March 25-29 marked Occidental’s annual United Nations (UN) Week. This year’s theme, “Human Rights Defenders,” consisted of nine events connected to the field of international human rights. Events included an art exhibition, a student-led roundtable discussion, a film screening and a keynote speaker address.
According to professor Laura Herbert from the Diplomacy & World Affairs (DWA) department, UN Week is a part of Occidental’s Kahane United Nations Program which is split into two components: Oxy-at-the-UN and the UN-at-Oxy.
“The Oxy-at-the-UN component of the program centers on the NY-based fall program,” Herbert said via email. “The UN-at-Oxy component of the program, which centers on our spring UN Week, is intended to create opportunities for cross-campus conversations about ideas and practices associated with the United Nations — particularly relating to the three UN pillars of peace and security, development and human rights.”
Molly Sparrow (junior), the president of the Diplomacy & World Affairs Major Association (DWAMA), said that the preparation for UN Week is a united effort between students and faculty. According to Sparrow, DWAMA helps coordinate student groups to focus on specific events.
“We don’t have direct partnerships with student clubs,” Sparrow said. “It’s just a bunch of really interested and engaged students excited to plan events, and then we, as DWAMA, we help them make those plans come to fruition.”
According to Sparrow, planning for UN week begins as early as the Fall semester but really starts to kick off after winter break.
The search for the keynote speaker starts as soon as debates over themes begin, Herbet said, which is usually during the spring and summer of the previous year.
“We build on existing contacts and relationships to identify individuals with expertise that speaks directly to the chosen theme; it’s also a function of availability since the individuals we are trying to bring to campus are usually high profile, very busy and in demand,” Herbert said via email.
This year’s keynote speaker was Victor Madrigal-Borloz, former UN Independent Expert on Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI), the first appointment of its kind by the UN Human Rights Council and currently an Eleanor Roosevelt senior visiting researcher at the Harvard Law School’s human rights program. According to Madrigal-Borloz, he has been working in the field of international human rights for the past 30 years.
His keynote speech, titled “‘Queerness’ and Other Vexing Issues in the UN: Advancing Human Rights in Times of Crisis,” was delivered March 25 and discussed the importance of increasing visibility of SOGI rights and policies internationally.
According to Madrigal-Borloz, a career in international human rights has its own set of obstacles such as limited jobs, elitism and a lack of support by some UN member states for humanitarian work such as promoting LGBTQ rights. This can cause international organizations to be in a constant state of crisis, according to Madrigal-Borloz. However, he said there is still a path for young people to get involved.
“There’s an enormous amount of institutions, non-governmental organizations, advocacy organizations that work in the field of international human rights. So, it’s possible to find a way into the work through the many organizations that are working in that area,” Madrigal-Borloz said.
According to Madrigal-Borloz, if students want to learn how to get involved in international human rights, they should rely on the networks they are creating in school.
“The first thing, I think the education years are a great opportunity to look at things from an academic perspective and from a learning perspective that you will never get again once you go out into the work field,” said Madrigal-Borloz. “And the second thing that I would say is I don’t think anybody needs to think that they need to have very rigid plans because a career in international law or international affairs actually evolves quite organically once you begin to have it.”
Madrigal-Borloz said that the main idea to keep in mind is to have a general sense of what you would like to achieve and let your work towards your accomplishments become a part of a fulfilling journey towards your career.
As a former UN Independent Expert, Madrigal-Borloz said that his work provides visibility to the violation of human rights, how they occur and promotes the protection of human rights of communities and populations that have historically been subjected to discrimination.
According to Madrigal-Borloz, the more strenuous aspects of being an independent expert on SOGI rights are how SOGI rights have become politicized and the limited amount of data. He said there are many countries in the world that deny sexual orientation and gender identity as a category for protection, making data collection extremely difficult and in some cases, dangerous.
“Just to provide a couple of examples, LGBT organizations [are] being designated as subversive organizations in Russia,” said Madrigal-Borloz. “Or organizations in Uganda and Ghana being accused of promoting homosexuality by gathering data and disseminating data.”
Madrigal-Borloz said that when it comes to data collection, there needs to be an intersectional lens to more accurately capture the exposure to risk of violence and discrimination.
“There is this idea that when speaking about the LGBT community, you’re speaking about a homogenous community,” Madrigal-Borloz said. “And that is not the case at all.”
While there are many difficulties that come with being the independent expert, Madrigal-Borloz said that he is still hopeful for the future of advancing SOGI rights because of the work that can be done against the various laws and policies banning harmful and discriminatory practices against the LGBT community.
“[Working as an independent expert for the UN] made me very optimistic about the way in which states can actually carry out the work of addressing discrimination and violence in a way that is very tangible,” Madrigal-Borloz said.
This article was corrected April 4 at 1:27 p.m. to accurately reflect Madirgal-Borloz’s title as a former UN Independent Expert on Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It was also corrected to clarify Madrigal-Borloz’s optimism in the continuous work against discriminatory SOGI practices.
Contact Karen Palacios Echeverria at palacioseche@oxy.edu.
