Human Security at Home and Abroad
Since the end of the Cold War, security experts have become increasingly convinced that global stability and the security of nations could best be ensured by addressing issues that threaten the safety and security of people around the world. Human security studies represent a shift in focus away from the relationships between countries and toward universal standards of individuals’ well-being. While the concept has entered the lexicon of American foreign and domestic policy relatively late on the world stage, it has gained momentum in the past decade. This year, the Saul O Sidore Lecture Series will consider issues relating to human security at home and abroad.
Fall 2007
Monday, September 17 – The Old and New Faces of War
During his career in the Navy, Franklin Pierce Law Center President John Hutson earned the Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit (with three gold stars), Meritorious Service Medal (with two gold stars), Navy Commendation Medal, and the Navy Achievement Medal as well as other awards. He is a retired rear admiral and served as Judge Advocate General of the Navy.
President Hutson writes, “Plato said that only the dead have seen their last war. From ancient times, warfare has been both changeless and ever-changing. Nations tend to fight the next war with the tactics and strategies of the last war. The so-called Global War on Terror is unlike any war we have ever fought and, at the same time, like them all in certain important ways. As has been noted by others, it is asymmetric. It didn’t have a clear beginning, we won’t know when the tide has turned, and we won’t know when it is over. We don’t know who the enemy is. He is amorphous and ever-changing himself.
One strategy is constant in warfare—you can’t freely concede the high ground to the enemy. In this war, the high ground is the values which have made us strong and for which we are now fighting. That is our greatest weapon, and if we give those up, if we disarm from those values, we will have lost the war.”
Monday, October 22 – Crisis in Darfur
Kadian Pow is the program officer for the Committee on Conscience at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, where she works to create and encourage a community of conscience invested in preventing and stopping genocide. Previously, she served as the coordinator of Leadership Programs in the Museum’s Division of Education for which she had been developing strategic partnerships and a national youth leadership initiative. In this capacity, Ms. Pow convened a summit on youth and civic responsibility in 2006 that included nearly 30 grassroots, national, and international youth development organizations.
Ms. Pow will talk about the Committee on Conscience’s work to educate people about genocide and stimulate them toward action. She will also discuss the context and background of the crisis in Darfur and what the Museum has done to bring attention to it and the Museum’s larger genocide prevention efforts. In that context, she will touch briefly on the history of the Committee on Conscience as it is situated within the Museum and highlight some of the groundbreaking work it has done in the past.
Wednesday, November 7 – Why the Working Poor Go Hungry
Larry Brown is the founding director of the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Brandeis University and serves as a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). As a member of the faculty at HSPH, Brown served as chairman of the Physician Task Force on Hunger in America, whose work prompted congressional action to address the revelations of growing hunger during the 1980s. He is the founder of the Feinstein Famine Center, a past board chair of Oxfam America, and also served as assistant director of the Peace Corps and VISTA under President Carter. Dr. Brown has written several books, including Hunger in America: The Growing Epidemic, and Living Hungry in America.
Each year government data reveal that 35 million Americans live in households that do not get enough to eat, but the reasons for this tragedy go largely unnoticed. Dr. Brown, the nation’s leading scholarly authority on hunger, will address the factors behind this shameful picture and outline what we can do to make America a nation where all people have an adequate diet.
Thursday, February 7 – Maintaining Personal and National Security Post-9/11
Nadine Strossen, professor of law at New York Law School, has written, lectured, and practiced extensively in the areas of constitutional law, civil liberties, and international human rights. Since 1991, she has served as president of the American Civil Liberties Union, the first woman to head the nation’s largest and oldest civil liberties organization. The National Law Journal has twice named Professor Strossen one of “The 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America.” Vanity Fair included her in “America’s 200 Most Influential Women,” and Ladies’ Home Journal included her in “America’s 100 Most Important Women.”
Professor Strossen has authored more than 250 published works including the book Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights, which was named by The New York Times as a notable book of 1995 and was republished in October 2000.
Strossen’s lecture will address the constitutional implications of government measures taken in the wake of 9/11.
Spring 2008
Thursday, February 14 – Personal Perspectives on Discrimination
Michael Fischler, director of the Counseling and Human Relations Center and professor of education
Daryl Browne, adjunct faculty member, Computer Science and Technology Department
Terri Lessard, training coordinator, Information Technology Services
Panelists will discuss their experiences with discrimination based on race and sexual orientation.
Tuesday, March 25 – The International Arms Trade
Joshua Rubenstein is the northeast regional director of Amnesty International USA. A longtime associate of Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Rubenstein has been professionally involved with human rights and international affairs for 30 years as an activist, scholar, and journalist with particular expertise in Soviet affairs. His presentation will examine the growing international arms trade.
Thursday, April 17 – Incarceration Nation
Marc Mauer is executive director of The Sentencing Project and a leading authority on racism in the criminal justice system. He has written extensively and testified before Congress and other legislative bodies on the social costs of incarceration. Mauer will examine the causes and consequences of the historic rise in the use of imprisonment in the U.S. over the past three decades.