decisions and other materials such as all the General Comments of the UN Treaty Bodies. The CD-Rom was developed by the University for Peace Human Rights Education Project.

During the session the Judges emphasized the importance of education as a key instrument to raise awareness on the existence of human rights and ensuring effective access to justice mechanisms.

The 1998 Protocol Establishing the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights came into force in January 2004. The Court, located in Arusha, Tanzania, rules on the African Union’s State compliance by the State parties to the Protocol with the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other international human rights instruments by which they are bound. The Court is comprised of eleven Judges elected by Member States of the African Union.

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UPEACE Dean for Latin America and the Caribbean participated in international conference

April 24-26, 2007, Dr. Victor Valle, Dean for Latin America and the Caribbean programme, attended the Peace in Central America: Challenges to Security, Democracy and Development Conference in Toledo, Spain. The conference is part of several political academic activities to take place this year in commemoration of the XX anniversary of the Esquipulas II Peace Accord, signed by the Central American presidents in August 1987 to pave the road towards peace agreements intended to end armed conflicts through political negotiations. 

For the introductory session, Dr. Valle presented a concept paper on political analysis of the peace accord and its accomplishments, and to determine the pending agenda in terms of democracy and development.  The essay is titled “Esquipulas II: Twenty years later and beyond. The long walk for human rights in Central America”.

The conference was sponsored and funded by the Toledo International Center for Peace (CITpax), the General Secretariat of Ibero-America, and the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress.

Fifty-four personalities from Spain and Central America attended the conference, among them:

  • Eduardo Stein - Vice-President, Republic of Guatemala
  • Bruno Stagno – Foreign Minister, Costa Rican
  • Enrique Iglesias – Secretary-General, Iberoamerican Organization
  • Pierre Schori – Director-General, Foundation for International Relations and Foreign Dialogue
  • Trinidad Jimenez – Secretary of State for Iberoamerica, Spanish Government
  • Luis Alberto Cordero Arias – Executive Director, Arias Foundation
  • Gregorio Rosa-Chavez – Bishop of San Salvador and President of International Caritas for Latin America and the Caribbean.
  • Emilio Casinello – Director-General, CITpax.

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Students’ life

Doctor Lili Nir, Ph.D. of Tel-Aviv “In Conversation With” forum

Doctor Lili Nir, Ph.D. of Tel-Aviv spoke during an at UPEACE. The program was presented in affiliation with the University’s Centre for Executive and Professional Education.

Dr. Nir is the founder of Feminanci, the Israeli College for Women’s Empowerment, based in Tel-Aviv, and has worked also as a behavioral psychologist, organizational consultant, and a mediator for the Labor Court.

The Feminanci College offers a variety of classes geared exclusively to women, and focuses on financial empowerment skills. Class subjects at Feminanci range from home economics and bookkeeping skills to stock market investing and business entrepreneurship. The college also manages a monthly women’s investors club. Click here for complete story.

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Course on Fundraising for Development Projects
30 April-1 May 2007 at UPEACE

 This course was delivered by professor Jürgen Carls, who has been working as a volunteer with the Department of Environment, Peace and Security.  This course aimed at strengthening the capacity of administrators and students to respond to donor demands and achieve complementary funding for projects, and teach participants how to identify the specific requirements of donors and how to develop concept notes and project proposals.

Presentations on specific subjects, discussions and exercises based on practical examples such as a donor conference were conducted.

A CD-Rom containing the description of 250 funding sources, a funding directory and a summary of each presentation was handedover to the participants.

Students (18) were very satisfied with the results and their learning. Click here to see the evaluation results of this course. For more information about this course please send an email to jcarls@upeace.org

 

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Peace Research Workshop in Addis Ababa

The Africa programme of the University for Peace (UPEACE) organized from 23 to 27 April 2007, a Peace Research Capacity Building Workshop. The Workshop was co-organized with The Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA). Some 25 Lecturers and researchers from various universities and research centres in Africa participated in the event.

The Workshop had the following objectives:

  • Reintroduce researchers, practitioners and policy workers to the various methodologies of social science research in general and peace research in particular;

  • Acquaint researchers to relevant training methodology that is pertinent to conflict, peace, development, human rights, gender and other policy-related issues.

The workshop offered the participants with an opportunity to do the following:

  • Be exposed to methodologies for developing research skills and conceptual capacity for building peace and sustainable development;
  • Learn how to tackle methodological challenges, such as developing interdisciplinary approaches and conducting rigorous interviews;
  • Gain insight into the importance of linking research with policy and practice.
  • Become more aware of ethical issues that arise in peace research, for example, confidentiality and the need for professional research that strives for objectivity and promotes open debate of different perspectives.

