In this special online event, Ed Baptist will present the Cornell-based Freedom on the Move (FOTM) project, in conversation with moderator Eric Tagliacozzo. The output of FOTM is a database documenting the lives of fugitives from American slavery through newspaper ads placed by slave owners in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the next phase of the project, the team will collaborate not only with other scholars from multiple disciplines but also public historians, genealogists, and archivists. By incorporating crowdsourced data, the researchers hope the project will enhance the ability of scholars from multiple disciplines to study the migration trajectory and experience of individuals and populations from slavery to freedom and beyond. Additional FOTM collaborators include Lynda Kellam, Brandon Kowalski, and the Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research.

This event is sponsored by Cornell’s Migrations initiative.

Speaker:

Edward E. Baptist: Professor of History, Cornell University

Moderator:

Eric Tagliacozzo: John Stambaugh Professor of History and Co-chair, Migrations initiative, Cornell University

Emerging Markets Theme Research Series of the SC Johnson College of Business. and LACS Research Symposium Keynote Address

Registration Link: bit.ly/PolicOrgsMexico

In this seminar, Rodrigo will discuss findings from a variety of studies his team has conducted over the past five years around questions of integral police reform in Latin America. The studies tackle three broad questions: (1) What are principles of organizational design that can inform how we envision police organizations? What types of structures, practices, and systems do police organizations need, as organizations, to meet their mandate? (2) What are trajectories of organizational development and reform that have proven to be more effective? And (3) How can police organizations systematically build citizen trust as a fundamental pre-condition for operational effectiveness?

Rodrigo Canales does research at the intersection of organizational theory and institutional theory, with a special interest in the role of institutions for economic development. Specifically, Rodrigo studies how individuals are affected by and in turn purposefully change complex organizations or systems. Rodrigo's work explores how individuals’ backgrounds, professional identities, and organizational positions affect how they relate to existing structures and the strategies they pursue to change them. His work contributes to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that allow institutions to operate and change. Rodrigo has done work in entrepreneurial finance and microfinance, as well as in the institutional implications of the Mexican war on drugs. His current research on the topic of the talk is funded with generous support from the Merida Initiative, explores how to build effective, resilient, and trusted police organizations in Mexico.

Rodrigo teaches the Innovator Perspective at Yale SOM; he sits in the advisory board of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT; he spent the 2014-2015 academic year advising the Mexican government on the US-Mexico bilateral relationship; and sits in the Board of Trustees of the Nature Conservancy.

The Biden Administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan on August 31, 2021 focused attention on the plight of Afghans who supported U.S. and allied forces. In December 2001, shortly after the 9/11 attacks, Farid was hired by the U.S. Army to work as an interpreter/translator. He received a special immigration visa in 2007 and enlisted in the U.S. Army. He was awarded the bronze star and became a student at Cornell University in 2017. Mr. Ferdows' family, however, remained in Afghanistan at the time of the withdrawal. This special event offers unique insight and perspective on how the withdrawal impacted men and women who supported the global war on terror in Afghanistan. Co-sponsored by Congregation L’dor V’dor.

Check out the feature article in the Cornell Chronicle to learn more: Farid Ferdows ’21: ‘For those who dream, Cornell is your place’.

Speaker

Farid Ferdows, Afghan interpreter/translator serving from 2001-2017, Cornell University '21

Moderators
Mariah Smith, Director of Government Affairs, Accrete AI Government, Retired Military Police Lt. Colonel, Army, and Vice Chairman of No One Left Behind
Steve Israel, Director, Institute of Politics and Global Affairs at Cornell University and former U.S. Representative (D-NY)

What are the prospects for halting China’s mass atrocities in the Uyghur region, which are now entering their fifth year since the start in 2017? An update and discussion. Our special guest is Tursunay Ziyawudun, a survivor of the Chinese concentration camps in the region known in Chinese as Xinjiang. Translation will be provided by Rizwangul NurMuhammad, MPA student at Cornell and also affected by the atrocities. Faculty hosts and facilitators Magnus Fiskesjö, Anthropology and Allen Carlson, Government.

Co-sponsored by the China and Asia-Pacific Studies Program (CAPS), Critical Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Studies, Comparative Muslim Societies, Anthropology, and the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS).

This is a hybrid event. Registration information is below.

Oumar Ba discusses the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its relationship with African states at this week's seminar with the Reppy Institute. RSVP to attend and learn more below.

About the speaker

Oumar Ba is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. His primary areas of research focus on law, violence, race, humanity, and world order(s) in global politics. He is the author of States of Justice: The Politics of the International Criminal Court (Cambridge, 2020). He is currently working on two major projects - Crimes, Against Humanity: Governing Global Justice, and (Re)Centering Decolonization as Ontology and Sifting through the Archives of Liberation.

About the talk

The scholarship on the relationship between African states and the International Criminal Court (ICC) tends to point to various contentions stemming from the quasi-exclusive focus of the Court on the continent and its citizens, and the disputes regarding head-of-state immunity. It is also often pointed out that African states were early and eager supporters of the international criminal justice regime. Yet, the current international legal order is starkly different from the one that African states had envisioned. By revisiting the archives of two pivotal moments in the establishment of the current international legal order – the work of the International Legal Commission (ILC) in drafting the Code of Crimes Against The Peace and Security of Mankind and negotiations that led to draft statute of the ICC, we find that Africa had proposed a different version of the international legal order. This article contends that for African states, their vision for an international legal order was linked to their history of colonial subjugation, colonial wars, wars of liberation, and conflicts after the independences. Therefore, the Draft Code and establishment of the ICC were meant to provide an avenue for redress, amidst a deep mistrust between Africa and “international law”.

This seminar is part of the spring seminar series with the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS).

Register here

In accordance with university event guidance, all campus visitors who are 12 years old or older must also present a photo ID, as well as proof of vaccination for COVID-19 or results of a recent negative COVID-19 test. If you are not currently participating in the Cornell campus vaccination/testing program, please bring proof of vaccination or the results of a recent negative test.