The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has strained the world's healthcare systems and compounded challenges for governments and NGOs dealing with global waves of forced and voluntary migration. These movements of peoples across borders have magnified pressing issues ranging from social and economic inequalities and global climate change to civil war and political unrest. In the United States and worldwide, how can we promote the best public health outcomes while working to protect human rights, manage resources, and address inequality?

With a focus on the intersection of mobility, human rights, and public health, the Einaudi Center's Lund Critical Debate this year brings together one of the world's leading public health policymakers at the World Health Organization with a United States Senator and Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who led the Senate's efforts to study the consequences of global forced migration. The event will examine the geopolitical dimensions, the epidemiological aspects, and the humanitarian issues of this critical topic. The debate will illuminate key issues surrounding public health, migration, and racial and social justice at stake globally and nationally.

We welcome questions during the event. Registration is required.

Panelists

Dr. Zsuzsanna Jakab serves as Deputy Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations agency dedicated to promoting public health and responsible for responding to health emergencies. Prior to her current appointment, Dr. Jakab has held several high-profile national and international public health policy positions: as WHO Regional Director for the European Region (2010-2019); as Founding Director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (2005-2010); and as State Secretary at the Hungarian Ministry of Health, Social, and Family Affairs (2002-2005), where she managed the country’s preparations for European Union accession in the area of public health.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ). The son of Cuban immigrants, Sen. Menendez has represented the state of New Jersey in the United States Senate since 2006. As Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he has established himself as a foreign policy leader, seeking to do globally what he has done in New Jersey—supporting the most vulnerable in our society and lending a voice to those least able to speak for themselves. In June 2020, under his leadership, the committee published the report, "Global Forced Migration: The Political Crisis of Our Time." He helped pass the Senate's COVID relief packages and other healthcare legislation as well as playing a key role in shaping immigration reform bills. Prior to his position in the Senate, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993-2006.

Moderator

Dr. Gunisha Kaur is an assistant professor of anesthesiology who specializes in human rights research. Dr. Kaur serves as the Founding Director of the Human Rights Impact Lab, a Medical Director of the Weill Cornell Center for Human Rights, and a Faculty Fellow at the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, where she co-leads the migrations research team. Dr. Kaur’s research interests focus on advancing the health of displaced populations such as migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. She has used her extensive training and research in neuroscience as an analytical framework to pioneer the study of human rights through scientific methodology. Her research is currently funded by the National Institutes of Health. A foremost leader in scientific investigations into migrant health, Dr. Kaur was selected as a member of the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Honor Society and as a Stephen M. Kellen Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations. She earned her B.S. from Cornell University in 2006, M.D. from Weill Cornell Medical College in 2010, and her M.A. in medical anthropology from Harvard University in 2015.

About the Debate
This year's Lund Critical Debate is hosted by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and co-sponsored by Migrations: A Global Grand Challenge and in partnership with the Institute of Politics and Global Affairs, with production assistance from eCornell. Established in 2008, Einaudi's Lund Critical Debate Series is made possible by the generosity of Judith Lund Biggs ’57.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program supports college graduates conducting research or teaching in any field in more than 150 countries. Applications are due in the fall; students who wish to begin the program immediately after graduation are encouraged to start the process in their junior year.

United States citizens in any field of study are eligible.

Contact: fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu, https://einaudi.cornell.edu/fulbright-us-student-program

The migration studies minor is a university-wide, interdisciplinary undergraduate minor that prepares students to understand the historical and contemporary contexts and factors that drive international migration and shape migrant experiences around the globe. This minor draws on the rich course offerings found across the humanities and social sciences at Cornell, and is designed to draw students outside of their major fields and to extend their knowledge beyond a single country.

Contact: migration-minor@einaudi.cornell.edu,

Is the Einaudi Center's International Relations minor for you? Here's a chance to find out. Graduates go on to successful careers in fields like international law, economics, agriculture, trade, finance, journalism, education, and government service.

Contact: irm@einaudi.cornell.edu; https://einaudi.cornell.edu/academics/international-relations-minor

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program provides full funding for graduate and professional students conducting research or teaching in any field in more than 150 countries. Open to U.S. citizens only.

The Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Program supports doctoral students conducting research in modern languages or area studies for six to 12 months. Open to U.S. citizens and permanent residents of the United States. Travel to Western European countries is not eligible.

Contact: fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu, https://einaudi.cornell.edu/fulbright-us-student-program

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program supports college graduates conducting research or teaching in any field in more than 150 countries. Applications are due in the fall; students who wish to begin the program immediately after graduation are encouraged to start the process in their junior year.

United States citizens in any field of study are eligible.

Contact: fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu, https://einaudi.cornell.edu/fulbright-us-student-program

The LACS summer research grant provides funding for in-country research costs for graduate pre-dissertation work in Latin America or the Caribbean. (The grant does not cover international airfare; students should also apply for an Einaudi Center Travel Grant for airfare.) LACS will offer up to three research grants to qualified graduate students who need to conduct field research over the summer of 2022. Grant amounts may vary from $500 to $1,500. The Graduate Minor in Latin American Studies graduate minor in Latin American (and Caribbean) studies allows students to acquire in-depth knowledge of the region, which will enhance their expertise for future research and professional advancement. The main requirement is to have a Latin American studies field faculty member as a member of a student’s committee.

