Friday, October 23, 2009

Upcoming event at L.A. Public Library (Central)

[ALOUD] at Central Library
Wed, Oct 28, 7:00 PM
ALOUD and Vesper Society present

IRENE KHAN
The Unheard Truth: Poverty and Human Rights


In conversation with David Kaye, Executive Director, UCLA School of Law International Human Rights Program

Khan--the first woman, first Asian, and first Muslim to serve as the Secretary General of Amnesty International--sheds a much needed light on the rights and powerlessness of the poor.

Irene Khan, the first woman, first Asian, and first Muslim to serve as the Secretary General of Amnesty International, has brought a strong focus to socioeconomic rights and violence against women around the world. She spent 20 years at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and was appointed in 1995 as the Chief Mission to India, becoming the youngest United Nations representative. Khan was awarded the Pilkington “Woman of the Year” Award in 2002, as well as the Sydney Peace Prize in 2006.

www.theunheardtruth.org

David Kaye is the Executive Director of the UCLA School of Law International Human Rights Program. He teaches International Human Rights and directs an International Human Rights Clinic. For more than a decade, Kaye served as an international lawyer with the U.S. State Department, responsible for issues as varied as human rights, international humanitarian law, international litigation and claims, nuclear nonproliferation, and U.S.foreign relations law. He was a legal adviser to the American Embassy in The Hague, where he worked with the international criminal tribunals and acted as counsel to the United States in several cases before the International Court of Justice and the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal. From 1999 to 2002 he was the principal staff attorney on humanitarian law, handling issues such as the application of the law to detainees in Guantanamo Bay and serving on several U.S. delegations to international negotiations and conferences. The State Department honored him with four of its prestigious Superior Honor Awards.