ISHR Human Rights Research Fellowship

The ISHR Human Rights Research Fellowship will provide students with an opportunity to gain valuable research experience, while supporting the work of Columbia faculty conducting human rights-related research. Students who receive the Fellowship are expected to complete approximately 80-120 hours of research assistance during the academic year. The research opportunities selected for the 2019-2020 academic year are available below. ISHR will award one research stipend per opportunity in the amount of $1,500. Priority will be given to HRSMA and UHRP  students.

 

 

***

 

 

Supervising Faculty:  Page Fortna, Harold Brown Professor of US Foreign and Security Policy, Department of Political Science

 

Under what conditions do rebel groups use terrorism as a tactic in armed conflict? Why do some groups use terrorism while others do not? Does the government’s human rights record, including its history of civilian-targeted violence, reduce the likelihood of terrorism by eliminating violent challengers or does it increase terrorism by legitimizing it as a warranted response to government abuse? We argue that rebel groups are more likely to perpetrate acts of terrorism when their constituent population finds terrorism an appropriate tactic; when the legitimacty costs, the expected loss in legitimacy among a key audience associated with specific actions, are lower. Specifically, constituent populations are more likely to accept terrorism as legitimate when the government adversary has commited its own abuses, especially, but not excluvely, violations of physical integrity rights such as indiscriminate violence, extrajudicial killings, and other forms of civilian-targeted violence. In other words, a rebel group’s legitimacy costs for terrorism are driven, at least in part, by the perceived legitimacy of the government adversary and prior exposure to civilian-targeted violence. Existing research examining the relationship between government human rights violations and terrorism has not yet adequately tested the implications of the group level incentives for terrorism. Existing empirical work either analyzes the country level of analysis, ignoring group-level variation, or examines only groups that do use terrorism, without a comparison set of groups that could use terrorism, but don’t. We make use of the new Terrorism in Armed Conflict (TAC) dataset, which measures the use of terrorism by rebel groups in intrastate armed conflicts from 1970-2013, and includes both groups that do and do not use terrorism. This project contributes to understanding the vicious cycles of civilian victimization and human rights violations associated with governments’ abuse of power.

 

We are interested in working with a Research Assistant to help code data to measure our key explanatory variable of government abuse: systematic human rights violations targeted at specific populations in the context of civil war. Existing data captures governments’ human rights records overall or incidents of civilian-targeted violence and repression. But, to our knowledge, the research program lacks a dataset that both covers a range of different types of government human rights violations and differentiates among targeted populations. We require this level of disaggregation, along with information to link targeted civilian populations to any rebel groups that claim these groups as a constituency, in order to test our claims.

The research assistant would be involved in the development and refinement of the coding instrument, and finding, summarizing, and coding information on the extent and type of government human rights abuses targeted against specific marginalized populations during and prior to civil wars. This research would be conducted in conjunction with, and under the supervision of, Professor Page Fortna in the Department of Political Science, as well as her co-author on this project, Michael Rubin, a recent Columbia PhD, currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at UCSD. The time-frame is somewhat flexible depending on the RA’s needs, but would start in November 2019 and would be concluded by May 2020.

 

Interested applicants should submit a CV and a brief statement indicating their program of study (including degree program) and research interests, as well as relevant research experience and relevant coursework to vpf4@columbia.edu, by November 8th.

 

***

 

 

Supervising Faculty: Garnett Russell, Assistant Professor in International and Comparative Education, Teachers College

 

The rise of mass global displacement poses challenges to the nation-state and conceptions of citizenship and human rights (Bloemraad, Korteweg, and Yurdakul 2008; Castles 2017; Miller-Idriss 2006; Ong 2006; Soysal 1994). It also raises important questions about how schools should teach citizenship and civic values to students who have recently arrived in the U.S. The U.S. is a diverse society with the highest number of immigrants in the world (14 percent of the population is foreign-born) (Banks, Suárez-Orozco, and Ben-Peretz 2016). Newcomer immigrant students and refugees resettled to the United States come from diverse countries and represent a range of religious, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds. Although the U.S. has historically accepted more resettled refugees than any other country, that pattern is rapidly changing under the current administration: the 2020 quota of 18,000 refugees is the lowest number since the resettlement program began in 1980 (Pew Research Center, 2019). Moreover, the current political climate has brought about a surge in nationalistic and xenophobic discourse and a rise in anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiments by major national leaders (Banks 2017). This study examines student notions of citizenship, rights, and belonging among students, particularly refugee and newcomer immigrant students, exploring the following questions: How do refugees and newcomer immigrant students understand concepts of civic identity and belonging and how does this differ from U.S. born students? How do schools and social contexts shape the civic experience of these youth?

