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Abstract

Latin America has gone through a major transformation in the past two decades. According to the United Nations, with the discovery of new oil and mineral deposits and increases in energy exports, manufacturing, and tourism, Latin America's economic growth and development will increase, and the region's global influence will become greater and greater.

In The Shared Society, Alejandro Toledo, whose tenure as president of Peru helped spur the country's economic renaissance, develops a plan for a future Latin America in which not only is its population much better off economically than today but the vast 40 percent of its poor and marginalized are incorporated into a rising middle class, democratic institutions work more effectively, and the extraordinary ecosystem of Latin America is preserved.

Speaker Bio:

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Alejandro Toledo served as the President of Peru from 2001 to 2006 and has been honored by the U.S. Senate for his policies during that tenure. He has held positions at the World Bank and the United Nations and was a Visiting Scholar in International Affairs at Harvard University as well as at Johns Hopkins University and a Senior Fellow and Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at Stanford University and the Brookings Institution. Toledo founded and continues to serve as the President of the Global Center for Development and Democracy in Washington, DC. 

This event is sponsored by CDDRL, FSI, the Center for Latin American Studies and Redwood Press.

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Abstract: Governments around the world have been targeting and killing individuals to prevent them from committing terror attacks or other atrocities. They use this method secretly, sometimes without even taking responsibility for such operations, and without making public most of the relevant information: who is being targeted and what are the criteria for targeting individuals, what evidence is used to make targeting decisions, and what procedures are adopted to identify mistakes or misuse of this method. Recently released documents, such as the U.S. Department of Justice Drone Memo (analyzing lethal operations against U.S. citizen Anwar Al-Aulaqi), the more general White Paper on targeted killings of US citizens, or the Report of the Israeli Special Investigatory Commission on the targeted killing of Salah Shehadeh, shed some light on otherwise highly secretive decision-making processes, thereby introducing to the public debate important information previously unavailable. At the same time, in revealing only a small amount of relevant information, they emphasize the thick veil of secrecy that still surrounds the discussions in this field. Moreover, the information that is available demonstrates the vague nature of the relevant rules; the security-oriented implementation of these rules; and the inadequacy of current oversight mechanisms of targeted killing operations. These challenges to a process designed to take human lives emphasize the need to develop effective and independent accountability mechanisms, with powers to investigate high-level policymakers as well as operational-level decision-makers. This policy-paper proposes concrete solutions to the main weaknesses of the current legal framework: it narrowly (and clearly) defines legal terms such as ‘imminent threat,’ ‘feasibility,’ and ‘last resort’; it develops an activity-based test for determinations on direct participation in hostilities; it designs an independent ex post review mechanism; and it calls for governmental transparency and meaningful oversight. Most importantly, it promotes a targeted killing policy that protects civilians from both terror and counter-terror attacks.

About the Speaker: Shiri Krebs is a JSD Candidate at Stanford Law School, specializing in international criminal and humanitarian law. She was recently awarded the Christiana Shi Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship in International Studies and is a Law and International Security Predoctoral Fellow at Stanford Center on International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).

Her doctoral dissertation focuses on war crimes investigations and fact-finding during armed conflicts. This interdisciplinary research project combines theories and methods from law, psychology, sociology and political science, including online survey experiments.

From 2005 to 2010 Shiri served as legal advisor on international law matters in the Chief-Justice's chambers, the Israeli Supreme Court. During that time she has taught public international law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a teaching assistantship which granted her the Dean's award for excellent junior faculty members, as well as 'best teacher' award. After leaving the Supreme Court, Shiri joined the Israeli Democracy Institute as a researcher, working on 'Terrorism and Democracy' projects, and publishing frequent op-eds in various newspapers and blogs.

In September 2010 Shiri started her graduate studies at Stanford Law School. Her Masters thesis - an empirical analysis of preventive detention cases - was presented in several international conferences and has won the Steven M. Block Civil Liberties Award. 

In 2012, while working on her dissertation, Shiri was appointed as a Teaching Scholar at Santa Clara University School of Law, teaching international criminal law and international humanitarian law. She is currently serving as a Teaching Assistant for the Stanford Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies. 

