Today on Justice Matters co-host Maggie Gates speaks with Dr. Tao Leigh Goffe, associate professor of literary theory and cultural history with a focus on climate, race, and digital technologies. She teaches in the Department of Africana, Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at Hunter College in New York after over a decade of research and teaching on B…

In honor of Earth Day last week, we are featuring an episode of Justice Matters with co-host Aminta Ossom on the topic of climate change and human rights. Aminta speaks with Sam Bookman, a scholar of climate change law and human rights, a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard’s Project on the Foundations of Private Law, and a Hauser Global Fellow at NYU’s…

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Alina Beskronva, who is currently pursuing a Master's in Public Administration in International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School. Alina is from the city of Mariupol in South-Eastern Ukraine and was in the city during the first few weeks of the Russian attack on Mariup…

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates speaks with Darcel Rockett, senior journalist for the Chicago Tribune whose work centers on narratives for and about populations/communities who need to be heard. An avid documenter of the Black experience, she continually aims to shine a light on the many facets of race and culture. She i…

On this episode of Justice Matters, co-host Aminta Ossom speaks with Michael Posner, Professor of Ethics and Finance at the Stern School of Business at NYU and director for the Center for Business and Human Rights. He served in the Obama administration from 2009-2013 as Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy Human Rights and Labor…

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Douglas Johnson, former director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy from 2013-2017 and Lecturer on Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. On the occasion of his retirement from the university he reflects on his work over a long career in human rights including: h…

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Kasha Nabagesera, Ugandan LGBTQ+ rights activist and Executive Director of Freedom & Roam Uganda (FARUG), about her decades of work. In today’s conversation, Mathias and Kasha discuss: Kasha’s origins as an activist standing up for LGBTQI+ rights, why Uganda is so hostile towa…

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Jean Pfaelzer, award-winning historian and Professor Emerita of English, Asian Studies, and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Delaware, about her 2023 book, California, A Slave State, which investigates California’s histories of enslavement. Together, they discuss:…

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates talks with Lina Chawaf, CEO of Radio Rozana and fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism. Radio Rozana was created in 2013 in the aftermath of the Arab Spring to examine the conflict in Syria with a focus on women’s voices for an audience of over 8 million listeners. Chawaf has a lon…

In this episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates speaks with Burmese human rights defender Wai Wai Nu and her colleague Hana Seita about their work in Myanmar. Wai Wai Nu spent seven years as a political prisoner in Myanmar and upon her release founded the Women’s Peace Network (WPN) and the Yangon Youth Center. Through WPN she advocates fo…

In this episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Tiffany Florvil, associate professor of history at the University of New Mexico and fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. She is a 20th century cultural historian of Germany whose work focuses on Black Germans and their creation of new intellectual, cultural, and political p…

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Diego Garcia Blum speaks with Kimberly Zieselman, an intersex woman, lawyer, and human rights advocate with over 25 years of experience in nonprofit leadership. Currently, she serves as a Senior Advisor to the Special Envoy to Advance the Human Rights of LGBTQI+ Persons at the U.S. State Department and…

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Amani Matabaro Tom, educator and community organizer from Eastern Congo who is currently a Scholar at Risk at the Carr Center. Amani is a co-founder of Action for the Welfare of Women and Children in Congo (ABFEC), which possesses several core initiatives: entrepreneurship tra…

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates speaks with Albert Fox Cahn, founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP). STOP litigates and advocates for privacy to ensure that technological advancements don't come at the expense of age-old rights. As a lawyer, technologist, and activist, Albe…

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Megan Minoka Hill, the Senior Director of the Project on Indigenous Governance and Development and the Director of the Honoring Nations program at the Harvard Kennedy School. The Project on Indigenous Governance and Development works with Indigenous people to provide them with…

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Diego Garcia Blum speaks with Kimahli Powell, former executive director of Rainbow Railroad, a Toronto-based organization that relocates LGBTQI+ refugees from nations where they are at risk. Powell is a senior leader in the INGO field with expertise in community-building and strategic advocacy with a f…

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Matthias Risse talks with Archon Fung, Harvard Kennedy School’s Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Democracy, about the state of democracy around the world and the upcoming U.S. presidential election. Fung is the director of the Ash Center for Innovation and Democratic Governance, a…