Alongside the organisation of the Peace Research Capacity Building Workshop, the UPEACE Africa programme held the first meeting of the International Editorial Board (IEB) of the “Africa Peace and Conflict Journal” to be launched soon by the Programme. Eleven members of the Board came from various countries, including the United States of America, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Uganda. The IEB met on 23 and 24 April 2007.

Members of the Editorial Board made presentations to give a practical start to the Peace Research Capacity Building on the first day of the workshop before concentrating on deliberations on policies and processes for the Journal.

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Visiting professors

Matthew Norton received his Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution from the University of Bradford.  He is a PhD student in the department of Sociology at Yale University, and a Junior Fellow of Yale’s Center for Cultural Sociology.  He was the director of the MA in International Peace Studies programme at the University for Peace in Costa Rica from 2003-2005.

Prior to joining UPEACE he taught courses in conflict resolution at the Universidad del Azuay in Cuenca, Ecuador, was a coordinator for a disaster response effort with Habitat for Humanity, has been involved in programmes targeting social and urban violence with a focus on youth, worked with programmes supporting children with physical disabilities, and he has worked in school and residential settings as a counselor for “severely emotionally disturbed” children.

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News from our Alumni

UPEACE Visiting professor in Japan
By Koe Yoshino,
MA in Peace Education, Class of 2006

Alicia Cabezudo, a visiting professor of the MA in Peace Education programme, made her first trip to Japan for a seminar on culture of peace and peace education. This was done at the invitation of a group of peace educators in Japan, the Japanese Society for Developing the Culture of Peace, which so far has invited renowned peace researchers such as Johan Galtung, Betty Reardon, and David Adams.   Alicia and I were delighted to meet for the first time in a year, as I felt her unchanged passion as a peace educator.

Her eventful one-week trip to Japan was composed of a 2 day seminar in Tokyo and a 1 day workshop in Osaka and Hiroshima. The seminar in Tokyo had approximately 40 participants including educators and students and people to translate Learning to Abolish War Book 1, 2, 3 by Alicia Cabezudo and Betty Reardon into Japanese. The seminar was appreciative for the participants as many Japanese people were not so familiar with the issues and background of Latin America, the opposite side of the earth from Japan. Alicia gave us a clear presentation how and why the democratization process was possible in a struggle of freedom by people. Participants were also able to understand a comprehensive structure of peace education and culture of peace given some practical examples of peace education in her city of Argentina. Lastly, her workshop on peace education built the relationship among participants that caused to continue their own initiative to raise awareness of peace education to a Japanese audience.   The seminar overall proved the importance of "praxis", a transformation of ideas into action for social change, as this seminar encouraged participants to take action for peace in reality as a process of peace education.   

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UPEACE Alumni wins grand prize in film contest.


By Douglas F. Williamson,
MA in Natural Resources, class of 2006

I recently won the grand prize in the Shifting Baselines Flix Contest in Hollywood, CA.  The contest called for one-minute films on water issues, one of my favourites.  I found out about it through connections at American University’s School of Communications, where I took two classes during the final semester of the NRSD program.  The grand prize was worth about $4,000 in cash and prizes.

I made the film in Bonn, Germany, where I now live and work for the UN University.  I only moved here in October, so I really had no idea how I was going to make this film as I didn’t know anyone and didn’t have the resources.  By January, however, I managed to put together a production team and cast comprised of three young filmmakers from the area, several members of the local Greenpeace group, and two of my flatmate’s friends.

The film turned out pretty much how I wanted it to, which is pretty amazing.  It manages to subtly get across to the viewer that there’s a problem with the water supply and then it ends with some dark humor.  The film has no dialogue and it tells its story through image and minimal sound.  You can see it at the competition website:

http://www.sbflixcontest.org/indexWinners.php

Click on the picture of the film and it should open in a media window.

I hope to continue to be able to make environmental films, although I’m trying to get away from doing them independently.  I’d like to be making films from inside an organization where I can really get inside the issues, have access to the practitioners, researchers, and localities where environmental development or conservation is taking place.

My current position at the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (www.ihdp.org/) at the UNU offers me a massive network of social scientists and I’ve been making my pitch when I have the chance.  I’ve been invited to the table to discuss the development of a video workshop in Shanghai for undergraduates around the world.  I’ve also been developing proposals for film work for the IUCN.  Finally, I have an idea for a couple of films that I hope to produce here in Bonn this summer and fall.

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