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Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights (CGHR)

Mission Statement

CGHR's mission is to understand and prevent genocide and mass atrocity crimes. On the one hand, we grapple with the most pressing 21st-century challenges that give rise to genocide, atrocity crimes, and related interventions. On the other hand, we use a critical lens to rethink assumptions and offer alternatives. 

Focal Areas

Vernaculars of Prevention

A vernacular is a local way of speaking, acting, and understanding the world. In keeping with this definition, this project examines how atrocity prevention is talked about and understood on the global, regional, (trans)national, and grassroots levels – and how these ways of knowing impact the efficacy of atrocity prevention.

Combatting Hate

Across the globe, bigotry and hate are on the rise – not just in places like Russia, Syria, or Myanmar but also in Europe and the United States, where antisemitic, Islamophobic, xenophobic, and white nationalist animus has risen. This project seeks to understand and find ways of combatting such hate with a particular emphasis on contextual understanding, dialogue, and education.

Emergent Threats

While atrocity prevention has a future-orientation that is focused on issues like risk assessment, early warning, and building resilience, it is less attuned to future threats that aren’t captured by related indicators. This project considers such emergent threats, ranging from climate migration to artificial intelligence, which lie just outside the usual umbrella of atrocity prevention.

UNESCO Chair

The mission of CGHR UNESCO chair in Genocide Prevention, established in 2013, is to understand genocide and mass atrocity crimes and their prevention. Building on CGHR’s work and historical connection to former Rutgers professor Raphael Lemkin, who coined the word genocide and fought for its criminalization in international law, the Rutgers UNESCO Chair in Genocide Prevention undertakes research, education, and outreach in the field of genocide studies and prevention. CGHR’s mission statement and programming align directly with the focus of its Chair. Accordingly, each year the UNESCO Chair is focused on a thematic that inflects and serves as the thematic for the larger work of the Center. 

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People and Partners

The Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights (CGHR) has an internationally renowned group of advisers, faculty associates, and affiliated scholars who work on urgent world issues and come from perspectives ranging from global studies to the visual arts. CGHR is also proud to partner with Rutgers, domestic, and international partners.

CGHR Projects

  • CGHR launches Global Consortium on Bigotry and Hate

    In response to the rise of hate in the U.S. and abroad, CGHR is convening a global consortium that will look at local manifestations of hate in a diverse set of contexts. The inaugural conference, “Bigotry and Hate in the United States,” was held at Rutgers on April 25-27, 2019. Consortium partners will subsequently hold conferences in Argentina, Bahrain, Canada, Japan, Norway, Paris, and South Africa, among other places. 

    Bigotry and Hate in the U.S.: Full Program
    April 25-27, 2019 | Inaugural Conference | Global Consortium on Bigotry and Hate | Rutgers University, U.S.
    Click the link above for a full program of the conference.

    Bigotry and Hate in the United States, Pre-Conference Events
    Click the link above for a listing of all pre-conference events, April 25-27, 2019

    Bigotry and Hate in Norway (Report)
    December 12-13,  2019

    Bigotry and Hate in Norway
    December 12-13, 2022

    Bigotry and Hate in Russia
    November 22-23, 2021

    Conference Presenters

    Conference Participants

    Conference Highlights:

    Genocidal Affect: Situating Hate in the Frame of the Indian Problem in North America
    Tuesday, April 23, 2019 | 6:15–8:15 p.m. | Dana Room, 4th Floor, Dana Library Rutgers University, U.S.
    Conference Kick-off Event
    Speaker: Andrew Woolford, Department of Sociology, University of Manitoba

    Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism in the U.S.
    Friday, April 26, 2019 | 3:10–4:30 p.m. | Dana Room, 4th Floor, Dana Library Rutgers University, U.S.
    Speakers: Dr. Stephen Eric Bronner, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University & Director of Global Relations at the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, and Dr. Dalia Fahmy, Associate Professor of Political Science at Long Island University

    Rethinking Peace: Discourse, Memory, Translation, and Dialogue
    Friday, April 26, 2019 | 5:00–6:30 p.m. | Dana Room, 4th Floor, Dana Library Rutgers University, U.S.
    Book Launch Event with live music by the Aleppo Ensemble