"One of the great virtues of human rights is that it's very alert to the dark side of human nature. All the human rights covenants are a systematic inventory of all the horrible things that human beings can and have done to each other. I respect human rights for their moral realism, and I want human rights that are very realistic in their conceptio…

On this week's episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates speaks with Dr. Charity Clay, Assistant Professor of Sociology and UNCF Mellon Fellow at Harvard's Hutchins Center for African and African-American Research. As a sociologist of the African Diaspora, Clay's research interests are varied but center around the dispersal, preservation, ma…

On this week's episode of Justice Matters, co-host Diego Garcia Blum talks with Kristopher Velasco, Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Princeton University about his research on the global anti-LGBTQI movement. Professor Velasco’s research centers on the intersections of global & transnational sociology, organizations, political …

On this week's episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse talks with Desirée Cormier Smith, the Special Representative for Racial Equity and Justice for the U.S. State Department. In this position, she is the face of the United States for all matters regarding racial equity in the world outside of the United States. Together they talk about …

On this week's episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates talks with Jessica Yamoah, the CEO and Founder of Innovate Inc., an organization that provides awareness and access to underrepresented communities at the intersection of business, entrepreneurship, and technology. Together they discuss Innovate's work to provide awareness and access i…

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Danson Kahyana, a fellow at the Carr Center and Associate Professor in the Department of Literature at Makerere University in Uganda. His recent work includes an examination of the effects of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023 on artistic freedom; exploring the representa…

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates talks with Diego Garcia Blum, Program Director of the Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. His work is dedicated to advocating for the safety and acceptance of LGBTQI+ individuals globally, particularly in regions whe…

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse talks with Gay McDougall, distinguished scholar in residence at Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham University School of Law and member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Professor McDougall has worked for decades on the frontlines of …

On today's episode of Justice Matters, co-host Kathryn Sikkink talks with Phuong Pham and Geoff Dancy about the Carr Center’s Transitional Justice Program, the culmination of the program’s research, and the creation of a research repository on the newly released Transitional Justice Evaluation Tools (TJET) website that compiles data on human rights…

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse talks with Angela Riley, Chief Justice of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and Professor of Law and American Indian Studies at UCLA, about indigenous sovereignty and human rights in the United States. Together they discuss: the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, what sovereignty means for tribes in …

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates is joined by Bevin Croft and Ebony Flint from the Human Services Research Institute for a conversation about the intersections of mental health and human rights in the wake of new guidance on mental health issued in October 2023 by the World Health Organization and the Office of the High C…

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse talks with Claire Charters who was recently named in the role of Rongomau Taketake to lead work on the Te Kāhui Tika Tangata Human Rights Commission in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Charters is a Professor at the University of Auckland Faculty of Law specializing in indigenous peoples’ rights in …

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates talks with Karla Torres and Catalina Martinez Coral from the Center for Reproductive Rights. On November 8, 2023, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) held a landmark hearing on the human rights violations caused by the reversal of Roe v. Wade and the move to ban abortion …

Today on Justice Matters we take a deep dive into the UN Business Human Rights Forum, which just wrapped up its 12th iteration at the end of 2023. Co-host Aminta Ossom attended the forum and interviewed working group member Robert McCorquodale to get some background on the inner workings of the Forum. Ossom also spoke with long-time attendee of the…

On today's episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates talks with Jill Collen Jefferson, a civil and human rights lawyer and the founder of Julian, a national organization based in Mississippi that works to attack discrimination in all forms through legal advocacy, organizing, policy, and innovation. With experience on Capitol Hill, at think-t…

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Daniel A. Bell, Chair of Political Theory with the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. They discuss topics from Professor Bell’s most recent book, “Just Hierarchy: Why Social Hierarchies Matter in China and the Rest of the World” which include: academic freedoms in …

On today's episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Shoshana Zuboff, author of the acclaimed book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. They discuss a number of topics from her landmark book including: the idea of surveillance capitalism, the harm of disinformation, the f…

On this episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates, Executive Director of the Carr Center, talks with Sarah Zoen, Associate Director at Pillar Two — an organization that advises businesses on human rights due diligence — about how to navigate shopping for the holidays while keeping human rights and ethical business practices in mind. Together…

