The Program on Human Rights welcomed Pamela Merchant and Kristen Myles to Stanford on March 4 as final speakers in the winter course U.S. Human Rights NGOs and International Human Rights. Ms. Merchant has served for the past nine years as executive director of the Center for Justice & Accountability, the leading U.S.-based organization that pursues international human rights abusers through litigation in U.S. courts. Formerly a federal prosecutor, Ms. Merchant has frequently testified on human rights issues before the U.S. Congress; currently serves on the Advisory Council for the ABA Center on Human Rights; and is a director of the Foundation for Sustainable Rule of Law Initiatives. Ms. Myles is a litigation partner in the San Francisco office of Munger, Tolles & Olson and is repeatedly named among California's “top women lawyers” by the Daily Journal. In her practice of complex business litigation, Ms. Myles filed a “friend of the court” brief in the 2014 case of Shell Oil vs. Kiobel which in the U.S. Supreme Court decided that U.S. corporations could not be sued in U.S. courts under the Alien Torts Statute for alleged human rights abuses abroad.

Ms. Merchant’s strongly held view is that some human rights violations are so egregious that they should be litigated in any court system, even if they occurred outside the country in which the case is argued. Ms. Merchant argued that courts create a record of truth about human rights violations, and that shedding the light of truth on these terrible events will make the world a less violent place. The Center for Justice and Accountability has provided legal advice for human rights victims to pursue their claims of human rights abuses in U.S. courts when abuses occurred in countries such at El Salvador, Nigeria, South Africa, and Myanmar, using U.S. federal legislation of the Alien Torts Statute and the Torture Victims Prevention Act. The CJA’s position is that the Nuremberg Trials of the World War II genocide atrocities created an obligation for all nation states to pursue justice in their courts under the international law principle of universal jurisdiction that holds that egregious human rights abuses are the concern of all humanity, wherever they have taken place.

Ms. Myles has represented U.S. corporations against whom human rights victims allege were directly or indirectly the instigators of their violations by virtue of pursuing corporate economic interests abroad in collusion with corrupt officials who resort to violence, such as by pushing people off their land or working in industrial settings in sub-standard conditions. Ms. Myles pointed that U.S. corporate executives do not instruct their overseas operators to be violent; instead, they are working through long chains of delegated authority in their off-shore operations, and these off-shore people act beyond their corporate mandate. Most importantly, the international legal principle of universal jurisdiction is the “law of nations” so it is directed to national governments and not to private corporations.

After Ms. Merchant and Ms. Myles summarized their individual positions, they engaged in dialogue with Professor Helen Stacy, director of the Program on Human Rights. Discussion covered the pros and cons of using the U.S. court system for transnational issues, given that such cases are lengthy and expensive; whether the high visibility of such cases had a deterrent effect on violators abroad, or may lead to the deportation of a violator who had subsequently settled in the U.S., or would prevent an alleged perpetrator’s application to emigrate to the U.S.; the success of victims being paid money from their perpetrator under a civil damages award ordered by a U.S. court; whether this U.S. litigation poses a diplomatic problem for the U.S. in its international operations; how standards on corporate social responsibility can be raised beyond litigating past practices in lengthy and expensive civil court proceedings; and the ethics of imposing higher standards of U.S. corporate standards in countries with lower standards and very high needs to improve economic conditions for their population.

Helen Stacy, Executive Director, Program on Human Rights

Elizabeth Blake, Habitat for Humanity International’s General Counsel and team leader of its Government Relations and Advocacy operations, spoke to students at the Freeman Spogli Institute on February 25 as part of the Program on Human Rights Winter Speaker Series that examined U.S Human Rights NGO’s and International Human Rights. 

Habitat for Humanity is a Christian not-for-profit organization that started in 1974 with the credo that every person has a human right to secure shelter and tenure of land. Most of its work is overseas, where Habitat for Humanity has built homes for over 3 million people in over 70 countries. Using security of tenure as its cornerstone, it especially assists women and children who are the most vulnerable to homelessness and insecure tenure. Habitat for Humanity has also recently expanded into housing microfinance, water and sanitation, risk reduction and response, and in creating Habitat Resource Centers.    

