CEDAW Update for International Women’s Day 2009

Nancy Pelosi has urged passage of the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women in the U.S. Senate as soon as possible. CEDAW was drafted almost thirty years ago but the U.S. has never signed on. It joins an exclusive club of about 8 nations, including notorious human rights violators, such as [...]

Ruth Vargas Forman Podcast Now Available

Ruth Vargas Forman’s lecture is now available as a free podcast from the OSU iTunes store.
Vargas Forman grew up during the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile and experienced firsthand what it is like to live in a society in which political violence is common. She brings that sensitivity to her work as a psychologist at [...]

Lani Roberts: “Are Women Human Yet?” Podcast Now Available

 
Dr. Lani Roberts’s thought-provoking lecture is now available as a free podcast from the OSU iTunes store  (Launch iTunes on your computer, go down to Lectures, then to Ideas Matter, and click on the tab for Roberts).
In her talk, Dr. Roberts reflects on whether women were meant to be included in the protections offered by [...]

Upcoming Lecture: “Are Women Human Yet?” Dr. Lani Roberts

On Thursday, February 19, 2009, at 7pm, Dr. Lani Roberts will deliver her Ideas Matter Lecture.  Here is an abstract of the talk:
Do women have rights under the Declaration of Human Rights?   If not, what does this say about women’s humanness?  We will look at three ways of claiming that women are not in fact [...]

Jorge Valadez “Immigration, Human Rights, and Global Justice Framework” Podcast Now Available

The free podcast of Jorge Valadez’s talk is now available from the OSU iTunes store.
In this lecture, Dr. Valadez assesses the position that immigration ought to be considered a universal human right (emigration is recognized as a human right–the right to leave your own nation). Doing so would mean that nations would have to [...]

Jorge Valadez on Immigration and Global Justice

This week Dr. Jorge Valadez joins us for Ideas Matter.  Here is a preview of the talk:
The primary focus of this talk will be on the issue of whether immigration should be regarded as a universal human right.  Dr. Valadez will critically examine some of the justifications that have been given for the view that immigration [...]

Jeremy Wisnewski: “Human Rights and Linguistic Subterfuge in the Bush League” Now Availabe

The free podcast of Dr. Jeremy Wisnewski’s lecture is now available from the OSU iTunes store (just go down to Lectures and Courses, click on the Ideas Matter icon, and you can download a free copy of the lecture.)
In this presentation, Wisnewski analyzes former President Bush’s weekly radio addresses, Justice Department Memos, U.S. federal [...]

Upcoming lecture: Jeremy Wisnewski on Torture and War Crimes in the Bush Administration

Dr. Jeremy Wisnewski is the guest for Ideas Matter this week.  Here is the abstract for his talk:
If there is one lesson to learn from the Bush Presidency, it is that no law—whether domestic statute or international treaty—can resist systematic misinterpretation. The aim of this talk is to look closely and carefully at the arguments [...]

David Reidy and Michael Blake: “Humanitarian Intervention and Human Rights” Now Available

The free podcast of the discussion between Professors David Reidy and Michael Blake on the issue of humanitarian intervention and human rights is now available from the OSU iTunes site.
The conversation between these two philosophers centers not so much on whether coercive intervention is permissible today or should in fact be a duty (both agree [...]

Amartya Sen Defends the UN Declaration of Human Rights

In the most recent edition of The New Republic, Nobel Prize winning economist and philosopher Amartya Sen argues for upholding the importance of the UN Declaration of Human Rights sixty years after its signing.
Sen argues that:
1) the UNDHR makes an important contribution to ethics by establishing the priority of morality to law.  Human rights do [...]