    White Genocide: The Far Right and the Center-Right
    Saturday, April 27, 2019 | 11:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m. | Conklin 446 Rutgers University, Newark, U.S.
    Conference Keynote Address
    Speaker: Dirk Moses, Professor of Modern History and the University of Sydney

  • The Truth in the Americas project explores questions of memory, justice, and survival in the Americas through the lens of truth, examining its complexities as a concept and a lived experience. Over the last thirty years, truth has emerged as an important space for accounting for past violence in Latin America. In the wake of state terror, torture, disappearances, and genocide, communities have turned to truth as a grassroots response and challenge to political violence, through practices of memory and advocacy for justice that resists the erasure of their experience. States have also engaged truth as a form of transitional justice, using truth commissions and other modalities of truth in the wake of war, human rights abuses, and genocide. Yet, although truth has become critical to rebuilding civil society and democracy, it also represents a particular form of accounting, often existing in a constitutive tension with justice and the inherently contested nature of memory.  This project explores the plural and fractured nature of truth(s) as an opportunity to engage in a set of critical questions about truth in relation to violence and inequality in the Americas, as experienced in different nations and diaspora communities.

    Workshops

    April 2016
    Symposium
    Living Truth in the Americas
    Rutgers University, Newark

    Tuesday April 4, 2017
    3:00–5:30
    Symposium
    Diaspora and Genocide in the Americas
    Rutgers University, New Brunswick

    April 2018
    Symposium
    Truth in the Americas
    Buenos Aires, Argentina

  • Since the coining of the phrase in the late 1990s, “transitional justice” has become a buzzword, embraced by scholars and practitioners alike. Hundreds of books and articles, chapters as well as several research institutes, and a journal have been dedicated to its analysis. Mechanisms of transitional justice have come to be seen as integral to the promotion of the rule of law the world over. Given this flurry of activity, and its far-ranging real-world effects, the “Critical Transitional Justice” project, a transatlantic partnership between three institutions of higher learning, will evaluate the theory and practice of transitional justice in a comprehensive, critical, and broadly interdisciplinary fashion. The project's approach is decidedly critical—and thus markedly different from existing approaches to the study of transitional justice. This project, which will consist of three workshops during the 2017-18 academic year – one in the New York area, one in London, and one in Amherst, MA – culminating in the publication of The Oxford Handbook of Transitional Justice in 2018.


    Partner Institutions

    Amherst College - Department of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought
    London School of Economics - Department of International Relations
    Rutgers University - Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights 


    Workshops

    December 15-16, 2017
    Transitional Justice Genealogies
    London School of Economics

    April 14, 2018
    Rethinking Transitional Justice
    Rutgers University

    May 5, 2018
    Critical Transitional Justice
    Amherst College

  • Raphael Lemkin, who taught at Rutgers during the mid-1950s, had a dream: to end genocide. In 1944, he coined the word genocide and successfully fought for its 1948 criminalization in international law. CGHR’s Raphael Lemkin Project honors this legacy by hosting the following events on an annual or biennial basis: (a) the Raphael Lemkin Award held around December 9, the date of the UN Convention and the new International Genocide Remembrance and Prevention Day; (b) a lecture by survivors on the January 27 International Holocaust Remembrance Day; and (c) a Raphael Lemkin Lecture during the April Genocide Awareness month. In addition, the project recognizes distinguished students as Raphael Lemkin Student Fellows each year. 

  • Rethinking Peace Studies (RPS) is a global initiative devoted to critically rethink Peace Studies from a multidisciplinary lens. The project involves bringing small groups of academic and practitioners from a variety of backgrounds to intensively discussed the past, present, and futures of peace studies. Each of the initial three seminars, held in Tokyo (November 2014), New York (March 2015), and Kandy, Sri Lanka (November 2015), focused on a thematic, “Translation,” “Memory,” and “Dialogue,” respectively. 

    Instead of delivering formal papers, participants were asked to contemplate a set of “classic” and current readings related to the given thematic and come prepared to begin a conversation focused on four questions: What does it mean to rethink something? What needs to be rethought in peace studies? What is one key question we need to ask related to peace studies? What is a critical reading we need to discuss? 

    The participants were brought together to present formal paper in Tokyo (June 2016) with a smaller follow-up in the Spring of 2017. The proceedings are being published in an edited volume, Rethinking Peace: Discourse, Memory, Translation, and Dialogue (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019). 

