An Assessment of Responses to Gender Based Violence in Conflict Featuring Ms. Navi Pillay, Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

Date
-
Event Sponsor
WSD Handa Center for Human Rights & Int'l Justice
Location
Sweet Hall, 590 Escondido Mall, BOSP Conference Room (Ground Floor)

Former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Judge Navanethem Pillay, will share her experiences and engage in dialogue with human rights experts on the legacy of the UN ad hoc criminal tribunals and the new socio-cultural, political and legal frontiers facing advocates and policymakers against sexual violence and other forms of gender based violence.

Panelists inlcude Sarah Chynoweth, who will share preliminary findings from her recent fact-finding mission to Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan where she undertook the first study on sexual violence against Syrian refugee men and boys for UNHCR, and Melanie Hyde, who will discuss lessons learned from Cambodia's response to the sexual violence perpetrated during the Khmer Rouge regime. The event will be moderated by Handa Center Director David Cohen.

The appointment of Navanethem Pillay (Navi) as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was approved by the General Assembly on 28 July 2008 and she assumed her functions on 1st September 2008. Ms. Pillay, a South African national, was the first woman to start a law practice in her home province of Natal in 1967. Over the next few years, she acted as a defense attorney for anti-apartheid activists, exposing torture, and helping establish key rights for prisoners on Robben Island. She also worked as a lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and appointed V.P. of the Council of the University of Durban Westville. In 1995, after the end of apartheid, Ms. Pillay was appointed as acting judge on the South African High Court, and in the same year was elected by the UN General Assembly to be a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where she served eight years, the last four as President. She played a critical role in the ICTR's groundbreaking jurisprudence on rape as genocide, as well as on issues of freedom of speech and hate propaganda. In 2003, she was elected as a judge on the ICC in the Hague, where she remained until August 2008. In South Africa, as a member of the Women's National Coalition, she contributed to the inclusion of an equality clause in the country’s Constitution that prohibits discrimination on grounds of race, religion and sexual orientation. She co-founded Equality Now, an international women's rights organization, and has been involved with other organizations working on issues relating to children, detainees, victims of torture and of domestic violence, and a range of economic, social and cultural rights. Ms. Pillay received a BA and a LLB from Natal University South Africa. She also holds a Master of Law and a Doctorate of Juridical Science from Harvard University. 

Sarah Chynoweth is a researcher, writer, and consultant who has worked on gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive health, and human rights in humanitarian emergencies for 15 years. She holds a Master’s degree in Human Rights from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from the University of New South Wales in Australia. 

Melanie Hyde is an Australian lawyer with experience working on a range of programs supporting the prevention of and response to sexual and gender based violence, both within humanitarian and development settings. She is the former Director of the Handa Center’s Cambodia programs, where she coordinated the trial monitoring program at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia and developed an international documentary and television series about sexual violence during the Khmer Rouge regime. 

Following this event you are invited to join us for a film screening of “Breaking the Silence, Sexual Violence under the Khmer Rouge” from 6:00-7:00pm. 

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