Young-sponsored Campus Events

Despite the virtual setting of the 2020-21 school year, the Young Initiative continued to foster and facilitate discussions around the global political economy and international relations at large. Young sponsored or co-sponsored six speaker events illuminating global issues such as restorative justice, food insecurity, and state-sanctioned violence.

MANAGING NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL VIOLENCE: FROM DEMONSTRATIONS TO TRANSFORMATION

September 30, 2020

Luis Moreno Ocampo is the former first chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Previously, he played a crucial role in Argentina’s transition to democracy, as the deputy prosecutor of the 1985 “Junta trial” and the prosecutor in a trial against the military rebellion in 1991.

Ted Braun is a noted documentarian and the Joseph Campbell Endowed Chair of Cinematic Ethics at USC. His critically acclaimed feature film Darfur Now spearheaded a global social action campaign and won the NAACP Image Award for best documentary of 2007.

TRUTH COMMISSION AND TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE

October 7, 2020

Kelebogile Zvobgo is a pre-doctoral fellow and incoming assistant professor of government at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. She is also the founder and director of the International Justice Lab at William & Mary. Her research broadly engages questions in human rights, transitional justice, and international law.

FEEDING THE HUNGRY

November 4, 2020

Michelle Jurkovich is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Boston and a visiting fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Her research interests include international food security, ethics, economic and social rights, and human security.

RESTORATIVE JUSTICE AND RACIAL JUSTICE: FROM TRUTH TELLING TO REPARATIONS

November 5, 2020

Fania Davis is a leading national voice on restorative justice. She is a civil rights lawyer, social justice advocate, restorative justice practitioner, writer, and scholar with a Ph.D. in Indigenous Knowledge. The Los Angeles Times named her a New Civil Rights Leader of the 21st Century. Davis’ research interests include race, restorative and social justice, and exploring the Indigenous roots—particularly the African Indigenous roots—of restorative justice.

Jennifer Llewellyn is a professor of law for the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University and the director of the International Learning Community on a Restorative Approach. In 2018, she served as the scholar in residence for the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission. Llewellyn is a leading expert on, and advocate of, restorative justice, publishing extensively on the theory and practice of a restorative approach.

TRUTH AND ACCOUNTABILITY AROUND RACIAL JUSTICE IN LOS ANGELES

March 18, 2021

Pablo Abitbol is the coordinator of the Grupo Regional de Memoria Histórica (Colombia). He is a professor of new political economy, big history, and theories of democracy and development in the faculty of social sciences and humanities of the Technological University of Bolívar. Abitbol’ s research focuses on collective memory, deliberative democracy, and peacebuilding and reconciliation.

Cristián Correa is a senior expert with the International Center for Transitional Justice. Correa is an expert in the definition and implementation of reparations programs for mass human rights violations. Previously, Correa was legal adviser for a commission of the Presidency of Chile, responsible for identifying the disappeared and defining a human rights policy, and the legal secretary of the Commission of Political Imprisonment and Torture of Chile.

Ashley Quarcoo is a visiting fellow with the SNF Agora Institute at John Hopkins University and a senior fellow with the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Quarcoo previously spent over a decade supporting peacebuilding and democratic development in post-conflict countries and countries transitioning from authoritarianism. Her research focuses on threats to democracy, social and political polarization, and comparative approaches toward building social cohesion and democratic renewal.

UYGHUR MUSLIM PERSECUTION IN XINJIANG [CO-SPONSORED WITH CRITICAL THEORY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE] April 1, 2021

Timothy Grose is a professor of China studies at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. He specializes in ethnic policy in China. Grose’s research also focuses on the Uyghur population in China as well as on religion, particularly through the lens of Islamic and Tibetan Buddhist traditions.

Salam al-Marayati is president and co-founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. His expertise centers on Middle Eastern politics, national security, Islam in the West, and Muslim reform movements. He has published several articles including in The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today, and has been featured on news outlets such as C-SPAN and NBC. AlMarayati was formerly co-chair of the Interfaith Coalition to Heal Los Angeles. He is currently an adjunct faculty member at the Bayan Claremont Islamic Graduate School and a board member of the Muslim Reform Institute.

Lan Chu is a professor in Occidental’s Diplomacy and World Affairs Department. Chu has many research interests including faith diplomacy, political ideology, and the political role of religious institutions, particularly the Catholic Church. Chu is on the executive council of the Western Political Science Association and is on the editorial board of its journal, Politics, Groups, and Identities. She also serves as a country expert for the University of Gothenburg’s Varieties of Democracy Project.

Anthony Tirado Chase serves as chair of the Young Initiative and is a professor in Occidental’s Diplomacy and World Affairs Department. Chase is a theoretician of human rights with a particular focus on Middle Eastern politics, transitional justice, and sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI)-based rights. Chase has written several books on the topic of human rights in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Arab and Muslim worlds, and he has most recently been published in the International Journal of Human Rights.