Happy Birthday Convention on the Rights of the Child!

Many happy wishes to the first UN treaty to tie together civil & political and social, cultural, & economic rights! For more information check out the state of the world's children.

Oh yeah, only the USA and Somalia have yet to sign.

Glad we are chllin' with failed states in upholding internationally accepted human rights norms. Stay classy, USA!

Art on the Armistice

"An artist shares his grandmother’s tales of hardship during World War I"

Wise Words

Hello friends.

I just went to a phenomenal presentation (organized by GW Human Rights Law Society) by Justice Sonia Picado -- the current Chair of the Board of Directors/ President of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights. Please check out her further baller credentials and just know that she has been a hearty contributor to any major human rights occurrence in Latin America since 1960. Dirty War in Argentina. Samosa--Nicaragua--she was always on the ground.

In addition to demonstrating that she's an encyclopedia, and offering hilarious comments and inspirational tales of keep the faith no matter what the circumstances...She made one point that stood out to me in regards to HRTE.

A student who attended a public hearing at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights recently spoke about how moved she was by the extremely impoverished indigenous Colombians who traveled so far to appear before the court. She described being moved to tears in the audience by their stories and troubled by the court's "heartless" procedural responses. She asked Justice Picado how to reconcile your human compassion with the legal framework.

Picado's response was essentially to be privately motivated by these endless tales of injustice. She noted the difficulty of translating this to the court. She continued that in the courtroom--or other professional sphere-- you must to be as objective as possible. She said, "If you're not objective there will be no justice." She continued to explain the importance of increasing professionalism and prestige in the human rights sphere in order to achieve the canon's goals.

I began to wonder how to reconcile this obvi on point argument for the desperate and proven need for more grassroots based human rights work. To make it a people's movement, where does this extremely inaccessible yet important work fit? How to connect the essential works of individuals like just Justice Picado with on the ground community based movements throughout the world? Perhaps an easy/obvious question that I wrestled with throughout many a HRTE event. How to keep the human component with the need for institutional change?

Just thought I'd share. Happy weekend!

Sri Lanka & Reconciliation

Here is a great BBC in Pictures about an art camp in Sri Lanka established to promote reconciliation among children. [That's like a triple whammy of good things].