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.

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement will create the largest free trade area in the world measured by the number of countries participating. The pact connects 1.3 billion people across 55 countries with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) valued at US$3.4 trillion. It has the potential to lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty, but achieving its full potential will depend on putting in place significant policy reforms and trade facilitation measures.

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2021 > Ethiopia > Directed by Jessica Beshir
Ethiopian legend has it that khat, a stimulant leaf, was found by Sufi Imams in search of eternity. Inspired by this myth, Faya Dayi is a spiritual journey into the highlands of Harar immersed in the rituals of khat, a leaf that Sufi Muslims chewed for religious meditations Ð and Ethiopia's most lucrative cash crop today. Through the prism of the khat trade, Faya Dayi weaves a tapestry of intimate stories of people caught between violent government repression, khat-induced fantasies and treacherous journeys beyond their borders, and offers a window into the dreams of the youth who long for a better life. One of 15 films shortlisted for Best Documentary Feature Oscar. Subtitled. More at janusfilms.com/films/2035
2 hrs

2019 > Senegal > Directed by Mati Diop
With Mama Sane, Amadou Mbow, Ibrahima Traore
In a suburb of Dakar, workers on the construction site of a futuristic tower, without pay for months, decide to leave for Portugal in search of a better future. Among them is Souleiman, the lover of Ada. Though the men's small ship has disappeared at sea, Souleiman has recently been spotted in Dakar, upsetting the lives of the women who were left behind. Subtitled. More at netflix.com/title/81082007
1 hr 44 min

Issues in African Development Seminar Series examines critical concerns in contemporary Africa using a different theme each semester. The seminars provide a forum for participants to explore alternative perspectives and exchange ideas. They are also a focal activity for students and faculty interested in African development. In addition, prepares students for higher level courses on African economic, social and political development. The presentations are designed for students who are interested in development, Africa’s place in global studies, want to know about the peoples, cultures and societies that call Africa home, and explore development theories and alternate viewpoints on development.

Speaker details here

Zoom registration link here

Ithaca Premiere. 2021 > Chad > Directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
With Achouackh Abakar, Rihane Khalil Alio
Amina, a single mother and practicing Muslim, lives with her 15-year-old daughter, Maria. When Amina learns Maria is pregnant and wants to abort the child, they face an impossible situation in a country where abortion is legally and morally condemned. "A blistering attack on patriarchy and a warm reaffirmation of 'the sacred bonds' (the meaning of the film's title) among women, it's a bracing work... etched in fully felt performances and beautifully hued compositions." (Justin Chang, LA Times) Subtitled. More at mubi.com/films/lingui
1 hr 27 min

Issues in African Development Seminar Series examines critical concerns in contemporary Africa using a different theme each semester. The seminars provide a forum for participants to explore alternative perspectives and exchange ideas. They are also a focal activity for students and faculty interested in African development. In addition, prepares students for higher level courses on African economic, social and political development. The presentations are designed for students who are interested in development, Africa’s place in global studies, want to know about the peoples, cultures and societies that call Africa home, and explore development theories and alternate viewpoints on development.

Register here

Speaker bio details here

(photo by Justin Lane)

Local communities are essential to the success of environmental policies, and yet many well-intentioned forest management proposals are based on top-down strategies disconnected from people on the ground. In contrast, an approach called Adaptive Collaborative Management (ACM) for forest landscapes attempts to better listen to local voices and build on communities’ knowledge and goals to collaboratively improve environmental planning.

In a live, virtual Chats in the Stacks talk, author and editor Carol J. Pierce Colfer discusses the value of ACM as she shares research from her new book, Adaptive Collaborative Management in Forest Landscapes: Villagers, Bureaucrats and Civil Society (edited with Ravi Prabhu, and Anne M. Larson Routledge 2022). Drawing from lessons learned over the past two decades in different areas of the world, including Uganda, Zambia and the Amazon, the book explains ACM’s holding power, how it connects issues of gender, tenure, and local perspective with forest management, and how it facilitates learning, collaboration and adaptation among local communities, practitioners, activists, policymakers and researchers.

Colfer, who has a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology and an M.P.H. in international health, is currently a senior associate with the Center for International Forestry Research, (CIFOR) and a visiting scholar in Cornell University’s Southeast Asia Program. She has long ethnographic experience in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the United States and global, forest-related experience in criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management, adaptive collaborative management, and governance. Her interests include gender and diversity, people and forests, health and population, and conservation and development issues.

Sponsored by Mann Library, the talk is followed by a live Q&A.

Dial-In Information

Please register through the following link:

https://cornell.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_3OlEUgifTByxWd_WOZyyVg

Friday February 11th, 2022 at 10:00am (EST) / 3:00pm – 5:00pm (GMT). Simultaneous French translation. Zoom registration link here

Introduction of the Series - N’Dri Thérèse Assié-Lumumba is the Director of the Institute for African Development (IAD) and Professor of African and African Diaspora education, Comparative and International education, Social institutions, African social history, and the study of Gender, in the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University.

Chair - Marcel Kitissou is a historian and political scientist. He is a professor in the African Studies Department at the State University of New York at Albany and an IAD Regional Scholar Affiliate. Professor Kitissou previously served as Faculty Director of the Global Humanitarian Action Program and Executive Director of the Africa Faith and Justice Network.

Discussant - Kassim Kone is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the State University of New York-Cortland. Professor Kone teaches Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Peoples of Africa, Introduction to Linguistics, Language in Culture and Society, Development Anthropology, Anthropological Theory, and Research Methods.

Panelists

Valeria Fargion is associate professor of political science, holder of a Jean Monnet Chair at the "Cesare Alfieri" school of political science of the University of Florence, where she teaches "Politics of European Integration" for the master's degree in international relations and European studies. Until 2020 she coordinated the path of European Studies and was responsible for international relations for the School of Political Science. Her priority attention to the international dimension and to the dialogue between scholars from different disciplinary fields and socio-political and cultural contexts have led her over the years to cover coordination roles in a series of transnational academic networks: two mandates (2002-2006 and 2006-2010) as an elected member of the Executive Board of the Research Committee 19 "Poverty, Social Welfare and Social Policy" of the International Sociological Association; from 2002 to 2007, she was a member of the executive committee of ESPANET (the European network of social policy scholars) and from its foundation until 2014, Co-Chair of ESPANET-Italy. From 2008 to 2010 she worked as a national expert for the DG Employment of the European Commission, and from its foundation in 2014 until 2019, she was co-director and then director of Politiche Sociali / Social Policies, published by Il Mulino.