Center for Economic and Social Rights - About Us

Research and Fact-Finding

Wed, 13 May 2009 22:52:15 -0400

Socio-economic conditions are often difficult to assess due to a lack of reliable data on the complex and multiple causes of poverty. Governments and other actors exacerbate this problem by justifying and obscuring the negative impacts of deliberate development policies. As a result, poverty is often perceived as a natural or inevitable phenomenon rather than historical aspect of power dynamics and economic inequality that results in human rights abuse.

Advocacy

Tue, 13 May 2008 21:57:13 -0400

To challenge the deep-rooted causes of economic and social injustice, advocacy efforts must address both sides of the power divide: elite policy-makers on the one hand and disenfranchised populations on the other. This means taking human rights into the halls of power to demand accountability as well as into communities to mobilize people. Under this dual strategy, CESR’s work incorporates traditional human rights methods of "shaming" governments through publicity, lobbying, and legal procedures, as well as activist tactics such as grassroots mobilization and education campaigns. Ultimately, our goal is to engage in a constructive dialogue with all parties to bring about change.

Collaboration

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 11:25:51 -0400

The gap between international and local activism must be overcome through working partnerships that bridge across national borders and disciplines in all phases of a project. While often difficult and time-consuming, such collaboration is nevertheless essential to confront the global and local forces that keep so many people around the world poor and disenfranchised.

Education

Thu, 29 Jun 2006 11:56:25 -0400

The aim of CESR’s education work is to encourage an "engaged" learning process through concrete fieldwork and advocacy efforts. Long-term improvement in living conditions depends upon affected communities playing a direct role in decisions that impact their well-being. Human rights provide a mechanism for these communities to participate in and demand social change. Education is a critical first step in this process of rights-claiming.

Prominent Human Rights Advocates and Academics Join CESR's Board

Thu, 01 Dec 2005 14:18:02 -0500

Prominent Human Rights Advocates and Academics Join CESR's Board; Changes Part of New Strategic Direction to Tackle Challenge of Monitoring Economic and Social Rights Worldwide

As part of a strategic re-visioning process to strengthen its leadership and programs, the Chair of the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), Philip Alston, and the organization’s new Executive Director, Eitan Felner, announce the appointment of Victor Abramovich, Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, José María Maravall and Richard Goldstone to the Board of Directors.

New Executive Director and New Directions for the Center for Economic and Social Rights

Wed, 10 Nov 2004 09:22:49 -0500

Eitan Felner has been appointed as Executive Director of the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR). For well over a decade the Center has been at the forefront of efforts to promote this indispensable part of the human rights agenda. “Felner is the ideal person to lead CESR into the next phase of its work” according to NYU Law Professor Philip Alston who chairs the Board of CESR. “He has a superb track record in the human rights field, and brings a wealth of experience both from his native Argentina and from his work at the forefront of the struggle to protect human rights in Israel/Palestine. No one could be better placed to build on the solid foundations created by his predecessors Sarah Zaidi and Roger Normand”, said Alston.

CESR Launches New Website

Wed, 18 Aug 2004 12:25:19 -0400

New York, August 18 2004 -- The Center for Economic and Social Rights announces the launch of its redesigned website.

CESR and Networks

Mon, 02 Aug 2004 12:51:39 -0400

CESR participates in building networks to support collaboration and information sharing among social justice and human rights groups across the country and around the world. Some of our work with specific networks is outlined below.

International Network for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net)

Wed, 28 Jul 2004 11:40:43 -0400

For the past decade, economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) have been an important and growing frontier at the intersection of human rights, development and social activism. In 1998, CESR in collaboration with the Centre for Equality Rights and Accommodation and the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions hosted a set of meetings in Woodstock, New York and Algonquin, Canada. Activists present at the meeting felt that ESCR held a great promise as an overarching framework capable of:

Website Credits

Fri, 23 Jul 2004 10:14:09 -0400

This website was developed in 2004 thanks to a grant by the Joyce Mertz Gilmore Foundation. Website content was developed by by Jean Carmalt, Roger Normand, Jacob Park, and Sarah Zaidi. John Emerson designed the website. The illustrations included in the "About Rights" pages were drawn by Shahbano Aliani, and photographs were provided by Jason Florio, Sari Goodfriend, Rober Huber, Andy Ryan, Sarah Zaidi, the United Nations Photo Collection, and the World Health Organization Photo Collection.

Media

Thu, 22 Jul 2004 15:13:06 -0400

Articles and Interviews by CESR

Articles about CESR

Staff and Board

Wed, 30 Jun 2004 12:07:25 -0400

Staff

Eitan Felner joined CESR as Executive Director in 2004. He was previously Executive Director of B'Tselem, the leading Israeli organization protecting and promoting human rights in the Occupied Territories. Prior to that, he was a researcher at B'Tselem, where he broke new ground in various areas of research and especially in relation to advocacy on economic and social rights. More recently he worked at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, first as a visiting fellow and then as a research consultant. He also served as Chairperson of the Israeli Section of Amnesty International. Felner holds a Masters degree in International Human Rights Law from Oxford University.

Program

Eitan Felner, Executive Director
efelner@cesr.org

Ignacio Saiz, Research Director
isaiz@cesr.org
Ignacio Saiz is Research Director of the Centre for Economic and Social Rights (CESR). Prior to joining CESR, he was Director of Policy at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International, where his responsibilities included overseeing the development of Amnesty's research, campaigning and advocacy on economic, social and cultural rights. Previous roles at Amnesty International have included Deputy Director of the Americas Program, Policy Coordinator and Central America Researcher. He has also worked as a freelance human rights consultant for several other organizations in areas relating to sexuality and human rights, the prevention of torture and post-conflict accountability. Ignacio holds an LLM in International Human Rights Law with distinction from the University of Essex and a Batchelor of Arts degree in French, Spanish and Latin American literature from the University of Cambridge.

