Year in Review by the Director

Overall, the internships were highly successful. Students were given immense responsibility, functioning in many situations as full staff within their sites. For instance, at the Costa Rica mission, one student was given a maternity cover and literally took on that staff person’s role for a few months.

Hosts and supervisors remain thrilled to have Oxy support because our students function at such a high level. For better and worse, the students continue to perform with great professionalism, and supervisors see them as colleagues rather than undergraduate interns.

Nine of the seventeen students had a major focus on General Assembly and/or Security Council work. The remainder focused on other kinds of programming. One lesson here is for us to (continue to) ensure that we don’t overemphasize the GA work to the exclusion of all other projects.

New Developments

While the contours of the Kahane U.N. Program remained similar to those from the past, we did implement a few notable additions:

• NGOs: We added three non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to our internship roster this year, each of which does deep work on U.N.-related matters from a civil society entry point. The three NGOs were:

OutRight Action International (which is concerned with sexuality and gender issues; the internship focused in large part on General Assembly and Security Council work, including support for a GA resolution on democracy and elections); Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC, which is a membership coalition based group that focuses on peacebuilding and security); and Religions for Peace (which focuses on constructive use of religion in diplomacy and faith leaders’ engagement in supporting human rights and anti-discrimination efforts).

• Orientation: At the beginning of the semester, and upon students’ arrival, we convened an intensive new orientation program that spanned six days and combined purposes and learning methodologies. Our focus was teambuilding, sharing information about the semester (including in relation to what to expect from internships, living in New York City, and health protocols), and building a comprehensive information base about the U.N. and the internships that would allow for immediate and deeper understanding and comfort.

• SIT addition: The major “systemic” change we implemented was the partnership with the School for

International Training, with Lucas Shapiro as the New York point person. Lucas’ main responsibility was in his contributions to student health and safety. In addition to tracking student travel and COVID policy compliance, he ran excursions (including a food truck tour, a neighborhood scavenger hunt, and an Ellis Island visit), all of which helped create cohesiveness and warmth within the student group. His involvement was particularly valuable during a severe weather incident, and we did have one emergency situation (the armed man in front of the U.N.) in which his security plan was quite useful.

Seventeen students were placed at the following sites:

U.N. AGENCIES STUDENTS HIGHLIGHTS

UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) Collin Nascimento Cheng Wang Aidan Garagic

UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) Stella Hong Stephanie Oyolu

UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund)

UNHCR (The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) Ava Davis

Petra Jasper Support for work on a pioneering journal article on COVID and development in the esteemed British Medical Journal; this included data review of country criminalization laws and research on public health concerns such as the impact of tobacco policy on development. Support for projects related to the impact that the COVID pandemic has had upon the mental health of young people in the global South and North; this involved data review and interviewing young people. Contributed to a research project on the global crisis of femicide (killings of women). Followed humanitarian and migration issues in various regions, including in Afghanistan; monitored Security Council on refugee concerns.

U.N. WOMEN

UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) Madeline Henry Support for the Civil Society Division and its work on women human-rights defenders as well as on general clampdowns on freedoms of assembly and speech. Lauren El Kholy Support for GA and Security Council monitoring; support for visit of Commissioner General.

DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS STUDENTS HIGHLIGHTS

COSTA RICA

U.K.

NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS

Alejo Maggini

Aerex Narvasa Caroline Diamond Julia Eubanks Amirah Al-Sagr Support for coordinating country mission’s engagement at the General Assembly. This included statement drafting and communications; intensive monitoring of and reporting on the Second (economics/finance), Third (human rights and social affairs), and Fifth Committees (U.N. budgets and resources); and monitoring of Security Council. Key issues included Afghanistan humanitarian issues and reprisals against those using the U.N. system to advance rights concerns.

STUDENTS

GA monitoring and participation as staff in government negotiations on various human rights issues.

HIGHLIGHTS

OutRight Action International

GPPAC (Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict)

Religions for Peace

Oli Vorster

Talia White

Zhuoheng Li Support for a conference of religious leaders on diplomacy and faith, and work supporting faith leaders in their U.N. anti-discrimination and environmental efforts.

Monitoring of GA, lobbying of mission staff in support of adding language on sexual orientation and gender identity in resolution on democracy and elections. Support for peacebuilding membership coalition advocacy; monitoring of GA and research related to peace, conflict, and food insecurity.

Courses/Academics

In many ways, the courses continue to provide the glue for the semester and the internships. They offer context and space for students to learn about and better understand what they see and do during their time in New York, as well as the priorities of their hosts. The courses also help to provide a basis for students to think about the U.N. as a site of potential policy development supporting social change.

During the semester, there were no significant changes to DWA 401 and 402. We retained our focus on human rights in DWA 401 and on conflict, peace, and security (with a focus on “prevention”) in DWA 402. Jacques and I revised and will continue to revise our syllabi to keep our material fresh and engaging. During the semester, for instance, we each unexpectedly engaged with the evolving Afghanistan crisis and a clearer U.N. focus on “reprisals,” or punishment for civil society making demands of governments in U.N. environments.