Contact: lacs@cornell.edu, https://einaudi.cornell.edu/programs/latin-american-and-caribbean-studi…

The Latin American Studies Minor is an undergraduate minor across disciplines that will allow students to explore the history, culture, government, politics, economy and languages of Latin America and the Caribbean. Qualifying courses can be found in almost every college. LACS is happy to offer engaged and/or research internships in Ecuador for summer 2022.

Contact: lacs@cornell.edu, https://einaudi.cornell.edu/programs/latin-american-and-caribbean-studi…

Andressa Lanchotti

The Minas Gerais State Prosecutor’s Office actions in search for reparation for the Vale’s mining disaster in Brumadinho

On January 25, 2019, three tailings’ dams owned by Vale, a Brazilian multinational corporation which is the largest producer of iron ore and nickel in the world, located in the Córrego do Feijão mine, in the city of Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, collapsed, releasing more than 10 million m³ of tailings in the Paraopeba River, destroying the flora and fauna found along the way, and killing 270 people.

Since the disaster, the Minas Gerais State Prosecutor’s Office took several actions searching for reparation to the affected communities, to restore the disaster-affected environment and to prevent future mining disasters. As a result of this work, the recovery of the Paraopeba hydrographic basin is currently at an advanced stage and concrete improvements were achieved in the state control system of mining tailings disposal.

Andressa Lanchotti has a bachelor’s degree in Law from the University of São Paulo, Brazil (1998), master’s degree in international environmental law from the Limoges University, France (2008) and master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from the Federal University of Ouro Preto, Brazil (2010). She holds a PhD in Fundamental Rights and Public Liberties from the University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain (2013), and conducted postdoctoral research at the Postdoctoral Program in Democracy and Human Rights of the University of Coimbra, Portugal (2018).

Since November 1999, she is a public prosecutor working for the Minas Gerais State Prosecutor’s Office (MPMG), where she served as environmental prosecutor, handling mostly conflicts related to mining, housing and urban development and their environmental impacts. Her work includes research, mediation, negotiation, conflict resolution, identify and initiate civil and criminal complaints and prosecutions. She also served as Coordinator of the Support Center for the Environment (CAOMA) and coordinated the task forces that were created by the MPMG to mitigate the impact of the mining disasters in Brazil (2016 – 2020).

She taught courses and created the Post-Graduate Course "Environmental law and Sustainability: Theory and Practice”, offered by the Minas Gerais State Prosecutor’s Office Center of Studies and Professional Development (CEAF/MPMG) and Dom Helder Law School (2017-2018). She is also the author and co-author of books and author of several articles about environment, human rights, and sustainable development.

She is current a Humphrey Fellow at Cornell University, where her field of study is natural resources, environmental and climate change.

Pedro Rossi (Chile)

The Environmental agenda in Chile, new legislations and future challenges

Chile is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change in Latin America, with high levels of pollution and a huge water crisis. That’s why the Congress and the Ministry of Environment have been working on different legislations to improve the country’s environmental standards. Among the new laws that has been approved in the last years we can mention: the urban wetlands law, the single use plastics law, and the light pollution law. There are also some important bills waiting to become Law, like the biodiversity law bill and the framework law on Climate Change.

Chile is also in the middle of a constituent process that is going to restructure a large part of the legal order, especially in the environmental area, so it’s important to analyze not only the legislative reforms but also some of the main debates in the Constitutional Convention, because the new constitution will set the basis for the future legislation.

Pedro Rossi is a Lawyer, with a bachelor’s degree from the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso, Chile (2013) He is a problem-solver professional with experience in the public sector, in areas such as environmental law, science and legislative processing.

Since 2010, he started worker as a junior advisor in the Ministry General Secretary of The Presidency, after getting his degree he worked for five years at the National Commission of Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT), solving legal problems of researchers and centers financed by the State of Chile. Then, he returned to the Ministry of the Secretary General of the Presidency where he was in charge of the fulfillment of the legislative Government plan.

The last three years he worked as a legislative advisor in the Minister of Environment, where he was responsible of leading the environmental agenda of the Ministry at the Congress and advise the Minister and the Undersecretary. He had to coordinate, elaborate and study the bills and motions related to the top priorities of the environmental agenda. Likewise, he oversaw conducting the political debate between the Executive and Legislative branches and handling parliamentary motions within the lawmaking process of those bills.

He is current a Humphrey Fellow at Cornell University, where his field is Natural Resources, Environmental Policy and Climate Change.

The Lower Tapajós River is a multiethnic territory located in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon Forest, in the Pará state. This region is the dwelling place of 13 indigenous peoples, hundreds of traditional riverside communities, and dozens of quilombos (formerly enslaved communities with a background of anti-racist struggle). One of the main perils they are now facing is the expansion of both soy monoculture plantations and the infrastructure the exportation of the grains demands. In this presentation, I want to approach the process of creating a soy monoculture landscape over the place where a multispecies tropical forest existed, by following two traces left behind in this process: the remaining of forests and communities as a "farce" and the emergence of viruses (especially hantavirus). I will particularly focus on the role of pesticides in emptying communities and allowing more space for soy plantations to expand.

Fábio Zuker is an anthropologist and journalist. He is the author of The Life and Death of a Minke Whale in the Amazon (forthcoming May/22 with Milkweeds editions). He holds a master’s degree from Paris’s School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences and is a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology at the University of São Paulo. As a journalist, he has been three times a Pulitzer Center grantee and has written articles for different media outlets, including Thomson Reuters Foundation and Mongabay.