Summer 2020 Human Rights Newsletter: Our new human rights report, a summer intensive update, and more
Summer 2020
In this edition:
They Shot Us Like Animals: Black November and Bolivia’s Interim Government
An Update on our Summer Human Rights Intensive
Announcing our Newest Staff Members
We’re excited to share our newest human rights report with you: They Shot Us Like Animals: Black November and Bolivia’s Interim Government. This report, co-published with Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Clinic, documents the human rights situation under the interim government of Jeanine Áñez. As the Bolivian government suspends elections and faces COVID-19, the international community must ensure that the interim government fulfills its mandate and respects the human rights of all Bolivians.
Our staff is also excited to begin project work with the eleven undergraduate participants of our human rights summer intensive. After nearly two months of intensive preparation, our trainees are now taking on supervised human rights projects with seven communities in the US and abroad.
As we continue to train the next generation in human rights practice, we’re so grateful to have your support. If you don’t already, please follow us on Twitter — and if you like what you read, please share our newsletter with a few folks you know. Thank you again.
Sincerely,
Jim Cavallaro
Executive Director
They Shot Us Like Animals: Black November and Bolivia’s Interim Government
On July 27th, the University Network published a new report with Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic titled: They Shot Us Like Animals: Black November and Bolivia’s Interim Government. The publication of this report comes just days after the Bolivian government again postponed national elections.
The report documents widespread human rights abuse under the interim Áñez presidency in Bolivia. The report is the result of eight months of research, including over two hundred interviews with survivors, eyewitnesses, and governmental officials. The report identifies four concrete areas in which authorities have violated the human rights of Bolivians and foreign nationals: state violence against protestors, including summary executions; lack of impartial investigation and a lack of access to justice; persecution of political dissent; and parastate violence.
To read the report in full, click here
To read the executive summary in Spanish, click here.
In the last week, our report has been cited and covered extensively by governmental officials and media, including The New Republic, Democracy Now!, The World from PRX, La Diaria, Página Siete, and La Razón.
An Update on our Summer Human Rights Intensive
Our inaugural undergraduate Human Rights Intensive is in full swing! In June and July, Executive Director James Cavallaro led nearly six weeks of daily e-seminars, guiding our eleven students through the history of the human rights movement, critiques of the practice, contemporary understanding of human rights law, and possibilities for the future of human rights. We also hosted several guest lectures from Professor Kathy Libal (UConn), Professor Sam Moyn (Yale), and Alicia Yamin (Harvard / Partners in Health).
Throughout the summer, our students also received in-depth practical training in technical skills. Dr. Kimberly Terrell (Tulane) led a workshop series titled “Identifying Environmental Health Disparities in the United States,” which taught students to use R and QGIS tools to identify inequities in environmental quality and health from publicly available data. Students have continued to develop their technical skills in a series of workshops with the University Network’s own Josh Petersen.
Following nearly two months of training, our students have begun supervised work on human rights projects that explore: the effects of environmental racism in the US, criminal justice reform, environmental advocacy with indigenous groups, the human rights situation in Bolivia, and more. We can’t wait to share the results of our project work with you in the near future.
Announcing our Newest Staff!
We’re thrilled to announce two new additions to our team!
Thomas Becker joins the University Network as Supervisor in Human Rights Practice. Previously a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, Thomas is an attorney and activist who has spent most of the past decade working on human rights issues in Bolivia. Becker and his co-counsel obtained a $10 million jury verdict for family members of those killed in Bolivia’s “Black October,” marking the first time a living ex-president has been held accountable in a U.S. court for human rights violations. When he is not practicing law, Becker is an award-winning musician and songwriter who has recorded with Grammy-winning producers and toured throughout the world as a drummer and guitarist. He is also a mountain climber who has summited peaks all over the world, including Mount Everest. Thomas holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Meghna Sridhar joins our team as Fellow in Human Rights Practice. Meghna is currently an associate at Linklaters in London, where she works on asylum applications with the UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration and death penalty abolition with Reprieve UK. Meghna is a graduate of Stanford Law School, where she was a student of the International Human Rights Clinic and participated in human rights fact-finding missions in Palestine and India.
Welcome to the team, Thomas and Meghna!