    Partner Institutions

    Japan ICU Foundation, New York, NY, U.S.
    Japan International Christian University (ICU) – Rotary Peace Center, Tokyo, Japan 
    Rutgers University – Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, NJ, U.S.

    Workshops

    November 2014
    RPS I: Translation
    ICU, Tokyo, Japan

    March 2015
    RPS II: Memory
    New York City, U.S.

    November 2016
    RPS III: Dialogue
    University of Peradeniya
    Kandy, Sri Lanka

    June 2016
    Conference
    Rethinking Peace Studies: Translation, Memory, Dialogue
    ICU, Tokyo, Japan

  • Since its inception in 1995, the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) has been at the forefront of documenting the myriad atrocities of the Khmer Rouge era. Focusing on memory and justice, DC-Cam seeks to help Cambodians discover the truths upon which a genuine national reconciliation depends. As a major source of information about Cambodia’s genocide for academics, lawyers, journalists and the general public in Cambodia and abroad, DC-Cam is respected around the world and supported by sponsors, scholars and experts in the USA, Europe, Asia and Canada. 

    DC-Cam’s Public Information Room at Rutgers University was set up in 2005 in order to collect and disseminate information on Khmer Rouge history, with a particular emphasis on assisting the Cambodian North American community. This office also: serves as a reciprocal exchange between DC-Cam and Rutgers students and faculty; facilitates internships/externships at DC-Cam for Rutgers students; presents research and training opportunities for Rutgers students and faculty; and collaborates in exhibitions, conferences, and seminars.

  • Art of Hope: Preserving and Protecting Syrian Culture seeks to archive, protect and preserve, the musical arts of the great city of Aleppo. Besieged by conflict since 2011, Aleppo is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, a city whose musical traditions have for centuries contributed in significant and lasting ways to world culture. The Art of Hope intends to protect and preserve Syrian musical culture by sharing Syria’s musical treasures with displaced, disenfranchised, young Syrians, many of whom are growing up very far from their homes. As such, the project is designed to preserve and transmit a cultural heritage rich in creativity and non-violence, and, in so doing, combat extremism.

  • “There is no creativity if there is no Freedom.”
    – Mouneer Al Shaarani, Syrian artist calligrapher

    More than half of the world's 65 million displaced persons are children.  Many are traumatized by violence and the horrors of war, and their displaced status makes them particularly vulnerable to exploitation, abuse, and neglect.  Learning on the Move (LoMo) seeks ways to develop resilience, stability, and hope for these children through education. LoMo studies international education response efforts for internally displaced and refugee children.  The project supports response efforts by advancing policies that make education more portable for refugees among countries in their region; building capacity for quality teaching and monitoring its impact on learning; and enhancing linkages between universities/industry and K-12 education to ensure skills cultivated are relevant and meet the demands of the 21st century knowledge economy.

    Launch Event

    Tuesday, June 20, 2017 

    10:30 a.m.–Noon
    Project Inaugural Lecture and Roundtable Discussion
    World Refugee Day Lecture and Discussion: The Right to an Education

    Symposium

    Wednesday, January 31, 2018
    9:00 a.m.–10:00 a.m.
    Symposium
    Learning on the Move: Education for Hope and Resilience

    Reports

    Sunday, December 10, 2017
    10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
    Report Launch & Roundtable Discussion
    The Lost Generation: Syrian Refugee Education Response Efforts

  • Engaging in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in education is critical work but it also presents a wide range of promises and perils for institutions and educators. Rutgers University’s Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights and Seton Hall’s College of Education and Human Services founded “The Promises and Perils of Diversity in Education Initiative” (PPDI) in order to explore these “promises and perils”. PPDI seeks to explore how creating collaborative spaces, working across disciplinary divides, partnering with local and global communities can lead to innovative, impactful, and meaningful educational shifts in perspectives, practices, and programs regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion in 21st-century educational spaces.

    PPDI is a group of professional educators representing a rich and diverse range of expertise, experience, and interests who meet monthly to engage in meaningful discussions, difficult dialogues, and program planning regarding the “promises and perils” of their efforts to cultivate inclusive learning environments. The work of this group is informed by research, practitioner- based, and enriched by global understanding of the opportunities of challenges of this work.