Ernst Röhm (1887-1934) was an early member of the Nazi Party and Hitler’s closest friend.  As head of the Nazi SA (Sturmabteilung), Röhm was one of the most powerful men in the Third Reich, at least until his execution during the “Night of Long Knives” in the summer of 1934.  Röhm was also openly homosexual.   This talk considers Röhm’s rise, the disclosure of his homosexuality in 1931 in two widely-publicized trials (for violation of the anti-sodomy statute), his role in the consolidation of Nazi control, and his downfall.  The talk also considers how Hans Blüher’s theory of the Männerbund (male association) might help analyze not only Röhm and the Nazis but also contribute more broadly to the historical sociology of nationalist revolution.

Co-sponsored by the Department of History, The Europe Center and the Department of German Studies.

This colloquium is the final event of the year-long working group on 'The Contemporary." The workshop examines the  “contemporary” with a focus on defining moments such as: 1945, 1973, 1989, and 2001. In recent years the concept of the contemporary has been taken up within limited disciplinary discourses and in the context of distinct geographical settings. The horizon of this workshop, however, is the global. We employ a comparative and interdisciplinary approach to the hybrid term “contemporary” as it intersects various fields and serves as a heuristic device to understand phenomena in politics, culture, and the arts. In this spirit, our colloquium brings together scholars from various fields and disciplines that all are grappling with questions such as 1. what is this thing we call "the contemporary," and how do traditional disciplinary methods need to adapt to new challenges faced by the unique cultural objects of the contemporary moment?

For more information on this colloqium and to view videos of the presentations, please visit The Contemporary website

Co-sponsored by the Department of Literatures, Cultures and Language, Department of Literatures, Cultures and Language Research Units, The Europe Center, Stanford Humanities Center and Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity.

Join the Catalan conductor and multi-instrumentalist for a free lecture and demonstration of Turkish and Iberian traditions with musicians Hakan Güngör and Yurdal Tokcan.

TO RSVP FOR THIS EVENT, PLEASE SEND EMAIL TO: davisr@stanford.edu

Co-sponsored by Stanford Live, The Europe Center's Iberian Studies Program and the Mediterranean Studies Forum.

Abstract

Convened by Professor Joel Beinin and Professor Robert Crews, this one-day conference will explore the global history of the Middle East and North Africa. The conference is chronologically delimited by two New York-centered financial panics that had substantial consequences for the Middle East and North Africa. While the region has long been engaged in global circuits of commerce, culture, and migration, this choice of chronological frame highlights the renewed salience of political economy in several academic disciplines.

Conference Program

8:45 -9:00 Welcoming Remarks

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ABSTRACT

The Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi (Ciji) Foundation from Taiwan is perhaps one of the largest Buddhist charities in the Chinese world today. This talk traces how Tzu Chi developed under the “regime of civility” in Taiwan. The same regime also contributed to the recent controversies between Tzu Chi and the Aborigines. I argue that the tension between the Buddhist non-governmental organization and the Christian Aborigines has to do with the inequality under the regime of civility: on the one hand, the Aborigines have been marginalized as the “subject” of the civility campaign by the state; and, on the other hand, the same regime of civility is what allows the Buddhist charity to thrive in civil society. This talk raises the question whether civility could turn against civil society.

SPEAKER BIO

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C. Julia Huang is a Professor of Anthropology at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, and currently a Visiting Scholar at the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies at Stanford University. Huang has published articles in the Journal of Asian Studies, Ethnology, Positions, Nova Religio, the Eastern Buddhist, and the European Journal for East Asian Studies. Her book, Charisma and Compassion: Cheng Yen and the Buddhist Tzu Chi Movement (Harvard University Press, 2009) is an ethnography of a lay Buddhist movement that began as a tiny group in Taiwan and grew into an organization with ten million members worldwide. Huang has recently completed a book manuscript, The Social Life of Goodness: Religious Philanthropy in Chinese Societies (with Robert P. Weller and Keping Wu). She is currently working on a project on the Buddhist influences on cadaver donations for medical education in Taiwan.

This event is part of the Taiwan Democracy Project.