Events
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Academic Year 2021-2022
October 21, 2021
New Pandemics, Old Politics
Ginn Library at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy hosts Alex de Waal on a discussion of his new book.
Thursday, October 21, 2021
12:10pm – 1:20pm
Cabot Room 702 or via Zoom.
New Pandemics, Old Politics explores how the modern world adopted a martial script to deal with epidemic disease threats, and how this has failed—repeatedly. Europe first declared ‘war’ on cholera in the 19th century. It didn’t defeat the disease but it served purposes of state and empire. In 1918, influenza emerged from a real war and swept the world unchecked by either policy or medicine. The biggest pandemic of the century defied the script and was scrubbed from history. Forty years ago, AIDS challenged the confidence of medical science. AIDS is still with us, but we have learned to live with it—chiefly because of community activism and emancipatory politics.
Today, public health experts and political leaders who failed to listen to them agree on one thing: that we must ‘fight’ Covid-19. There’s a consensus that we must target individual pathogens and suppress them—and not address the reasons why our societies are so vulnerable. Arguing that this consensus is mistaken, Alex de Waal makes the case for a new democratic public health for the Anthropocene.
Past Events
June 17, 2021
Hosted by the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa and the Department of International Development
Panelists:
Chair: Professor Christine Chinkin, Professorial Research Fellow, LSE Centre of Women Peace & Security
The humanitarian crisis in Tigray, Ethiopia
Thursday 17 June 2021
2:00pm to 3:30pm GMT
The humanitarian crisis in Tigray, Ethiopia, is grave, urgent and under-reported. It is striking that for a region that is historically food insecure and the epicentre of famine in the 1980s, the current situation is entirely man-made: the direct outcome of war.
There is growing evidence that the belligerents in the war, specifically the Ethiopian federal forces, the Eritrean national army, and the militia from the neighbouring Amhara region, have engaged in a campaign of starvation. This includes destroying food and agriculture, pillaging and vandalising health clinics and water facilities, looting factories, shops, and schools. Widespread rape is not only a crime but also prevents survivors from caring for their families and fear of sexual violence prevents women and girls from engaging in essential activities such as travelling to market or farming. Humanitarian aid is desperately limited: deliberately obstructed and often stolen. All in all, this amounts to a clear instance of starvation as a weapon of war, and accusations are mounting of a crime against humanity.
This event will address these issues and seek to understand the ongoing emergency. It will invite conversation between humanitarian researchers and reporters covering events on the ground.
A Pandemic of Hunger:
Implementing UN Security Council Resolution 2417
Wednesday, May 19, 2021
16:00-17:30 CET/9-10:30 ET
To mark the third anniversary of the adoption of landmark UNSC Resolution 2417, GRC is pleased to convene a webinar on 19 May 2021, at 16.00-17.30 (CET) on the implementation of Resolution 2417 with a focus on South Sudan, Yemen, Ethiopia, and broader UNSC action.
For this timely discussion ahead of the Protection of Civilians Week and the UN Secretary General’s report on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, GRC Partner, Catriona Murdoch, will be joined by eminent speakers, including Yousuf Syed Khan (Legal/Reporting Officer at UN), Nathalie Weizmann (Senior Legal Officer, OCHA), and Sarah Offermans (Head of Development, Humanitarian Affairs and Human Rights, Permanent Mission of the Netherlands to the UN).
The webinar will coincide with a digital symposium on Opinio Juris on the implementation of UNSC 2417 kicking off on May 17 and featuring written think pieces from the World Food Programme, Mwatana for Human Rights, Alex de Waal, Chris Newton, Yousuf Syed Khan, Jared Miller and Emanuela-Chiara Gillard.
April 20, 2021
Starving Tigray
Mass atrocity and humanitarian emergency in Ethiopia
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
5:00-6:30pm
The war in the Tigray region of Ethiopia has unleashed a major humanitarian emergency. With most of Tigray off-limits to humanitarian agencies and journalists, the true dimensions of the crisis are hard to determine precisely. The World Peace Foundation report, ‘Starving Tigray’ documents what is known about the causes of the food crisis, its scale, and its possible trajectory.
The evidence points to a campaign of widespread and systematic pillage and forced starvation, threatening deepening hunger and possibly famine in the coming months, and impoverishment and aid-dependency in the longer term. In this session, World Peace Foundation researchers will outline their findings and debate what can be done.
Join World Peace Foundation’s Executive Director and Fletcher School Professor, Alex de Waal, Fletcher Assistant Professor Tom Dannenbaum and WPF researchers as they discuss war and famine in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, with The Fletcher School Dean, Rachel Kyte.
April 19, 2021
Prosecuting Starvation Crimes in Yemen’s Civil War
Hosted by Case Western Reserve University School of Law
Monday, April 19, 2021 4:00 – 5:30pm EST
The Yemen Accountability Project’s release of its white paper “Prosecuting Starvation Crimes in Yemen’s Civil War” examines the use of deliberate attacks on food, water, and objects indispensable to survival as part of the Saudi-led Coalition’s attacks on Houthi rebels in Yemen. The white paper outlines the evidence of these crimes and makes the case for bringing charges against perpetrators of starvation crimes in Yemen. The panelists will explore the challenges of bringing charges against perpetrators and the potential avenues of accountability.
See full participant bios.
April 7, 2021
Defining an Unimaginable Crime: The Story of Raphael Lemkin
Hosted by United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Facebook Live event with a researcher and Museum historian to learn about Lemkin’s contributions towards helping survivors achieve a measure of justice.
