About the Center

The Center builds on Lehman College’s unique history: the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights began at Lehman College when the United Nations met at the College. Lehman College students, often immigrants and the first in their families to access higher education, engender a broad understanding of human rights. The Center unites student and faculty engagement on local and global rights issues in New York and the greater world community.

The Center emphasizes intrinsic linkages between human rights and peace. Not merely the absence of war or conflict, human security necessitates community building, safety, promotion of tolerance, environmental sustainability, expanded life chances, freedom of expression, movement and association, and equal access to resources across gender, ethnic, class, national, and other socio-economic divides.

Read More

Events

The Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies hosts a rich program of human rights events for both the Lehman community and the broader public throughout the year.

Gender Violence, Conflict, and the State

This year’s spring conference will be held on Wednesday, April 2^nd, from 10am to 3pm at Lehman College. Presenters from a range of disciplines will analyze the role of the state, its mechanisms and structures in perpetuating, legitimizing and facilitating gender violence worldwide in the first decade and a half of the 21^st century. Keynote Speakers: Kimberly Theidon (Harvard University) and Jacqueline Murekatete (Rwanda genocide survivor/human rights activist).

Thursday, April 10 at 6:30pm (note: this event takes place at the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education of the City College of New York, 25 Broadway, 7th Floor New York, NY 10004)

“Challenging Impunity in Domestic Courts: Human Rights Prosecutions in Latin America,” A Conversation with Professors Jo-Marie Burt, Co-Director of the Center for Global Studies, Director of Latin American Studies, and Associate Professor in the Deparment of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University, and Victoria Sanford, founding director of the Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies at Lehman College (CUNY), moderated by Irina Carlota Silber, Associate Professor, Anthropology, City College of New York (CUNY)

International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies- Guatemalan Genocide added to the Genocide and Human Rights University Program (GHRUP): The GHRUP will run from August 4 to 15, 2014 at the University of Toronto in Canada. For more information about the GHRUP, please visit http://genocidestudies.org/GHRUP/.