Blake’s provocative starting salvo was that “NGOs often do harm and frequently waste money.” Instead, they need to work better among themselves and invite partnerships with other NGOs, governments, and multi-lateral partners. This is not simply a moral imperative but also a practical necessity given the size of the U.S. not-for-profit sector, which as an employer of 13 million people is a significant part of the national economy.   

Habitat for Humanity’s approach maximizes its impact abroad through four principles:

1.     Community development starts with its people – people are the true assets;

2.     International community development must be based upon priorities set by the local community itself;

3.     The test of success of any community development is that local capacity is improved; and

4.     “Accompaniment” – a term first coined by Paul Farmer of Partners in Health: Habitat for Humanity works with and works for the people of that community.

This last principle is the most important: Habitat for Humanity has 1 million volunteers each year who work together with communities, or as Blake says, “scraping walls together with people from a local community is a different relationship to handing out soup” and ensures “going from aid to empowerment.”

Responding to questions from Dana Phelps, program associate for the Program on Human Rights and moderator of the event, Blake emphasized the relevance of her corporate background to working in the non-profit world.  As a graduate of Columbia University’s School of Law, she brings her extensive corporate experience to her work at Habitat, and stressed that “non-profits are businesses – a major corporate undertaking” for which her business background had trained her “not to take no for an answer.” 

Blake also explained that while Habitat for Humanity is a multi-denominational Christian organization, it is not registered as a church.  This means it is subject to anti-discrimination laws in its hiring practices and daily operations. It does not engage in prosthletyzing but instead sees itself as a morals-based organization.   

When Blake was further pressed on how “accompaniment” works in practice, she emphasized that Habitat for Humanity does not impose its values and morals on communities, but instead has intentionally slow processes that ensure communities adapt new practices in their own time. For example, when questioned on the impact of gender-equality housing improvements, Blake said, “Habitat for Humanity doesn’t make the first running – it tends to go in to communities that are already taking the running on gender equality.” 

Helen Stacy, Director of the Program on Human Rights

Mark Lorey, vice president for Child Development and Program Effectiveness at World Vision International, spoke on his experience working for a faith-based international NGO on human rights issues at the Stanford Program on Human Rights’ Winter Speaker Series, U.S. Human Rights NGOs and International Human Rights, on February 18, 2015.

Lorey addressed the Stanford audience from the Christian perspective and outlined World Vision’s mission for the sustained well-being of children. The projects and other initiatives that World Vision has in place often have a strong religious component to them. For example, many of the projects aim to empower local religious leaders to mobilize marginalized populations through deep faith and commitment to their God. He focused on the stigma and judgment that is attached to HIV/AIDS, especially coming from those of strict religious orientation. In believing in the capability for change, he presented a video that highlighted the experience of a devout Armenian Orthodox priest that once spoke adamantly against those inflicted with HIV/AIDS, but that through a World Vision educative program became a strong advocate for the victims of the disease.

Nicolle Richards, a Stanford undergraduate whose commitment to faith-based organizations has shifted considerably throughout her Stanford career, moderated the event. Richards pressed Lorey on World Vision’s work and the work of faith-based organizations more broadly. She questioned the contrast between faith-based and secular NGOs’ mission and impact in the field; the ethics involved when working with children of secular backgrounds; incorporating religious differences into their community work; and the details of a particular World Vision controversy over their decision to not hire people of different sexual orientations. Lorey struggled to answer many of these sensitive and important questions, leaving the audience with an impression that World Vision battles internally with its constraints as a faith-based organization and that the work of faith-based organizations may not be as impactful as we hope. There was a particularly uncomfortable tension in the room when Helen Stacy, director of the Program on Human Rights, interjected in the discussion, asking Lorey to speak in more detail about World Vision’s recently revoked anti-gay policy that inhibited the hiring of peoples in same-sex marriages. Unwilling to speak about this in an open forum, Lorey asserted that while it is an important issue, it is not one that he wished to dwell on.

