The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs

GPIA Seminar Series presents

A talk by
Kathryn Sikkink

The Justice Cascade:
The Emergence of Human Rights Trials Around the World

Wednesday, September 24th
6 - 8 p.m.
Wollman Hall
65 W 11th St., Fifth Floor (enter at 66 W 12th St.)

The area of human rights has experienced a dramatic increase in international regulation in the post WWII period. The human rights issue, however, is characterized by relatively weak enforcement mechanisms.  Where accountability has existed, it has focused mainly on state violators. This regulatory model continues to be the main model for international human rights violations.  But for a small set of core human rights and war crimes, states are increasingly using a new regulatory model of individual legal criminal accountability for human rights violations. These regulatory changes, from no regulation to a weak regime without enforcement, and the gradual increase in enforcement via individual criminal accountability represent a dramatic and unexplored trend in international and domestic politics.*

Above text culled from Prof. Sikkink's (2008) paper "From State Responsibility to Individual Criminal Accountability: A New Regulatory Model for Core Human Rights Violations." Click here to read a full copy of the paper.

Kathryn Sikkink is Regents Professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in Political Science at the University of Minnesota. She was awarded a 2008 Guggenheim fellowship for her work on the origins and effects of human rights trials in the world. Her research also includes U. S. human rights policy; women's rights; transnational advocacy networks; social justice; political activism; Latin America politics; grassroots politics; war crimes tribunals; and international human rights norms and law. She is editor of Restructuring World Politics: Transnational Social Movements, Networks, and Norms and author of Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Network in International Politics; Ideas and Institutions: Developmentalism in Brazil and Argentina; and Mixed Messages: U.S. Human Rights Policy and Latin America.

Part of the Seminar Series.