EXP: Policy Lab: Women in Conflict and Security (de Silva de Alwis)
Faculty
|
|
| Rangita de Silva de Alwis Senior Adjunct Professor of Global Leadership rdesilva@law.upenn.edu |
Additional Information
Experiential CourseYes
Skills Training
Oral Presentations
Team Projects
Drafting Legal Documents
Expository Writing
Grading
100% Paper
No
Class meets in person.
Course Continuity
Students are encouraged to stay home if you are ill or experience flu-like symptoms. If you miss a class for any reason, it is still your responsibility to make up the work missed.
I offer the following to students who miss class due to illness:
- Class sessions are regularly recorded. I will make these recordings routinely available on the course site to everyone in the class.
- Class sessions are regularly recorded. If you are absent due to illness or some other unavoidable circumstance, email me and I can send you an email with instructions for accessing the recording for the class session(s) you missed.
- If you are absent, due to illness or some other unavoidable circumstance, email me and I can ask for volunteers among your classmates to share their notes with you.
- I will make PowerPoint slides or other class materials routinely available on the course site to everyone in the class.
- If you are absent due to illness or some other unavoidable circumstance, email me and I can make PowerPoint slides or other class materials available to you.
- When you are better, please make an appointment to meet with me and I will review/answer questions about what you missed.
- I am always available for students. I can do individual sessions for those who miss the class.
Meeting Times/Location
M 12:50PM - 2:50PM
Silverman Hall 280
Category
Upper-Level
Credits
2.0
Policy Lab: New Debates in Women Peace & Security Faculty: Prof. Rangita de Silva de Alwis Contact: rdesilva@law.upenn.edu Meetings: Monday 12:50-2:50pm Location TBD Office Hours: Mondays 9- 11 am in person; Fridays, 10am-5pm via Zoom. ALL READINGS AVAILABLE IN THE MODULE SECTION OF CANVAS Please see course description (Penn Law and Harvard)
https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/news/15923-women-peace-and-security https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/wappp/research/gender-conflict/MLD-236-course-reflections
In a time defined by conflict and overwhelmed by the reversal of women’s rights, the upcoming 25th anniversary of the Women Peace and Security agenda presents an opportunity for the Penn Law Policy Lab to critically examine new global debates on emerging security threats. The next 25 years will see enormous change --- artificial intelligence will make conflict more lethal: AI-enabled cyberattacks can destroy networks and AI enabled decision making can transform conflict and develop new tactics of warfare. The class will critically examine, the weaponization of technology; the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) which has highlighted the gendered effects of nuclear weapon; innovations in Artificial Intelligence, especially in relation to Lethal Autonomous Weapons System (LAWS); a new space race; and the nexus between gender, conflict and climate emergency. From the systemic denial of women's and girl's education to starvation as a tool of warfare, the course will focus on a gender lens on conflict. In many parts of the world, a climate emergency has impacted a gathering crisis in food security, access to water, migration, and the feminization of poverty. Further, the class will examine the continuing search for accountability and reparations for conflict related sexual violence, including a “victim, survivor and trauma centric” approach to access to justice in domestic and international tribunals. We will critically examine the paradigm of "conflict-related sexual violence" and call for an understanding of a more nuanced and structural analysis that looks at violence as interconnected rather than episodic. Finally, the class will critically examine the draft articles of the Convention on the Crimes against Humanity and debate the challenges to naming and codifying what is increasingly referred to as ‘gender apartheid’ to create full accountability for gender-based crimes.
The class will engage closely with the UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, the Secretary General's New Agenda for Peace, the ICC Prosecutor's Policy on the Crime of Gender Persecution, and the Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS).
This course will function as a lab to incubate new ideas and provide an opportunity for students to participate directly with important global changes on policy making. This class will examine a new toolbox for policy making in addressing the root causes of conflict and new approaches to peace building.
Final Assignment: A five page policy brief at the end of the semester. Throughout the semester, the class will engage with global policymakers and international lawyers working in humanitarian and human rights law.
International and Comparative Law Learning outcomes: Demonstrate a core understanding of international and comparative law, both substantively and procedurally; Perform legal analysis in the context of international and comparative law; Communicate effectively on topics related to international and comparative law; Demonstrate an understanding of the role of international and comparative law, and their interconnection with domestic law.
Perspectives on the Law Learning outcomes: Demonstrate an understanding of how the law affects, and is affected by, the individual course topic; Perform legal analysis in the context of the individual course topic; Communicate effectively on the legal and other aspects of the individual course topic; Demonstrate the ability to use other disciplines to analyze legal issues relevant to the individual course topic, including economics, philosophy, and sociology, as appropriate.
Public Interest Learning outcomes: Demonstrate a core understanding of the varied legal aspects of public interest law; Perform legal analysis in the context of public interest law; Communicate effectively on topics related to public interest law; Demonstrate an understanding of how public interest law is connected to and affected by a wide variety of legal and regulatory structures and doctrines.
Equity and Inclusion Learning outcomes: Demonstrate a core understanding of the varied legal aspects of equity and inclusion; Perform legal analysis in the context of topics related to equity and inclusion; Communicate effectively on the legal aspects of equity and inclusion; Demonstrate an understanding of how equity and inclusion are connected to and affected by a wide variety of legal and regulatory structures and doctrines.