UNIVERSITY NETWORK FOR INTERNATIONAL TRAINING AND ENGAGEMENT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
77 Pearl Street, Middletown, CT 06457 humanrightsnetwork.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: The University Network for Human Rights facilitates supervised undergraduate engagement in the practice of human rights at colleges and universities in the United States and across the globe. The University Network partners with advocacy organizations and communities affected or threatened by abusive state, corporate, or private conduct to advance human rights at home and abroad; trains undergraduate students in interdisciplinary human rights protection and advocacy; and collaborates with academics and human rights practitioners in other parts of the world to foster the creation of practical, interdisciplinary programs in human rights.

Reports, Documentation & Promotion of Human Rights. Yemen: reduction of harms to civilians The University Network partnered with Yemeni human rights organization Mwatana on a groundbreaking new report, Day of Judgment, detailing the role of U.S. and European weapons in Saudi/UAE-led coalition attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Yemen. Mwatana researchers documented twenty-seven coalition attacks on Yemeni civilian gatherings, homes, vehicles, public facilities, businesses, and a cultural center. 2 The attacks killed at least 203 people and injured at least 749. At a minimum, 122 children were among the dead and wounded. University Network students and staff reviewed the documentation for each attack?including expert analyses of weapons remnants recovered at the scenes of strikes?and applied international and domestic legal standards. We found that, of the twenty-seven attacks documented by Mwatana, the Saudi/UAE-led Coalition used US-made weapons in at least twenty-five cases and UKmade weapons in at least five. In March 2019, the University Network, Mwatana, and Dutch peace organization PAX released our findings. Day of Judgment was covered by The Washington Post, Newsweek, Democracy Now!, The Independent (UK), and Al Jazeera, among other outlets. The report directly contributed to recent debates in Congress regarding the War Powers Act. India: protecting environmental and land rights of indigenous communities In September 2019, thousands of families in the submergence zone of India?s Sardar Sarovar Dam faced imminent inundation from rapidly rising waters. The University Network released a new report and video documenting the human rights impacts of the dam project on Adivasi (indigenous tribal) communities along the Narmada River. Waiting for the Flood was based on the University Network?s first-hand field research and documentation, conducted in partnership with Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA). NBA is an Indian social movement of Adivasis, farmers, environmentalists, and human rights activists who have mobilized for decades against large-scale dam development projects along the Narmada River. The University Network released Waiting for the Flood at a press conference in Bhopal, India in September 2019. The report was covered in Hindi- and English-language media. Work on Environmental Justice in the US Since its inception, the University Network has partnered closely with the Concerned Citizens of St. John Parish, a community group fighting chloroprene emissions from the Denka Performance Elastomer neoprene facility in Louisiana. The Denka plant is located in ?Cancer Alley? ? the 85-mile stretch along the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge dotted with more than 150 chemical plants and oil refineries. Most communities in Cancer Alley are predominantly Black. Many residents attribute staggering levels of cancer and other illness to toxic air emissions from industry. The University Network designed and implemented an unprecedented survey-based study of the health effects of the Denka plant on residents in the surrounding area. The study, released in our July 2019 report, Waiting to Die, found that cancer and illness levels among residents surveyed are unusually high and correlated with proximity to the Denka plant. In response to these disturbing findings, the Governor of Louisiana commissioned a state project to count cancer diagnoses in the area around the Denka plant. Additionally, the St. John Parish school board announced that it would consider moving children out of Fifth Ward Elementary School, which sits less than a third of a mile away from the plant. The University Network study was also formally submitted to the EPA. As part of our broader advocacy strategy to compel Denka ? a Japanese corporation ? to reduce its emissions to EPA-recommended levels, we traveled to Tokyo in June and September 2019 with two members of the Concerned Citizens of St. John Parish, Robert Taylor and Lydia Gerard. In June, the Concerned Citizens and University Network confronted Denka officials and protested outside the company's annual shareholder meeting, met privately with several Japanese shareholders of Denka, and held a press conference at the Ministry of the Environment. In September, after the U.S. release of Waiting to Die, we returned to Tokyo with Mr. Taylor and Ms. Gerard to release our report at a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents? Club. Accompanied by international media, we attempted to confront Denka officials at their headquarters. Our team also met with the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, the export credit agency that financed Denka?s purchase of the Louisiana plant.

University Partnerships.In 2019, the University Network partnered with Wesleyan University to launch a year-long, undergraduate training pilot program in human rights. The program engaged students from diverse backgrounds through classroom instruction, practical training modules, and real-world human rights advocacy projects. In the first leg of our program, James Cavallaro taught nearly twenty undergraduates in an intensive semester-long seminar. This course critically assessed the human rights movement, challenging students' perceptions about civil and human rights and interrogating the role of the United States in the human rights movement. Students were also introduced to basic methods in human rights practice ? including fact-finding, documentation, and advocacy ? and their limitations. Students ended their semester by contributing to some of the University Network's real-world . These projects included, for example, research for experts on the UN Subcommittee for the Prevention of and an investigation of human rights violations in factory farming and the "Big Ag" industry.

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