On this episode of Justice Matters, co-host Kathryn Sikkink, the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, speaks with two veterans of the human rights movement, John Salzberg and Joe Eldridge. John Salzberg was the key staff member working with Representative Don Fraser to hold the first set of hearings about the …

On this episode of Justice Matters, host Aminta Ossom interviews Jeff Vogt, Director of the Rule of Law Program at the Solidarity Center. Vogt is also the co-founder of the International Lawyers Assisting Workers Network, which brings together over 700 worker rights lawyers from around the globe. In 2022, he was appointed to the International Labor…

On this episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Kenneth Roth, who led Human Rights Watch as its Executive Director for almost 30 years. Together they discuss the history of Human Rights Watch and Roth's reflections on his tenure, whether human rights still hold power in the world, how to bring about change in countries with ab…

Justice Matters will return this October. In the meantime, we'd like to share with you a podcast we think you will enjoy by our friends over at Strength & Solidarity.Strength & Solidarity is a podcast about the tools, tactics, and ideas driving and disrupting the human rights movement around the world. Host Akwe Amosu has over 30 episodes of interv…

The human rights podcast Justice Matters returns this October with host Maggie Gates, Executive Director of the Carr Center, and a team of Harvard faculty members acting as rotating co-hosts, including Mathias Risse, Aminta Ossom, Rob Wilkinson, and Yanilda Gonzalez.By Maggie Gates, Aminta Ossom, Rob Wilkinson, Yanilda Gonzalez, Mathias Risse

On this episode of Justice Matters, host Sushma Raman speaks with Dr. Leslie Alexander about the history of Black Internationalism and its ties to today’s global Black Lives Matter movement. Her newest book, Fear of a Black Republic: Haiti and the Birth of Black Internationalism in the United States, examines how the Haitian Revolution and the emer…

Where do universal human rights begin? On this episode of Justice Matters, host Sushma Raman speaks with Professor Martha Davis about local movements and human rights cities. Davis teaches constitutional law, US human rights advocacy, and professional responsibility at Northeastern Law School, where she is a Faculty Director for the Program for Hum…

What is critical race theory and why is it under attack? On this episode of Justice Matters, host Sushma Raman discusses critical race theory with Dr. Victor Ray, Carr Center Fellow and F. Wendell Miller Associate Professor at the University of Iowa. Together they explore the related topics of structural racism and intersectionality, and how race s…

What is black witnessing, and how does it connect to movements for racial equity and justice? Can capturing a moment shape a movement? On this episode of Justice Matters, host Sushma Raman speaks with Dr. Allissa Richardson about the power of communication on social and racial justice. Dr. Richardson is an Associate Professor of Journalism at USC A…

What is the responsibility of businesses to uphold human rights? What is the role of civil society to hold businesses accountable? And how well is the human rights movement equipped to deal with the emerging challenges of the digital age? In this episode of Justice Matters, host Sushma Raman discusses these questions with Mike Posner, Professor at …

This month on Justice Matters, host Sushma Raman talks with Dara Kay Cohen, a Ford Foundation Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her research spans the field of international relations including: international security, civil war and the dynamics of violence, and gender and conflict. On this episode they discuss rap…

This month on Justice Matters, host Sushma Raman talks with Dr. Yanilda María González, an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School who researches police violence and how it relates to democracy and citizenship, with a focus on Latin America. In this conversation they discuss how to facilitate having dialogue around police…

How does a leader strive for social justice for their community and country? Join us this month on Justice Matters as host Sushma Raman talks with Dr. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the former United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women from 2013-2021, and the first woman to hold the position of Deputy President of South Afri…

This month on Justice Matters, host Sushma Raman talks with Dr. Sima Samar about the situation in Afghanistan, the status of women and girls in the country, and the role and responsibility of the international community. Dr. Samar is a member of the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement and has held the positions of Speci…

For this month’s episode of Justice Matters, we’re digging into our archives to present a special episode for Black History Month. Featuring excerpts from three conversations with a range of speakers from academia and activism, our guests discuss the historical legacy of enslavement, the periods of progress followed by rollbacks, the promise and pe…