Wednesday, April 7, 2021 at 11:00 AM EDT
Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jewish lawyer, escaped the Nazis but lost 49 members of his family in the Holocaust. He coined the word genocide in 1944 to describe the deliberate attempt to wipe out a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Lemkin devoted the last 15 years of his life to lobbying governments to recognize genocide as an international crime and changed the legal landscape. Despite his impact, he died alone and penniless in 1959.
Speaker: Dr. Bridget Conley, Research Director, World Peace Foundation, and Associate Research Professor, The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Moderator:
Dr. Edna Friedberg, Historian, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
March 30, 2021
Tree and Tupit Speaker Series
How Mass Atrocities End: Military Interventions and Withdrawals
Conversation with Professor Bridget Conley, Research Director, World Peace Foundation
March 30, 2021 5pm EST
Join TREE and Tufts University Prison Initiative at Tisch College (TUPIT) in speaking with Dr. Bridget Conley, Research Director of the World Peace Foundation about what incarceration looks like in the time of COVID-19 and the pandemic’s effects of incarcerated populations
March 15, 2021
Understanding Violence and Political Markets in Africa and the Middle East:
Conclusions from the Conflict Research Programme
Hosted by the Conflict Research Programme at LSE IDEAS
Monday, March 15, 2021
11:00 AM-12:30 PM EST / 4:00-5:30 PM GMT
After four years of researching violence, conflict and across Africa and the Middle East, what have we learned? Join us for the concluding event of the Conflict Research Programme.
The Conflict Research Programme has been investigating the logics of war and peace across five countries in the Middle East and Africa over the last four years. Findings cover the link between extremist identity politics and political marketplaces, the countervailing role of civicness, and ‘what works’ external interventions in such areas as security, humanitarian need or localised conflict resolution. Producing high-quality research published in academic journals alongside policy analysis to the UK government, the programme boasts a range of outputs that has the potential to shape academic debate and the development landscape.
In this event, CRP researchers will present some of the highlights from the programme including examples of impact, as well as evidence to support a new way of thinking about public authority and conflict as a social condition.
March 3, 2021
Arms Sales to Conflict Zones
Business as Usual: How major weapons exporters arm the world’s conflicts
Hosted by the Forum on the Arms Trade and sponsored by the World Peace Foundation, Center for Responsive Politics, and Program on Civil-Military Relations in Arab States at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.
Video of the Event
Wednesday, March 3, 2021
11:00 AM-12:30 PM EST / 4:00-5:30 PM GMT
Join in a discussion for the launch of “Business as Usual: How major weapons exporters arm the world’s conflicts” — the initial report at the midpoint of a two-year project examining defense industries, foreign policy and armed conflict.
Over the past decades, international efforts have increasingly sought to control arms exports to countries where conflicts are taking place, especially where such conflicts involve human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law (IHL). This first report looks at the top 11 arms exporters, examining whether export control measures – including international treaties, national legislation and policy, and the EU Common Position – correspond to actual, empirical, changes in practice on the part of arms suppliers.
This report is part of the WPF research program, “Defense industries, Foreign Policy, and Armed Conflict,” support for which was provided in part by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York.
February 20, 2021
The Effects of Military Interventions: Taking Stock
How Mass Atrocities End: Military Interventions and Withdrawals
Hosted by the Royal Holloway University of London
1: 20GMT Dr. Bridget Conley
This conference will bring together scholars from multidisciplinary backgrounds to take stock of theoretical and empirical knowledge on social, political, economic and strategic effects of military interventions. Click below to view the conference website and to register.
October 29, 2020
Presenters:
De-colonizing “Objects”
This is Session One of a Five Part AY-long series in collaboration with the Jonathon M. Tisch College of Civic Life, In Their Presence: Debates on the dignity, display and ownership of human remains.
REGISTER HERE | EVENT FLYER
October 29, 2020 on Zoom 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. EST
This conference will open with an introduction by series organizers, Diane O’Donoghue, Director of the Program for Public Humanities and Senior Fellow for the Humanities at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, and Bridget Conley, Research Director of the World Peace Foundation (WPF) and Associate Research Professor at The Fletcher School.
Wednesday, October 21, 2020
Panelists:
Moderated by World Peace Foundation Executive Director, Alex de Waal.
Humanitarian Crisis and Response in the Context of the Political Marketplace Framework
9:00 AM – 11:00 AM EDT (GMT-4)
This webinar will present findings from recent research on understanding humanitarian crises and responses through the lens of the political marketplace. This research is based several countries across Africa and the Middle East: DRC, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. The webinar is hosted by the Conflict Research Programme at the London School of Economics with the World Peace Foundation at The Fletcher School and Feinstein International Center, Tufts University.
October 10, 2020
The Norris and Margery Bendetson EPIIC International Symposium
Preventing Genocide and Mass Atrocities
11:00am: Memory, Survival and Genocide, Bridget Conley
Institute for Global Leadership, Tufts University
The international symposium is an annual public forum designed and enacted by EPIIC students. It features international practitioners, academics, public intellectuals, activists and journalists who come to Tufts each year for three days of discussion and debate in panels and small-group discussions determined by students in the EPIIC course. Students who conduct research projects also have the opportunity to present alongside the invited experts.
Sept. 24, 2020
Keynote Address “Starvation Crimes: Prospects for Political Action in the Current Crises”, WPF Executive Director, Alex de Waal
War crimes & catastrophe in today’s global crisis: Is anyone responsible?
A Symposium On Law, Rights, and Humanitarianism
Thursday Sept. 24, 2020, 1:00 pm
Hosted by American University
This event is sponsored by the Historical and International Studies Faculty Research Cluster, the Farsi Chair of Islamic Peace; AU programs in Ethics, Peace and Human Rights and Environmental Sustainability and Global Health and Islamic and Middle East Studies, and additional support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Click here for more information and to register.