Democracy at home and abroad

Image: Flickr, The Commonwealth
Image: Flickr, The Commonwealth

In partnership with Freedom House, we invite you for a discussion on the responsibility of countries to strengthen their own democracies and human rights.

Freedom House President Michael Abramowitz will present on The Democracy Project – a US national survey jointly commissioned by Freedom House, the George W. Bush Institute, and the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.

This will be followed by a presentation (by Skype from Cape Town) on ‘The future trajectory of South Africa’s foreign policy – Is there a real opportunity for a fresh voice on Global Human Rights?’ by Professor Richard Calland.

Michael Abramowitz is president of Freedom House. Before joining Freedom House in February 2017, he was director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Levine Institute for Holocaust Education. He was previously National Editor and then White House correspondent for the Washington Post. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and former fellow at the German Marshall Fund and the Hoover Institution. A graduate of Harvard College, he is also a board member of the National Security Archive.

Richard Calland has for over twenty years been working in the fields of democratic governance and sustainable development in South Africa and beyond. Based at the University of Cape Town (UCT), where he is Associate Professor in Public Law, he built and led its Democratic Governance & Rights Unit from 2007-2016. Calland specialises in freedom of information law and serves as a member of the Independent Access to Information Appeals Board of the World Bank. Calland’s latest book on politics, Make or Break: How the next three years will shape South Africa’s next three decades, was published in September 2016 by Penguin Random House.

Due to limited parking on the university campus during term time, it is recommended that you Uber to the event if possible.

6 Aug 2018