• The prevention/conflict, peace, and security course (DWA 402) remains Jacques’ master class in U.N. engagement. The course combines conceptual and theoretical approaches to operational and structural conflict prevention and resolution, and uses case studies of recent or current conflicts. It also draws extensively from students’ experiences in their internships. It examines the U.N.’s collective capacity to prevent deadly conflict and weaves in cross-cutting issues such as gender, transnational organized crime, population and demographic pressures, the development-security nexus, climate change and migration, terrorism, and pandemics. A key feature of the course is its emphasis on student learning through lectures complemented by student-led simulations, small group discussions, occasional guest speakers, film streaming of archived U.N. web proceedings, and other creative engagement formats.

• The human rights class (DWA 401) retains a focus on using “unusual entry points” to look at broader geopolitical issues but does not function as a “human rights 101.” Among these entry points are gender and sexuality, racist policing, anti-human rights and anti-U.N. sentiment, right-wing extremism, crackdowns on freedoms of civic engagement, expression and assembly, and antagonism toward humanrights defenders. The course continues to use U.N. Human Rights Council discussions as a framework (including streams from discussions and negotiations from the Geneva proceedings) and as a teaching tool.

Guests

As in previous years, the Kahane U.N. Program welcomed thoughtful guests to our classes. A few were welcomed back with open arms because their presentations are so compelling. Among those who returned were: Elizabeth Edelstein, political affairs officer in the Office of the Under Secretary General for Political and Peace Building Affairs; Marina Kumskova and Madison Taggart (a former Kahane U.N. Program student!) of GPPAC; and Mariam Jalabi, representative of the Syrian Opposition Coalition to the U.N. and co-founder of the Syrian Women’s Political Movement. We also hosted:

• Naureen Shameem, formerly of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development

Naureen’s discussion focused on extremist and fundamentalist actors functioning within the U.N. system, and the growing anti-rights and anti-democracy movements in the global North and global South.

• Megan Doherty of Action Canada for Population and Development

Meg spoke of behind-the-scenes details in the life of a resolution within either the General Assembly or the Human Rights Council, and how challenging advocacy can be.

• Marisa Viana of the youth network, Realizing Sexual and Reproductive Justice Alliance (RESURJ)

Marisa discussed strategic engagement in the U.N. toward strengthening the rights of young people and the importance of cross-regional coalition building.

• Purnaka De Silva, a professor and independent advocate with specific expertise in Sri Lanka

Purnaka spoke of his long time engagement in pro-democracy resistance movements there.

We also hosted a warm and provocative evening visit from the inestimable Bill Kahane! Bill shared details of his own trajectory and career and guided a dynamic conversation with our group.

During the latter part of the semester, President Harry J. Elam, Jr. and Dean Wendy Sternberg visited the students in New York. During Harry and Wendy’s visit to NYC, they met with Kahane U.N. Program students on a Friday morning at the Church Center for a discussion about their internships. The following day, Oxy hosted an informal luncheon at a hotel; it was a lovely event. Bill and Elizabeth Kahane attended, as did Harry and his wife Michele. In addition, Bill and Elizabeth generously welcomed the Kahane Scholars (five students within the Kahane U.N. Program) to their home for a delicious dinner, for which we all remain grateful.

As Laura Hebert notes elsewhere in this report, U.N. Week returned live to the Oxy campus in April 2022, despite it being a slight misnomer in terms of time frame. We opened the programming with a remote cross-regional event that focused on disability, advocacy, and human rights. Speakers were based in Kenya, Colombia, Guatemala, and in the U.N. system. Jacques and I went to Los Angeles soon after for my inaugural trip to Oxy as director of the Kahane U.N. Program. He and I each offered an open talk for campus; Jacques’ focused on developments in the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and mine looked at a few “controversial” human rights issues within the U.N. Coincidentally, this took place on the day Russia was suspended from the Human Rights Council, which made for a rich conversation (again, see Laura’s entry for more specific detail).

Our main draw was Stéphane Dujarric, the media spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. Stéphane shared wisdom and stories based on his many years behind the scenes in a number of talks with students, including an intimate discussion with the 2021 Kahane U.N. Program cohort and the 2022 incoming group.

On a personal note, it was wonderful to be on campus and to have the opportunity to meet and spend time with the people who have provided so much support to the Kahane U.N. Program. And, of course, it was just lovely to see the students Jacques and I had spent so much time with a few months before, and to get a sense of the incoming students we’ll work with in the coming months.

Looking Ahead

In last year’s report, I added the following text – and I include this again as a reminder of what we are trying to achieve and also to show that we are on track in implementing these shifts.

The Program will strengthen its human rights core alongside other established priorities (conflict/peace/ security and development). The public narrative of the Kahane U.N. Program will offer more emphasis on human rights and social justice, as well as on the humility and responsibility required to ethically engage in U.N. spaces and geopolitics. One goal here is to promote a particular purpose of the Program: for students to contribute to (and study) multilateralism and the U.N. system in order to be better global citizens, to be less U.S.-centric in thinking and in policy development, and to understand ourselves and the U.S. government as part of global systems that benefit some but not others. A related objective is to use the U.N. system to create and be effective agents of change.