Burma: A Strategy for Change: Implementing the Responsibility to Protect
Burma: A Strategy for Change: Implementing the Responsibility to Protect
Dr Guy Horton (SOAS)
Date: 2 February 2010Time: 5:00 PM
Finishes: 2 February 2010Time: 7:00 PM
Venue: Russell Square: College BuildingsRoom: G52
Type of Event: Seminar
Series: CSEAS Seminar Programme
The talk will be in three parts:
- Reviewing the evidence of systematic and widespread human rights violations.
- Reviewing the authoritative conceptualisation of these as crimes against humanity by the Goldstone Commission (May 2009).
- Examine why and how the Responsibility to Protect can be triggered and which parts of can and should be implemented.
Biography
Guy Horton has worked on the issue of Burma since 1998 when he was asked by the Euro-Burma Office to go on a mission on the tenth anniversary of the 1988 uprising to make contact with corralled MP’s. From 2000-2002 he carried out research into human rights violations and conducted investigations inside Burma. He also taught refugees language, lobbying skills and human rights on the Netherlands funded Foreign Affairs Diplomacy Training Course in Thailand and courses funded by The Open Society.
From 2002-2005 he conducted research into the violations inflicted on the eastern ethnic peoples funded by the Netherlands government and Oxfam GB. His report “Dying Alive” and supporting video footage received worldwide coverage and contributed to the submission of Burma to the UN Security Council in January 2007. As result of the report, the UN Committee on the Prevention of Genocide carried out an investigation and placed Burma Myanmar on the Genocide Alert list.
Since 2005, he has focused on establishing a coalition of governments, funders, institutions and leading international lawyers with the aim of getting the violations objectively and authoritatively investigated and analyzed so that an informed decision can be made as to how best to respond to the situation in Burma. He is affiliated to the Irish Centre for Human Rights which is involved in an investigation of the plight of the Rohingya people in western Burma.
He worked previously in eastern Europe during the period of transition and was granted a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Award. He is a trained National Health Service Counsellor and has taught at School, College and University level both nationally and internationally.
Further information Centres & Programmes, centres@soas.ac.uk or Tel 020 7898 4892/3
Organiser: Centres & Programmes, REO
