The Institute for the Study of Human Rights is pleased to announce our newest addition to the 2018 Human Rights Summer Program, Professor Virginie Ladisch.
Ladisch leads the International Center for Transitional Justice's work on children and youth. She has provided strategic advice and technical support regarding truth seeking, acknowledgement, and reparations in a range of countries including, Canada, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Liberia, Myanmar, Nepal, and Tunisia. From the time she joined ICTJ in 2006 until 2009, Ladisch worked as part of the Reparations program, and headed the Cyprus and Turkey country programs.
Prior to joining ICTJ, Ladisch was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for independent research, during which she carried out extensive fieldwork on truth commissions and reconciliation in South Africa and Guatemala. The results of her research on the challenges of reconciliation have been published in the Journal of Public and International Affairs and the Cyprus Review. More recently, her reflections on engaging children and youth in transitional justice have been published in the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth. Professor Ladisch holds an M.A. in International Affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University and a B.A. in Political Science from Haverford College.
Professor Ladisch will be teaching a brand new course for the ISHR 2018 Human Rights Summer Program titled “Transitional Justice in the United States: Reckoning with Legacies of Racial Injustice”. The course description is as follows:
This seminar will include a theoretical exploration of transitional justice as well as key challenges and possibilities in its application. It will begin with a reflection on what it means to be a practitioner in the area of transitional justice or human rights. Critical self-reflection will be encouraged as well as a review of power, equity, and process. Students will learn about the field of transitional justice, including its guiding principles, key approaches, and critiques. Once a foundational understanding of transitional justice has been established, this seminar will explore legacies of injustice in the US, with a focus on the legacy of slavery, and seek to apply transitional justice approaches to these legacies. Students will be encouraged to think critically about whether transitional justice approaches can help address legacies of injustice in the US, to what extent those approaches need to be adapted to the specific time and context of the US, and whether different approaches are required altogether.
For more information about enrollment in the course, please visit the Human Rights Summer Program, or contact summersessions@columbia.edu.
