This workshop is part of the Program on Human Rights Collaboratory: Environmental Humanities Series, an interdisciplinary investigation of human rights in the humanities. The Series is funded under the Stanford Presidential Fund for Innovation in International Studies as the third in a sequence of pursuing peace and security, improving governance and advancing well-being.
Early in the Supreme Court oral arguments in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., Justice Kennedy alerted the plaintiffs' lawyer that, for him, "the case turns on this:...
Ruby Gropas is a lecturer in international relations at the law faculty of the Democritus University of Thrace (Komotini) and research fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP). Gropas was in residence at CDDRL in 2011 as a visiting scholar. In this seminar she will discuss the ongoing Greek economic and political crisis, and what it means for the future of the European Union and monetary system. Is the crisis in Greece ‘internal’ or is it symptomatic of a wider European failure?
The third ARD annual conference examineي the challenges, key issues, and ways forward for social and economic development in the Arab world during this period of democratic transition.
The graduating class at Stanford University has selected Larry Diamond as the 2012 Class Day speaker. A four-decade long tradition, the class day lecture is delivered by a well-liked Stanford faculty member who addresses the graduating class together with their friends and family, one last time. The class day lecture will be held on Saturday, June 16.
Turkey redefined its geographical security environment over the last decade by deepening its engagement with neighboring regions, especially with the Middle East. The Arab spring, however, challenged not only the authoritarian regimes in the region but also Turkish foreign policy strategy. This strategy was based on cooperation with the existing regimes and did not prioritize the democracy promotion dimension of the issue. The upheavals in the Arab world, therefore, created a dilemma between ethics and self-interest in Turkish foreign policy.
The more a country depends on aid, the more distorted are its incentives to manage its own development in sustainably beneficial ways. Cambodia, a post-conflict state that cannot refuse aid, is rife with trial-and-error donor experiments and their unintended results, including bad governance—a major impediment to rational economic growth. Massive intervention by the UN in the early 1990s did help to end the Cambodian civil war and to prepare for more representative rule.
Discussion of the current issues surrounding the sovereignty of the Diaoyutai Islets and the East China Sea peace initiative of the government of the Republic of China, Taiwan, through which ROC president Ma ying-jeou is calling for dialogue to resolve disputes over the archipelago.
The roots of the revolts known as the Arab Spring lie in many sources but one of the leading causes was the high rates of unemployment, low skill levels, and the growth of the youth populations. Now Arab governments are faced with the dual challenges of creating new political and economic systems that can meet the needs and demands of the peoples of their countries. This presentation will focus on the role of the private sector and the need to build an entrepreneurial eco-system that can foster rapid economic growth.
Why have militarized crackdowns on drug cartels had wildly divergent outcomes, sometimes exacerbating cartel-state conflict, as in Mexico and, for decades, in Brazil, but sometimes reducing violence, as with Rio de Janeiro's new 'Pacification' (UPP) strategy? CDDRL-CISAC Post Doctoral Fellow Benjamin Lessing will distinguish key logics of violence, focusing on violent corruption--cartels' use of coercive force in the negotiation of bribes.
The fourth annual conference of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy (ARD) organized in collaboration with the University of Tunis, El Manar and the Centre d'études maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT), took place in Tunis on March 28 and 29, 2013. The conference theme 'Building Bridges: Towards Viable Democracies in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya' examines the cornerstones of democratic transition in those countries.
"The Violence Trap: A Political-Economic Approach to the Problems of Development" examines the problems of development – with a billion people mired in poverty and governments resistant to economic reform – economists and political scientists have proposed a wide range of development or poverty traps: self-reinforcing mechanisms that prevent developing countries from embarking on the path of steady development.