Opening Address: NICHOLAS KRISTOF
Thursday April 10th, 8:00 PM; Leverone Hall

Nicholas Kristof: Mr. Nicholas Kristof is currently an editorial columnist at the New York Times. A two-time Pulitzer prize winner for his poignant commentary on the Tiananmen Square Democracy Movement and the crisis in Darfur, Mr. Kristof has been praised for his ability to give “voice to the voiceless in other parts of the world."

We are particularly thrilled to announce that Mr. Kristof will be opening the 2008 NU Conference on Human Rights, as his presence will be the capstone of Global Awareness Month, co-sponsored with Northwestern’s Global Engagement Summt and Globe Med, inspired by Kristof’s recent piece in the Times entitled “The Age of Ambition.” His article can be accessed at the New York Times webpage.

Keynote Address: DR. SHERI FINK
Friday April 11th, 8:00 PM

Dr. Sheri Fink: Dr. Sheri Fink will deliver the Keynote address of the 2008 NU Conference on Human Rights. Dr. Fink is currently Senior Fellow at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and visiting Scientist at Harvard's Fancois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights. Dr. Fink received both her PhD and MD from Stanford University in 1999, and has since then been involved in a number of international humanitarian aid initiatives in the Balkans, Mozambique, Russia, the Middle East, and Indonesia, among others. She also currently serves as an Advisory Council member for Physicians for Human Rights, and is on the Board of the Center for Balkan Development. Dr. Fink's book War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival (PublicAffairs) was also a Finalist in the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction and was awarded the 2004 American Medical Writers Association Special Book Award.

A biographical article on Dr. Sheri Fink can be accessed here.

Closing Address: MARK HANIS
Saturday April 12th, 8:00 PM

Mark Hanis: Mr. Mark Hanis will deliver the closing address the 2008 NU Conference on Human Rights. Mark Hanis is the founder and Executive Director of the Genocide Intervention Network. A testament to the ability of college students to change the world, Hanis founded this organization during undergraduate years at Swarthmore College. GI-Net has grown to become one of the most notable voices in Washington D.C.  Mr. Kristof’s editorial on Mark Hanis can be accessed here.

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Culture/Religion
Contextualizing Cultural Conflicts: The Headscarf Debate in France, Iran, and Turkey
Friday April 11th, 10:00 am; Kellogg G40

MODERATOR: Sani Umar, Department of Religion, Northwestern University. Professor Umar has previously served as a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in 2006-2007, and Global Fellow at the International Institute, University of California, Los Angeles in 2003-2004, where he conducted research on contemporary Islamic discourses and liberalism. He is also currently working on Islam, democratization and politics in Nigeria and West Africa. In August 2007, Dr. Umar was appointed the Director of the Institute for Study of Islamic Thought in Africa (ISITA) at the Program of African Studies of Northwestern. He is the author of Islam and Colonialism: The Intellectual Responses of Muslims of Northern Nigeria..

Stephen Kinzer: Mr. Stephen Kinzer is a visiting faculty member at the Weinberg School of Arts and Sciences in the Political Science Department. A veteran New York Times journalist, he has served as their Bureau Cheif in Berlin and Turkey. He has written several non fiction books about Turkey including, Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds. His most recent book, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime, is about US overthrow of foreign governments from the late 19th and 20th centuries to the present.Kinzer is currently a New York Times correspondent based in Chicago.

Janet Afary: Dr. Janet Afary has a Ph.D. in Modern Middle East History from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she received the Horace H. Rackham Distinguished Dissertation Award.  Her dissertation also received the annual award for Best Dissertation of the Year from the Foundation for Iranian Studies. She is an Associate Professor of History and Women's Studies (Joint Appointment), and an affiliate Associate Professor of Political Science, at Purdue University.  In 2006 Dr. Afary was appointed University Faculty Scholar.  This five year appointment is made by Purdue's President.  Dr. Afary is author of the forthcoming book, Sexual Politics in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2008).  She has served as president of the International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS-MESA, 2004-2006); the Association for Middle East Women's Studies (AMEWS-MESA, 2004-2005), and the Coordinating Council for Women in History of the American Historical Association (CCWH-AHA, 2001-2003).

