July 25th, 2012

Ambassador Donahoe: Open online communication necessary for human rights

Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council and former visiting scholar at CISAC, dropped by Ustream headquarters in San Francisco to launch its first live fireside chat series. Donahoe took questions via Twitter and discussed human rights and the UNHRC resolution supporting freedom of expression on the Internet.

• » Usteam Unfiltered: Live with Ambassador Donahoe

February 6th, 2012

Q&A: Stanford’s Cuéllar and US diplomat on human rights and the Internet

U.S. Ambassador Eileen Donahoe recently brought fellow diplomats to Stanford to meet with scholars, human rights activists, and Silicon Valley leaders to address questions engendered by a free and open Internet. She joins CISAC’s Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar for a discussion about the potential and challenges facing the online frontier. Read more »

November 1st, 2011

Stanford's Weinstein reflects on shaping Obama's foreign policy

After two years as President Barack Obama’s director for development and democracy at the National Security Council, Jeremy Weinstein is back at Stanford as an associate professor of political science. Read more »

June 15th, 2011

Michael McFaul: An interview with the president's top Russia adviser

In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, President Obama's top Russia adviser, Michael McFaul, says the U.S. reset policy means engaging "with the Russian government on issues of national security" as well as democracy and human rights. McFaul is the former deputy director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Read more »

April 25th, 2011

Stephen Stedman: Why honest elections really matter

Stanford's Stephen Stedman, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and its Center for International Security and Cooperation, discusses democracy's surge and the growing need for elections with integrity. Stedman was recently named director of the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security. Read more »

January 27th, 2011

Ethics and War: Why So Many Civilians Are Dying

There are more laws and international treaties designed to protect human rights in conflict zones than ever before. Yet civilians continue to pay the ultimate price, with women and children frequently caught in the crossfire. At the beginning of the 20th century, there was one civilian casualty for every eight or nine military casualties, said Richard Goldstone, the South African jurist who played a key role in helping his country overcome apartheid, served as the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals on Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, and became a household name in 2009 for his controversial fact-finding mission after an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip. During World War II, the ratio increased to 1-to-1. Today, after what was, Goldstone said, a "very bloody century," every combatant casualty is matched by nine civilian deaths. What explains this? Goldstone joined Stanford historian James Campbell and Peter Berkowitz, a political scientist, to grapple with this paradox as part of Stanford's Ethics and War Series, co-sponsored by the Center for International Security and Cooperation. Audio transcript available
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November 3rd, 2010

John Lewis on keeping 'the genie in the bottle'

With a Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and anticipation building in Beijing for a change in leadership in 2012, domestic politics in both countries are playing a major role in the bilateral relationship. On the eve of his own milestone, his 80th birthday, John Lewis, one of the world's foremost China scholars and the director of CISAC's Project on Peace and Cooperation in the Asian-Pacific Region, discussed the direction of the U.S.-China relationship, the importance of dialogue between the two powers, and the potentially rocky road ahead. Read more »