Carr Center for Human Rights Policy is a research center at Harvard Kennedy School founded in 1999. The center's scholars address issues related to human rights, including human security, global governance and civil society, economic justice, and equality and discrimination.
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History
The center was founded with financial support from Harvard Kennedy School alumnus Greg Carr, who donated $18 million for its founding.
The current faculty director at the Carr Center is Mathias Risse. The current executive director is Maggie Gates. The Center was previously directed by Michael Ignatieff (2000-2005), Sarah Sewall (2005-2008), Rory Stewart (2009-2010), and by Douglas Johnson (2013-2018). The founding executive director of the Center is former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, who held the position from 1998–2002. Charlie Clements served as executive director from 2010–2015, followed by Sushma Raman as executive director from 2015-2023.
Fellows who are or have been associated with the Center include Laura Murphy, John Shattuck, William Schulz, Luis Moreno Ocampo, William Arkin, Roméo Dallaire, Caroline Elkins, Alberto J. Mora, Sally Fegan-Wyles, Omer Ismail, Andrea Rossi, Beena Sarwar, Daniel J. Jones, Luís Roberto Barroso, Kenneth Roth, Emre Kızılkaya, Nai Lee Kalema, Nicholas Shaxson and Taslima Nasrin.
Founding
The center was founded in 1999 by Graham Allison and Samantha Power with the financial support of Kennedy School alumnus Greg Carr, who donated $18 million.
Current programs
The center claims its programs are aimed at addressing public policy challenges that are complex, entrenched, multifaceted, and increasingly transcending boundaries of the nation-state. They require ideas, tools, and approaches that are global and cross-disciplinary.
The Carr Center claims that its objective is to respond to this rapidly changing environment through its mission of realizing global justice through theory, policy, and practice.
Former programs
The Human Rights and Social Movements Program examines the complex relationship between human rights and social movements with a particular emphasis on how grassroots mobilizations have shaped and contested modern conceptions and practices of human rights, both in the United States and throughout the world. This new program is guided by the faith that social movements have played—and continue to play—a significant role in the conception, development, evolution, and implementation of what Michael Ignatieff refers to as the "human rights revolution."
The Program on Human Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery attempts to expand the understanding of human trafficking in all its dimensions and develop policies to address this global affront to human dignity. This program conducts research, connects scholars and practitioners, develops best practices, and engages anti-trafficking policymakers and future public policy leaders around the world.
The Mass Atrocity Response Operation (MARO) Project seeks to enable the United States and the international community to limit or prevent mass atrocities through an integrated strategy by explaining key relevant military concepts and planning considerations. The MARO Project is based on the insight that the failure to act in the face of mass killings of civilians is not simply a function of political will or legal authority; the failure also reflects a lack of thinking about how military forces might respond. States and regional and international organizations must better understand and prepare for the unique operational and moral challenges that military forces would face in a MARO.
The National Security and Human Rights (NSHR) Program examines national security issues through the prism of human rights, weaving humanitarian concerns into the fabric of traditional security studies. Through research, publications, and dialogue among practitioners and academics, the Program aims to shape national and international security and human rights policies and the promotion of organizational learning and change. The Program addresses issues ranging from the effect of war on foreign civilians to the impact of security measures upon American citizens; from civil-military relations at the highest levels in Washington to actions in the field; and from the role of military ethics, leadership, training, doctrine, and capabilities in upholding human rights norms and laws to national and international judicial redress for abuses committed during armed conflict.