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Mission and History

Launched in 2007, the Human Rights Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is a cross-campus project to stimulate new research and teaching on human rights. Within the past decade, human rights have captured the attention of a wide range of students and faculty on campus, reflecting a long-standing commitment to social justice at UW-Madison. The Human Rights Initiative seeks to coordinate and enhance intellectual interest in human rights and to develop cutting-edge ideas about human rights for the 21st Century.
 

  

 
Welcome to the Human Rights Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Since its inception, in addition to raising the visibility of human rights on campus, the Human Rights Initiative has focused on some of the following themes:

  • fostering critical thinking about fundamental concepts and accepted history in human rights.
  • anticipating human rights challenges of the future.
  • developing connections between civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights.
  • anchoring human rights in detailed knowledge of place and time, building on some of UW-Madison's strengths. Our programming endeavors in different ways to touch on at least one of these four themes.

Sawyer Seminar on Human Rights, 2010-2011

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded the Human Rights Initiative a major grant to conduct a Sawyer Seminar on the theme of "Vulnerability and Resilience: Rethinking Human Rights for the 21st Century." For more information, please click here.

Spring 2011 Sawyer Seminar themes:

  • January 28, 2011: What is the Human? Human Rights and Developments in Technology and the Life Sciences
  • April 22, 2011: Rethinking Human Rights and Transitional Justice
  • May 6, 2011: TBA

    • For more information on Spring 2011 seminars click here.

Through this grant, the Human Rights Initiative has also funded a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Human Rights.