    Participants include:
    Educators from South Orange & Maplewood School District
    Educators from East Orange School District
    Educators from Newark School District
    Educators from Somerset Hills School District
    Independent Educator from Spain
    Educators from Wahat Al- Salam Neve Shalom
    Educator from Colombia

    Our work includes:
    Educational presentations, screenings, workshops, professional development
    Roundtable discussions, conference presentations
    Networking, local & global collaborations
    Publications (The Humanist)

  •  

    Description: 
    Engaging in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in education is critical work but it also presents a wide range of promises and perils for institutions and educators. Rutgers University’s Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights and Seton Hall’s College of Education and Human Services founded “The Promises and Perils of Diversity in Education Initiative” (PPDI) in order to explore these “promises and perils”. PPDI seeks to explore how creating collaborative spaces, working across disciplinary divides, partnering with local and global communities can lead to innovative, impactful, and meaningful educational shifts in perspectives, practices, and programs regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion in 21st century educational spaces. PPDI is group of professional educators representing a rich and diverse range of expertise, experience, and interests who meet monthly to engage in meaningful discussions, difficult dialogues, and program planning regarding the “promises and perils” of their efforts to cultivate inclusive learning environments. The work of this group is informed by research, practitioner based, and enriched by global understandings of the opportunities of challenges of this work

    Participants include: 
    Educators from South Orange & Maplewood School District Educators from Newark School District Educators from Somerset Hills School District Independent Educator from Spain Educators from Wahat al- Salam Neve Shalom Educator from Colombia 

    Our work includes: Educational presentations, screenings, workshops, trainings Roundtable discussions, conference presentations Networking, local & global collaborations Publications (CGHR’s “The Humanist”)

  • The USA-Russia-Former Soviet Union Dialogue Project intends to engage in critical dialogue with academics, educators, political, cultural, and human rights activists in order to explore the political and societal processes in the FSU and, potentially, to establish mechanisms by which to improve mutual understanding. While Russia’s influence has grown significantly in the past decade, few independent post-Soviet states have cultivated a path towards democracy; human rights violations continue to go unchecked against a backdrop of protracted internal and external conflicts. Such conflicts fuel the rise of pro nationalist movements, facilitate ethnic cleansing, and foster anti-Semitism and xenophobia.

    Partner Institutions

    Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies of the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow
    Institute for the Study of National Politics and International Relations (Russia and Latvia)

    Events

    Thursday, June 1, 2017
    10:00 a.m.–Noon
    Roundtable Discussion
    Confronting Bigotry
    Rutgers, Newark

    Reports

    Friday November 3, 2017
    10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
    Report Launch & Roundtable Discussion
    Monitoring Hate in Russia and the Former Soviet Union

  • The Genocide and Atrocity Prevention Project’s (GAP) mission is to help prevent genocide and atrocity crimes. To this end and in keeping with the related CGHR goals and projects, GAP monitors and provides factual and scholarly information about emerging and on-going situations in which genocide and atrocity crimes are taking place. Launched in 2019 as a cross-campus and interdisciplinary working group comprising faculty and students, the first phase of GAP will involve the creation of a web-based platform of resources on potential and on-going atrocity crimes. After this pilot phase, GAP will turn to focus on monitoring and intervention. In addition, GAP will host related lectures, think tank sessions, and symposia. 

Consortium on Bigotry & Hate

Across the globe, bigotry and hate are on the rise – not just in places like Russia, Syria, or Myanmar but also in Europe and the United States, where anti-Semitic, xenophobic, and white nationalist attacks have taken place with increasing frequency. In part because of their broad scope, discussions of bigotry and hate are often highly general and experience distant. Less attention has been paid to how state, sub-state, and regional actors have both come to understand these phenomena and developed strategies to prevent them.

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Global Consortium on Bigotry and Hate 2019-2025

The Global Consortium on Bigotry and Hate (2019-2025) fills this critical gap by bringing together scholars and practitioners from across the globe to discuss local manifestations of and responses to bigotry and hate. To this end, each consortium partner is hosting a conference on bigotry and hate that brings the consortium partners together with local scholars and practitioners to consider new ways of confronting bigotry and hate. While each partner determines the structure of and goals for the conference they host, the partners jointly work on research, education, outreach, and scholarship projects on bigotry and hate.

the state of global hate
global consortium
the state of global hate
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