Jonathan Laurence: Jonathan Laurence is an assistant professor in the political science department at  Boston College, where he teaches courses on European politics and state-religion relations in modern Europe. He is a Nonresident Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the  Brookings Institution (Washington, DC). During Spring 2008, Laurence is a visiting scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. His principal areas of teaching and research are Comparative Politics, European Politics, and the integration of Muslims into European politics and society. His most recent publications include: Integrating Islam: Political and Religious Challenges in Contemporary France (Brookings, 2006), co-authored with Justin Vaïsse;   (editor and contributor) The French Council on the Muslim Religion, a special issue of French Politics, Culture, and Society (Spring 2005);  “Managing Transnational Islam: Muslims and the State in Western Europe,” in Craig Parsons and Timothy Smeeding, eds., Immigration And The Transformation Of Europe (Cambridge, 2006);  and “Reconstructing Community: Turks, Jews, and German Responsibility,” in German Politics and Society (19:2, 2001).

Corporations
Corporate Responsibility in Conflict Zones: Extractive Industries
Friday April 11th, 1:00 pm; Kellogg G40

MODERATOR: Yael Wolinsky, Professor Wolinsky is Senior Lecturer and Associate Chair of Political Science  at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University. Professor Wolinsky's research and teaching interests are in international relations and environmental politics.

JD Bindenagel: Ambassador J.D. Bindenagel was the U.S. negotiator for "conflict diamonds" during negotiations that led to an international ban on the illicit trade of these diamonds in 2003. He currently is vice president of Community, Government, and International Affairs at DePaul University and a member of the AICGS Senior Advisory Council. He was former U.S. ambassador and special envoy for Holocaust issues from 1999-2002, and acting U.S. ambassador in Germany from 1996-1997.

Harris Gleckman: Dr. Harris Gleckman is currently the principal of Benchmark Environmental Consulting, a firm that specializes in solving environmental problems through a practical business and technical approach. Over the past twenty five years, he has worked extensively with the United Nations, serving as the New York Office Chief for the UN Conference on Trade and Development (2003 and 2005) and as Chief of the Environmental Unit at the UN Centre on Transnational Corporations (1989-1993), in an effort to strengthen equity, transparency and accountability in institutions of global governance. Dr. Gleckman has been a regular advisor to the G77 and to international NGOs and has considerable academic and private-sector consulting experience.

David Austen-Smoth: Professor of Corporate Ethics, Kellogg School of Business

One more panelist to be announced.

International Justice
Transitional Justice Issues in Post-Conflict Societies: The Debate Over Norms and Definitions
Saturday April 12th, 1:00 pm; Transportation Center

José Kagabo: Next fall, José Kagabo will be the Roberta Buffett Visiting Professor of International Studies. Kagabo teaches at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in France, and is an internationally renowned expert on the Rwandan genocide. He has testified before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and has written numerous books and articles on crises in central Africa including, Islam and the "Swahili" in Rwanda and The Question of Rwandan Refugees. Kagabo is currently working on a book about the Rwandan genocide that will focus on how the network of conspirators was organized and examine the role of politicians, intellectuals, and businessmen in motivating ordinary citizens to become the perpetrators of violence. Building on his distinct knowledge of the Rwandan genocide, international justice programs, and the truth-seeking tribunals, Kagabo will develop and teach two courses while at Northwestern.

Adam Stapleton: Adam Stapleton has joined the Center for International Human Rights for a year as a visiting clinical professor after 13 years in Africa working on penal and criminal justice reform. After practicing as a criminal barrister in London for a number of years, he worked as a human rights officer in Cambodia, South Africa and Rwanda with the United Nations before moving to Malawi in Central Africa where he assisted establish the regional office for Penal Reform International. He has worked in 16 African countries as well as in South Asia and Central Europe as an adviser on justice reform.

Andrew Wachtel: Andrew Wachtel is Bertha and Max Dressler Professor in the Humanities at Northwestern University, where he serves as dean of The Graduate School and director of the Roberta Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies. His interests range from Russian literature and culture to East European and Balkan culture, history and politics. His most recent published books are Remaining Relevant After Communism: The Role of the Writer in Eastern Europe (U. of Chicago Press, 2006), and Plays of Expectations: Intertextual Relations in Russian 20th-Century Drama (REECAS/U. of Washington Press, 2006). His book The Balkans in World History will be published by Oxford University Press in 2008. His earlier translations of Anzhelina Polonskaya's poetry appeared in the collection A Voice (Northwestern University Press, 2004).