Questions from the silenced audience were sparse, but addressed the prevalent gender inequalities among faith-based leaders and concerns about being overly authoritarian in the Good Samaritan model towards human rights work abroad.

Dana Phelps, Program Associate, Program on Human Rights

Julie Cordua, executive director of Thorn, a non-profit organization founded by Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, spoke passionately on the topic child exploitation and sexual abuse imagery for the Stanford Program on Human Rights’ Winter Speaker Series U.S Human Rights NGOs and International Human Rights on February 4, 2015.

Cordua addressed the Stanford audience about the importance of technology for acting as the “digital defenders of children." She provided a chilling account of child sexual exploitation, first describing the problem and then going on to challenge preconceived notions about it. For example, she highlighted that in order to tackle the issue, it must first be understood that it concerns a highly vulnerable population; most child victims of sexual exploitation come from extremely abusive backgrounds and many have been sexually abused by one or more parents.

Cordua emphasized that technology innovations have contributed to a proliferation of child exploitation and sexual abuse imagery through the use of encrypted networks that make it extremely difficult to hunt down perpetrators and find victims. Cordua feels that while technology is intensifying the problem, technology is also the solution.  Examples she gave were the development of algorithms that aim to track perpetrators and their victims and advertisements that encourage pedophiles to seek help.

Helen Stacy, director of the Program on Human Rights, queried Cordua on Thorn’s relationship with the government and private sector, as well as on Thorn’s approach for testing the efficacy of their programs. Cordua responded that Thorn does not apply for government funds so as to maintain independence over their projects but that they actively cultivate strong relationships with politicians and law enforcers. In relation to evaluation metrics, Cordua acknowledged that metrics are especially difficult in such a cryptic field as it is nearly impossible to know what numbers they are dealing with from the onset. Questions from the audience included effective strategies for changing the conversation of pedophilia in the public sphere, the emotional stamina required for pursuing such work, and strategies for connecting with and providing a safe platform for victims of child sexual exploitation.

Dana Phelps, Program Associate, Program on Human Rights

Carolyn Miles, CEO and president of Save the Children, spoke on her organization’s efforts to protect children’s rights in many countries of the world at the Stanford Program on Human Rights’ Winter Speaker Series U.S Human Rights NGOs and International Human Rights on February 11, 2015.

Throughout her talk, Miles addressed the Stanford audience about the importance of protecting the basic needs of children, proclaiming the Save the Children mission: Every child deserves a childhood.  She spoke about the urgent needs of child refugees in Syria, the organization’s biggest and most challenging hurdle at present. The audience grew still when Miles played a Save the Children commercial capturing a Syrian child’s experience in one year of her life during the wake of the crisis. Miles raised other important issues, such as the critical importance of developing longer-term strategies that support children in the aftershock of crises, which often can be more damaging than the initial crisis itself. For example, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when thousands of children were displaced, organizations such as the Red Cross had no plan in place for caring for children in shelters beyond a short period of time. Save the Children trained Red Cross workers in preparedness techniques and strategies for emergency aftermath.

Helen Stacy, director of the Program on Human Rights and moderator of the event, questioned Miles on the organization’s strategy for accessing marginalized communities; prioritizing children that are forgotten or ignored; and the concern of overeducating and preparing children in countries with a depleted workforce. Miles believes that focusing on the hard-to-reach populations will close the gap between the majority and the minority, and that studies show that this is achievable when governments are made to feel accountable to their marginalized peoples when witnessed on an international level. In relation to unrealistically preparing children for the workforce, Miles stated that in the Middle East this may potentially be a problem, but that Save the Children endeavors to prepare students through matching their skillsets to jobs that are already available. When Stacy challenged Miles on the Western mindset that frames the Save the Children mission that “every child deserves a childhood," Miles agreed that it is a Western attitude but stood by her stance that she believes that all children under the age of eighteen are entitled to certain basic rights, regardless of non-Western cultural norms indicating otherwise. Questions from the audience included fundraising issues, learning from undesirable program evaluation results, dealing with diversity when designing projects and innovation in children’s rights.

