On May 3-4, 2024, the Institute for African Development, in collaboration with the Polson Institute for Global Development and the Einaudi Center for International Studies, Cornell University, will host a symposium on Imagining Just Environmental and Climate Futures in Africa.

Organized by the Institute for African Development, Polson Institute for Global Development, and the Einaudi Center for International Studies.

A light lunch will be provided.

Register in advanced to attend.

About the Speaker

Mariko Hirose is the U.S. Litigation Director at IRAP. In this role, Mariko founded and manages IRAP’s litigation department.

Prior to joining IRAP, Mariko worked at the New York Civil Liberties Union where she litigated a broad range of cases and coordinated integrated advocacy efforts. Her previous experiences also include litigating civil rights cases at Outten & Golden LLP and at the American Civil Liberties Union; teaching as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law and at the Fordham University School of Law; and clerking for the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Mariko is a graduate of Stanford Law School and Yale University. She grew up primarily in Japan and spent time in China before law school as a Yale-China Teaching Fellow.

Mariko is a member of the New York bar.

Host and Sponsors

This event is hosted by Cornell Law School. Cosponsored by the Migrations initiative, part of Global Cornell.

Abstract

Andrea Cayley will discuss the importance of seeking accountability in international and national courts for the destruction of cultural heritage.When international prosecutors look to bring cases for the destruction of cultural heritage, they are faced with comments such as ‘how can you focus on buildings when so many people have died’ or as Prof. Cayley was told when working on the prosecution of Pavle Strugar for attacks on Dubrovnik, Croatia, a protected UNESCO world heritage site, these are “only broken stones.” In fact, the US Department of Defense has stated that the first indicator of a genocide risk is an attack on cultural heritage. Why is the destruction of cultural heritage an essential part of charge of crimes against humanity or genocide? What is the legal framework of prosecuting these crimes and what are the evidentiary challenges? What is the current situation in Ukraine and what is being done to prosecute these crimes?

About Andrea Cayley

Andrea Matačić Cayley, J.D. Ph.D., the Executive Director of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law’s Washington D.C. program, has 20 years of experience working as a war crimes prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts Cambodia. She worked with UNESCO to prepare the indictment and prosecution of the most significant case of cultural property destruction in Yugoslavia (Prosecutor v. Pavle Strugar IT-01-42-A) and worked on the prosecution of numerous Bosnian cases where the destruction of Bosnian Muslim heritage was found to be a crime against humanity. She has advised on universal jurisdiction cases brought against Liberian as well as Syrian and Ukrainian war criminals. She has been part of the NATO cultural property advisory since 2016 and is a coordinator of the Atrocity Crimes Advisory group for Ukraine, the official US/UK/EU response to war crimes occurring in Ukraine. She leads the cultural heritage advisory for ACA. In November 2023, Andrea co-founded the Heritage Warfare Consortium, a partnership between ASU, the University of Pennsylvania, and Copenhagen University. This consortium brings a multi-disciplinary approach to the protection of cultural heritage and to accountability for cultural destruction. Andrea holds a BA from Columbia University, an MA in Slavic Studies from the University of Zagreb, Croatia, a JD from Temple University, and a PhD in International Law from Leiden University.

This event is co-sponsored by Caucasus Heritage Watch (CHW), the Cornell Institute of Archaeology and Material Studies (CIAMS), the College of Arts & Sciences, Cornell Law School, the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, and the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies.

Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program (LACS) Seminar Series

The mid-1960s ushered in an era of the belief in technological fixes for many social ills. Chief among these was a push to end global hunger using designer seeds that could yield more and thus feed more people. These seeds, developed in Mexican experiment stations, were disease resistant in addition to high-yielding. Yet to fully function these seeds needed fertilizer—lots of it. In the hurried quest to find a solution to end global hunger neither the social nor ecological impacts were considered. This talk examines how Mexico became a leading producer of wheat germplasm, how it was instrumental in finding a solution to end global hunger in the mid-twentieth century, and how the decades-long use of fertilizer to produce more food has had devastating consequences today, including contaminated groundwater and the health issues of local people.

Gabriela Soto Laveaga is Professor of the History of Science and Antonio Madero Professor for the Study of Mexico at Harvard University. Her current research interests interrogate knowledge production and circulation between Mexico and India; medical professionals and social movements; and science and development projects in the twentieth century. She is currently the 2023-2024 Dibner Distinguished Fellow in the History of Science and Technology at The Huntington.

Her first book, Jungle Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects and the Making of the Pill, won the Robert K. Merton Best Book prize in Science, Knowledge, and Technology Studies from the American Sociological Association. Her second monograph, Sanitizing Rebellion: Physician Strikes, Public Health and Repression in Twentieth Century Mexico, examines the role of healthcare providers as both critical actors in the formation of modern states and as social agitators. Her latest book project seeks to re-narrate histories of twentieth century agriculture development aid from the point of view of India and Mexico.'

A SEADL webinar featuring: Dr. Tamara Loos, Professor of History, Cornell University.

Hosted by Emily Zinger, Southeast Asia Digital Librarian, Cornell University.

How to be an Anti-Communist: Information, Expertise, and Culture in Cold War Thailand

To be anti-communist in Thailand during the Cold War meant more than simply rejecting participation in a political ideology called communism—an ideology with which so few Thais were familiar that Bill Donovan, former head of the OSS and ambassador to Thailand, had the Communist Manifesto translated into Thai in 1952. US officials repeatedly worried that Thai leaders were not sufficiently concerned about the dangers of communism, so they helped construct an image of the communist enemy that would resonate with Thais. How to be an anti-communist meant learning to recognize and love the monarchy, to worship Buddhism, to participate in the heteronormative family, to appreciate private property even if one could not afford it, and to celebrate selected (reinvented) Thai traditions. All these meanings were heightened above other cultural traditions to become “the” norm during the Cold War era. And it was created by particular Thai and American “experts.” Tracing the development of this expertise and its unpredictable impacts reveals the limits of US funding and knowledge, on the one hand, and the empowerment of paternalistic cultural authority among Thai leaders, on the other. Despite the asymmetrical power relationship between the US and Thailand and the massive economic, military and police funding provided to Thailand, elite Thais fully participated in and led the shaping knowledge production, unlike rural Thais who became objects of USIS surveys and American anthropological studies. The talk will focus on the anti-communist posters that led me to this project.

About the Speaker

Tamara Loos is Professor of Southeast Asian history at Cornell University, is currently Chair of the History Department, and has served as Director of the Southeast Asia Program. Her first book, Subject Siam: Family, Law, and Colonial Modernity in Thailand, explores the implications of Siam's position as both a colonized and colonizing power in Southeast Asia. It is the first study that integrates the Malay Muslim south and the gendered core of law into Thai history. Her most recent book, Bones Around My Neck offers a critical history of Siam during the era of high colonialism through the dramatic and tragic life of a pariah prince, Prisdang Chumsai (1852–1935). Her teaching and articles focus on an array of topics including sex and politics, subversion and foreign policy, sexology, transnational sexualities, comparative law, sodomy, and gender in Asia. She has been interviewed by the BBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Financial Times, and other global media outlets about political protests in Thailand. In this talk she will discuss her current book project, tentatively titled How to be an Anti-Communist: Information, Expertise, and Culture in Cold War Thailand.