 

We conducted a survey with 286 students; 148 in-depth interviews with students, teachers, and school administrators; and more than 250 hours of classroom observations during the 2018-2019 school year. The student will assist in the transcription of interviews with teachers, students, and staff. The student will also assist in the qualitative coding of interviews in NVIVO. In addition, the student will conduct research on relevant policies at the national and state level (New York and Arizona) impacting the educational experience of refugee and newcomer students, as well as relevant academic literature.

October-December:

● Transcribe 1-2 interviews per week

● Conduct research on relevant policies at the national and state level (NY & AZ)

January-May:

● Assist in the coding of interviews in NVIVO

● Conduct research on relevant literature for the study

 

Please submit a CV and a cover letter to sgr2124@columbia.edu by November 1st.

 

***

 

 

Supervising Faculty: Lisa Sachs, Research Scholar in the Faculty of Law; Director, Center on Sustainable Investment

 

The Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) is undertaking research and other activities to integrate best practices concerning responsible investments in land and agriculture into host government investment approval processes. Amongst the challenges facing government authorities is integrating the human right of indigenous and tribal peoples to give or withhold their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) in a meaningful and effective way into investment approval processes. CCSI has begun to explore this topic through, for example, a working paper that proposes mechanisms for integrating FPIC into investor-state contract negotiations and a workshop with representatives of various indigenous peoples from Latin America. To further advance this area of work, CCSI plans to identify the points at which FPIC is relevant in investment approval processes, and highlight how authorities involved along the various stages of these processes can meaningfully integrate FPIC into their responsibilities. CCSI hopes to produce a briefing note on this topic, geared toward host government actors.

 

CCSI is seeking an ISHR Human Rights Research Fellow to support research for, and drafting and production of, this briefing note. We seek to hire a graduate student with some substantive experience touching on human rights, sustainable development and/or responsible business practices. The fellowship will begin in November 2019 and last between 8-12 weeks, depending on the fellow’s availability.

 

Applicants are requested to submit a cover letter, resume, and unedited writing sample to Nancy Siporin at nsipor@law.columbia.edu by November 8th.

 

***

 

 

Supervising Faculty: Lara Nettelfield, Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Human Rights, Institute for the Study of Human Rights

 

Why did hundreds of thousands of people put their lives on hold to help refugees and migrants who travelled along the so-called Balkan route since 2015? Why did so many individuals willingly take up the roles that have traditionally been assigned to states and international humanitarian organizations? What did they accomplish? What are the implications for future crises and the relationship between citizens and states along the Balkan route and beyond? Through oral histories with volunteers, The New Humanitarians examines these questions in order to understand this diverse social movement on a continent increasingly engulfed by division and fragmentation.

 

The researcher on this project will help with the processing of interviews (including editing and timestamping) and will conduct library and social media research (IG, Facebook, and GoFundMe etc.), and possibly survey research.

 

Please submit a CV, cover letter, writing sample and transcript to ljn9@columbia.edu by November 8th.

 

***

 

 

Supervising Faculty: Inga Winkler, Lecturer in the Discipline of Human Rights in the Department of Political Science

 

The Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council are among the international community’s most important human rights mechanisms. Their country visits, communications, research and reports provide the reliable insight needed to inform dialogue on the progress states have made, as well as the difficulties they have encountered, in recognizing and implementing human rights. The project focuses specifically on mandates dealing with economic, social and cultural rights (ESCRs). While the Special Procedure play a key role, little is known about whether and how their work translates into tangible impacts in the increased enjoyment of human rights. The project seeks to develop a better understanding of the role and influence of the Special Procedures. It aims at identifying the opportunities and success factors, but also risks, challenges, and obstacles, mandate-holders face in achieving long term change and contributing to the realization of ESCRs.

 

Do the Special Procedures have an impact? Do they play a role in influencing policy change? In the end, do they contribute to more people enjoying their human rights to a larger extent? Drawing on case studies, the project will evaluate how the work undertaken by a number of Special Procedures has contributed to advancing the rights of individuals. The objective of the project is to assess various strategies and approaches used by mandate-holders, to provide a platform for mutual sharing and learning, to compile lessons learnt, and to feed them into policy dialogues.

 

We have carried out in-depth interviews with five former Special Rapporteurs to gather their views and perspectives as well as interviews with over than 20 stakeholders involved in some aspects of the work of the Special Rapporteurs. We also held a two-day roundtable with close to 30 experts. We have begun to analyze the data collected and are now at the stage of drafting a report. The student research fellow who will support the project will help analyze the interview data, support the drafting process, and work on preparing selected case studies.

 

Please submit a CV, cover letter, and writing sample to inga.winkler@columbia.edu by November 8th.