The way that small groups of people from all over the world who were interested in social change banded together to convince more than a hundred countries to sign a treaty banning landmines -- and won the Nobel Peace Prize in the process -- is the subject of a panel discussion being held this week at the Law School.
Titled "The International Campaign to Ban Landmines: How a Grassroots Human Rights Coalition Won the Nobel Prize for Peace," the panel will be held 4-6 p.m. on Thursday, April 23, in the Law School's Levinson Auditorium, 127 Wall St. The event is free and open to the public, and is cosponsored by the school and its Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights.
The discussion will offer a hands-on, how-to approach for human rights groups to communicate, mobilize and effect change. The panelists will include Jody Williams, who shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), the organization which she helped found; Stephen Goose of the Human Rights Watch Arms Project, one of the founding member organizations of ICBL; and Bob Lawson of the Canadian government's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
It is estimated that there are now more than 100 million antipersonnel mines scattered over large areas on several continents, threatening both human populations and nations' social and economic development. ICBL has been lauded for bringing together a unique and diverse coalition of groups in a common call for a complete ban on antipersonnel mines, and increased resources for demining and mine victim assistance.
Williams was founding coordinator for ICBL, which was formally launched by six human rights groups in October 1992 and today encompasses more than 1,000 nongovernmental organizations in more than 60 countries. Serving as the chief strategist and spokesperson for the campaign, Williams and the ICBL spearheaded a cooperative effort among governments, United Nations entities and the International Committee of the Red Cross to establish an international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines during the diplomatic conference held in Oslo in September 1997. Prior to becoming involved with ICBL, Williams worked to raise public awareness about U.S. policy toward Central America.
Goose is program director of the arms division of Human Rights Watch, the largest U.S.-based non-governmental human rights organization. The arms division seeks to monitor and curtail transfers of weapons to regimes or groups that violate human rights or the laws of war, and to promote restrictions on indiscriminate and cruel weapons. Goose serves on ICBL's 16-member coordinating committee and chairs its treaty working group. He is also senior adviser of the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines and coauthor of the book "Landmines: A Deadly Legacy."
Lawson is currently the senior verification research officer and senior policy adviser for the landmine issue within the Non-Proliferation, Arms Control and Disarmament Division of the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. He has served for 12 years with the Canadian Army both in Canada and abroad, and has written widely on issues related to arms control and international peace and security.
The Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights was established in 1989 to further scholarship, education, and advocacy in the human rights arena. The center was established in memory of Orville Schell, the vice-chair of Helsinki Watch and chair of Americas Watch from its founding in 1981 until his death in 1987. Its director is Harold Hongju Koh, the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law.
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