Agenda 10 - 16 Maart 2013

In addition to governments, individuals and organisations, the business community also has an important role to play in supporting and respecting human rights. Companies that operate on a global basis are confronted with very different cultural contexts and human rights situations. How much leverage do transnational companies have regarding human rights at site level, within local communities and at country level? How can they have a positive impact on human rights and avoid negative impact or even abuse? Dick Benschop, CEO of Shell Nederland will discuss these and other questions using the example of Shell in Nigeria.

oneworld

Promovendus: Steffen Matthijn de Boer. Rift Valley Fever (RVF) is een virusziekte die, op het Afrikaanse continent en het Arabisch schiereiland, bij zowel mensen als dieren voorkomt. Epidemieën van RVF hebben in het verleden grote socio-economische schade veroorzaakt, mede door sterfte en miskramen bij vee. In zijn proefschrift heeft Steffen Matthijn de Boer een gedeelte van de levenscyclus van het Rift Valley Fever Virus (RVFV) onderzocht om zo meer inzicht in de infectie te krijgen.

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Ian Taylor, Professor in International Relations and African Politics at St Andrews, Scotland, UK. The BRICS group’s members are, according to the International Monetary Fund, projected to account for around 60% of global growth by 2014. How and why the BRICS interact with Africa is likely to be a major aspect of the continent’s international relations for the foreseeable future. Whilst this has thus far seen accelerated growth within some African countries, major challenges exist that need to be addressed.

ascleiden

Professor John Markakis is Emeritus Professor, University of Crete, Greece. The Horn of Africa holds the continental record for inter-state conflicts and civil wars.The cause of this turmoil is a persistent indigenous struggle to change the geopolitical pattern that emerged with decolonization comprising four states – Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti. Several rival nation-state building projects have been working at cross purposes ever since, and the consequence is the mutilation of the first two states, the collapse of the third, the emergence of two new states – Eritrea, South Sudan - and a third candidate for statehood, Somaliland. Professor Markakis will devote his lecture to explaining the prospects for state-building in the Horn of Africa.

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Luc Reydams, Dept of Political Science, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) announced its final verdict in December 2012. This seminar examines whether the ICTR was doomed from the start to be a court of ‘victor’s justice’ and re-examines the politics of the ICTR’s creation. Interviews with (former) US and UN ambassadors and hundreds of declassified diplomatic telegrams (‘cables’) and intelligence reports by the US Department of State have shed new light on this process. The analysis concentrates on the strategy of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) vis-à-vis the international community and the responses of the UN and the US.

ascleiden