Professor James von Geldern
will speak on “Human Rights in War and Peace: The Role and Process of Asylum”
Wednesday, September 24
7:30 p.m.
Science Center 101
Swarthmore College
The Constitution of the Russian Federation includes powerful human rights protection – why has it failed in the case of Chechnya? What is the role of asylum, the last resort after other protections fail, in the general scheme of human rights protection? ?How do the individual stories that lie behind it fit into the strict standards lawyers strive to uphold in the asylum process?
Professor James von Geldern has taught since 1988 in the Department of German and Russian Studies at Macalaster College. Besides a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures, Dr. von Geldern holds a J.D. [or should I write this out?] from the University of Minnesota Law School and is a member of the Minnesota Bar Association. ?He is engaged in pro bono work as a volunteer attorney for the Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights and the Volunteer Lawyers Network, representing some of the same ?people served by the Center for Victims of Torture. ?His work suggests powerful ways to combine scholarship with activism and turn specific knowledge to the service of social change.
For more information, please contact Professor Sibelan Forrester <sforres1@swarthmore.edu>, 610-328-8162.
Co-sponsored with Peace and Conflict Studies.