Daniel Rothenberg: Daniel Rothenberg is the Managing Director of International Projects. Previously, he was a senior fellow at the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School, an assistant professor in the department of anthropology at the University of Michigan, a visiting professor at the University of Michigan Law School, and a fellow in the Michigan Society of Fellows. He works on transitional justice issues, particularly truth commissions, amnesty laws, tribunals, and reparations. He is the author of With These Hands and editor of the forthcoming Guatemala: Memory of Silence, a one-volume critical version of the Guatemalan Truth Commission report. Rothenberg has conducted extensive fieldwork in many regions of the world.

Health
Health and Human Rights:  Resolving Bioethical Dilemmas in the Developing World
Saturday April 12th, 10:00 am; Transportation Center

MODERATOR: Mark Sheldon, Professor Sheldon is Assistant Dean in Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Distinguished Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and also in the Medical Ethics and Humanities Program, Feinberg School of Medicine. He has served as Adjunct Senior Scholar at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago, and Senior Policy Analyst at the American Medical Association. Sheldon has contributed book chapters and published in a variety of journals including The Journal of the American Medical Association, The Hastings Center Report, The Philosophical Forum, The Journal of Value Inquiry, and The New England Journal of Medicine. He has served as guest editor of two journals - Theoretical Ethics and Bioethics and The Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. He has served a three-year term as a member of the Committee on Philosophy and Medicine of the American Philosophical Association, and is currently co-editor of the APA Newsletter on Philosophy and Medicine. He is also a member of the Task Force on Genetics for the Illinois Humanities Council.

Stuart Rennie: Stuart Rennie is an assistant professor of Bioethics at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. He received his Ph.D. (in philosophy) in 2001 from the University of Leuven in Belgium, and from 1996 to 1998 was visiting researcher at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. He is currently program manager of an NIH/Fogarty International Center project entitled "Strengthening Bioethics Capacity and Justice in Health", which has established a center for bioethics in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. His social science research focuses on issues in bioethics and research ethics in low-income countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.  Mr. Rennie is managing director of the Global Bioethics Blog. He is a regular contributor to the American Journal of Bioethics blog, and his writings on bioethics and research ethics have appeared in Science, the Hastings Center Report, Bulletin of the World Health Organization and Developing World Bioethics.

Daniel Halperin: Daniel Halperin joined the Harvard University Center for Population and Development Studies in October 2006. Until then Dr. Halperin served for two years as the Prevention and Behavior Change Technical Advisor for USAID's Southern Africa Regional HIV/AIDS Program (based out of Mbabane, Swaziland). Prior to that, he was the Senior HIV Prevention and Behavior Change Advisor at USAID in Washington DC. Dr. Halperin has conducted epidemiological and ethnographic research for over thirty years on a number of health and sociocultural issues in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions. Since completing doctoral training in cultural/medical anthropology and Latin American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley in 1995, his work has mainly focused on the heterosexual transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, beginning with a three-year NIH postdoctoral fellowship at Berkeley's School of Public Health from 1995-8. Until joining USAID in August 2001, Dr. Halperin conducted research and managed HIV program activities as Assistant Professor at the University of California, San Francisco's Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS).

Laurie Zoloth:  Laurie Zoloth is Director of the Center for Bioethics, Science and Society and Professor of Medical Ethics and Humanities at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, and Professor of Religion and a member of the Jewish Studies faculty at Northwestern University, Weinberg College of Arts and Science. She is also the Director of Northwestern University's Brady Scholars Program in Ethics and Leadership.In 2001, she was the President of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities as well as serving on its founding board for two terms and receiving the Society's award for Service to the Field in 2007. She was a two term member of the NASA National Advisory Council, the nation's highest civilian advisory board for NASA, and received the NASA National Public Service Award in 2005.She is co-chair of the American Academy of Religion's Section on Women and is a member of the Data Safety Monitoring Board of the NIH Asia AIDS Vaccine Trials.

Gilbert Burnham: Dr. Gilbert M. Burnham is the co-director of the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response at Johns Hopkins. He is faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. At Bloomberg, Dr. Burnham is a member of the Center for Health and Human Rights. He has extensive experience in emergency preparedness and response, particularly in humanitarian needs assessment, program planning, and evaluation that address the needs of vulnerable populations, and the development and implementation of training programs. He also has extensive experience in the development and evaluation of community-based health program planning and implementation, health information system development, management and analysis, and health system analysis. He has worked with numerous humanitarian and health development programs for multilateral and non-governmental organizations, regional health departments, ministries of health (national and district level), and communities in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. A major current activity is the reconstruction of health services in Afghanistan.

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