[Peace] Thu 4/1 7:30pm: HUMAN RIGHTS TRIALS AND TRUTH COMMISSIONS: WHAT THE U.S. CAN LEARN FROM LATIN AMERICA (Levis 3rd floor MillerComm talk)

[Stuart Levy]

THE CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN STUDIES 
CAS/MillerComm2010

MILLER COMM LECTURE

JUAN MENDEZ, Law Professor, American University

Thursday, April 1st
7:30pm

Third Floor Faculty Levis Center
(919 W. Illinois St., Urbana, on UofI campus)
 
HUMAN RIGHTS TRIALS AND TRUTH COMMISSIONS:
WHAT THE U.S. CAN LEARN FROM LATIN AMERICA
 

In the wake of a steady stream of revelations regarding the treatment of
prisoners in US military custody, their representatives and the American
public have been engaged in debates over the value, justice and dangers of
investigating and/or prosecuting current and former US officials for torture
and other human rights abuses.  Should the current US administration decide
to undertake such investigations, it would be following in the footsteps of
other nations of the Americas including Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru.
The lecture will shed light and lessons from these experiences.

 

Prof. Juan Mendez is a professor of Law at the American University and an
advisor on crime prevention to the Prosecutor, International Criminal Court.
Until May of this year he was the President of the International Center for
Transnational Justice (ICTJ).  Concurrent with his duties at ICTJ, the
Honorable Kofi Annan named Mr. Mendez his Special Advisor on the prevention
of genocide, a task he performed from 2004 to 2007. A native of Argentina,
Mr. Mendez has dedicated his legal career to the defense of human rights and
has a long and distinguished record of advocacy throughout the Americas.  As
a result of his involvement in representing political prisoners, the
Argentinean military dictatorship arrested him and subjected him to torture
and administrative detention for more than a year. During this time, Amnesty
International adopted him as a “Prisoner of Conscience.” After his expulsion
from his country in 1977, Mr. Méndez moved to the United States. For 15
years, he worked with Human Rights Watch, concentrating his efforts on human
rights issues in the western hemisphere. In 1994, he became general counsel
of Human Rights Watch, with worldwide duties in support of the
organization’s mission, including responsibility for litigation and standard
setting activities. From 1996 to 1999, Mr. Méndez was the Executive Director
of the Inter American Institute of Human Rights in Costa Rica, and between
October 1999 and May 2004 he was Professor of Law and Director of the Center
for Civil and Human Rights at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. Between
2000 and 2003 he was a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights of the Organization of American States, and served as its President
in 2002. He has taught International Human Rights Law at Georgetown Law
School and at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies,
and he teaches regularly at the Oxford Masters Program in International
Human Rights Law in the United Kingdom. He is the recipient of several human
rights awards, the most recent being a Doctorate Honoris Causa from the
University of Quebec in Montreal; the inaugural “Monsignor Oscar A. Romero
Award for Leadership in Service to Human Rights,” by the University of
Dayton in April 2000; and the “Jeanne and Joseph Sullivan Award” of the
Heartland Alliance in May 2003. Mr. Méndez is a member of the bar of Mar del
Plata and Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the District of Columbia, U.S.,
having earned a J.D. from Stella Maris University in Argentina and a
certificate from the American University College of Law.

 Hosted by:

Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
 

In Conjunction with:

Center for Democracy in a Multiracial Society
Center for Global Studies
College of Law
Department of Anthropology
Department of Political Science
Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese
European Union Center
Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies
Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities
International Forum for U. S. Studies
International Programs and Studies
Lemann Institute for Brazilian Studies
Program in Jewish Culture and Society
Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory
Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program

Series support provided by:

Office of the Chancellor
Office of Equal Opportunity and Access
Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research
Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
The Center for Advanced Study
George A. Miller Programs Committee
Peggy Harris Memorial Fund
The Council of Deans
The David Gottlieb Memorial Foundation
The Graduate College

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