Dana Phelps, Program Associate, Program on Human Rights

Lauren Wedekind is a Stanford undergraduate studying Human Biology and Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Her research focuses on social medicine and the potential for telemedicine to mitigate health care coverage gaps. Lauren believes that human rights advocacy requires a two-way street of listening and communication within and across national and cultural borders—which she explores with Stanford CDDRL, UNA-USA, and WFUNA on projects involving the right to health. Wedekind received funding from CDDRL's Program on Human Rights to travel and participate in the WFUNA Human Rights Youth Training Conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

By age seventeen, Nam had been forced into marrying a stranger, bearing his child, and risking her life to be a refugee on a remote island.  In April 1975, the North Vietnamese Communist Party took over the Republic of South Vietnam, and violently threatened residents of Saigon, South Vietnam’s then-capital and Nam’s hometown.  Like thousands of other residents, Nam’s family desperately uprooted from their relatively comfortable living situation, only to cram like sardines into an over-capacity boat headed toward international waters, hoping to be rescued by the United Nations.  With their lives in very real danger, the to-be refugees who boarded that boat did so without any guarantee that they would safely cross the passage across the Pacific Ocean.  In fact, these “boat people” were held hostage, robbed, raped, and beaten on three separate occasions by pirates in the Sea of China.  After the attacks, they floated aimlessly on the ocean for days, and were finally rescued by a UNHCR vessel, which guided them to refugee camps in Indonesia.  One year later, Nam and her boat’s survivors—those who were not killed by violence or disease—reached the United States.  The survivors who finally reached peacekeeping nations accepting refugees had often endured poverty, abuse, and posttraumatic mental and physical health issues.

Wedekind with her cohort of training attendees in Geneva.

This summer, I was honored to be nominated by UNA-USA to attend the WFUNA High Commissioner of Human Rights Training in Geneva, in which 30 young human rights advocates representing 25 countries learned about international human rights instruments and the UN Human Rights Council.  Through WFUNA’s training curriculum, and even more, through interactions with our peers, our cohort agreed on concepts of fundamental human rights—that people of all ages and backgrounds should be guaranteed: (1) Fundamental human rights and (2) The right to defend these rights.  Point (2) necessitates governments exercising structural competence to guarantee the protection of human rights for all members of society.  As part of Point (2), listening to many different viewpoints within society has been humbled me: As a human rights advocate, I am responsible for ensuring that I also understand the stories of the marginalized so that I can best voice collective advocacy points to others – advocacy is a two-way street. 

When watching the UN Human Rights Council Emergency Session on Gaza with the Human Rights Training in July, I was first awestruck that I was able to watch a history-making decision before my eyes.  As I held the wired translator earpiece to my ear for the last hour of the Session in which NGOs were stating their own perceptions of human rights violations on-the-ground, though, I realized that many stakeholders were actually leaving the assembly hall.  I wondered: “How can multilateral, international organizations realistically ensure that they respect the human dignity of all members of society without each ambassador engaging with community members who directly experience conflicts on-the-ground?”  I respect the major responsibilities of Ambassadors to the UN Human Rights council: (1) Developing realistic pictures of events he/she has often not directly perceived, (2) Communicating these pictures to members of his/her society, and (3) Voicing the collective opinions of his/her constituency on human rights issues in international engagements.  These three actions are not simple, but when put into practice, they enable action over apathy.

Since returning to the U.S., I have asked: “How can I be most useful to my society?”  After witnessing both multinational cooperation as well as largely unheard voices of NGOs in international human 

Wedekind at one of the training sessions at the UN.

In partnership with the Program on Human Rights at Stanford's Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, Afia Khan (Economics ’16) and I are developing a student-initiated course on health and human rights advocacy, which we will launch in 2015, for intermediate school through university-level students.  We hope to provide young people with a knowledge base and advocacy toolkit for young people on health and human rights, and to let them know what I have learned from UN Human Rights Council and Nam: Every single person can advocate for human rights – we must start small by exercising compassion to understand others’ experiences, and then share with others what we have learned.

Nam’s name changed to respect confidentiality.

Also see Wededkind's blog posted on the WFUNA website and on FSI Global Student Fellows' 'In The World' Blog.