Sally-Anne Way, Senior Researcher
saway@cesr.org
Sally-Anne Way joined the CESR as Senior Researcher in October 2007. Before joining the Centre, she worked as Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and as Research Associate at the Graduate Institute of Development Studies of the University of Geneva, where she taught courses on economic, social and cultural rights and on human rights and development. She has also served as a consultant to various UN agencies, including the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the International Organization for Migration. She has also held posts at the Institute of Development Studies in Sussex and at the Bank of England, the UK central bank. She holds degrees from the University of Durham and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She speaks English, French and Spanish.

Ama Marston, Consultant
amarston@cesr.org
Ama Marston joined CESR in February of 2007 as a consultant on research, communications and development. Prior to joining CESR she worked with Amnesty International's Business and Human Rights program and Realizing Rights, founded by Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on gender, migration and trade. She has done research, advocacy and capacity-building work in the US, Latin America, Asia and Africa on issues ranging from labor rights to gender issues, indigenous people's rights and sustainable livelihoods. Her previous experience includes work with UNDP, the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, and CDES, CESR's sister organization in Ecuador. She holds a Masters of International Affairs from Columbia University and a BA from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Jeremy Perelman, Researcher
jperelman@cesr.org
Jeremy Perelman joined CESR as a researcher in July 2006. A member of the Paris bar, he practiced in a corporate law firm before engaging in a variety of human rights, access to justice and development projects in Costa Rica, South Africa and Ghana. He is currently a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School, focusing his research on socio-economic rights advocacy and development in sub-Saharan Africa. He has been working since 2002 on a right to health campaign in Ghana, a joint project between Harvard, M.I.T., Stanford and a local human rights NGO. Jeremy holds law and international affairs degrees from Paris-1 Sorbonne, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and Stanford Law School.

Alexander Villanueva Gordon, Program Associate
agordon@cesr.org
Alexander Villanueva Gordon joined CESR as a program associate in February 2006. He is assistant director in the Interfaculty Initiative in Health Policy at Harvard University, and was previously a program manager at the Harvard School of Public Health. He studied international economic relations and quantitative economic history at Columbia and Oxford respectively.

Finance and Administration

Annie Fairchild, Financial Administrator
afairchild@cesr.org
Annie Fairchild is a native of Hong Kong. She received her M.A. & B.S. from the State University of New York. After devoting many years to dance, she became an administrator at the Juilliard School of Music. She also has experience in the business sector as an office manager and co-owned an importing business before joining the staff of CESR in June 2004.

Constanza Niell, Office Manager, Madrid
cniell@cesr.org
Constanza Niell joined CESR in October, 2007. She was born in Uruguay and raised in Argentina. She has traveled around the world starting at the age of 17 when she went to Norway as an exchange student. She worked as an American Airlines flight attendant for eight years. In 1999 she moved to California to study Psychology at the University of California at San Diego, while gaining experience in human resources and social services with Latino women. She has lived in Spain since 2005 where she initially worked as an Executive Assistant and later on co-owned an entertainment and cultural event production company.

CESR Board of Directors

Victor Abramovich (Argentina)
Commissioner, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
Victor Abramovich is a leading expert in the field of Economic and Social Rights in Latin America. He is Commissioner for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States (OAS) and newly-appointed Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women. He is the former Executive Director of CELS, the main human rights organization in Argentina (2001 to 2005). He has also served as Board member of CEJIL and of Ecuador's Center for Economic and Social Rights (CDES). Furthermore, he has worked as consultant for the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights (IIHR) as well as the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), contributing to a number of publications on economic and social rights. Abramovich received his LLM from American University, where he now participates as visiting professor.

Philip Alston (Australia)
Chairperson
Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
Philip Alston served as the Chair of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1991-1998). He currently teaches at the New York University Law School. Alston has published extensively on economic, social, and cultural rights. He has an LL.B. (Hons.), B. Comm., and LL.M. from the University of Melbourne; LL.M. and J.S.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Linda Cassano (United States)
Treasurer
Chief Compliance Officer, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Commonwealth Australia Securities LLC

Linda Cassano is a securities regulatory lawyer with more than twenty years of experience in financial services. She is Chief Compliance Officer at commonwealth Bank of Australia and Commonwealth Australia Securities LLC. She has worked as a consultant, compliance expert and general counsel and has held numerous leadership positions within financial institutions such as Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Securities, Inc., Commerzbank Capital Markets and Abbey National Securities Inc. and Abbey National Treasury Services, U.S. Prior to this, she spent 6 years in government service working with United States Securities & Exchange Commission and was seconded in 1983 to the U.S. Attorney, Southern District of New York, as a Special Assistant United States Attorney. She has an LLM from New York University, a JD from New York Law School, and a BA from Manhattanville College in Political Science, and International Studies.

Sakiko Fukuda-Parr (Japan)
Visiting Professor, Graduate Program in International Affairs at the New School, New York

Sakiko Fukuda-Parr is currently a Visiting Professor at the Graduate Program in International Affairs at the New School in New York. Prior to that, she was a Research Fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. From 1995 to 2004, she was director of UNDP's Human Development Reports. She has written and spoken widely on human rights as an essential aspect of development. She is founding editor of the Journal of Human Development. Prior to that, she held a number of positions in UNDP and the World Bank with management and technical responsibilities. Sakiko Fukuda-Parr has a BA from the University of Cambridge, and Master's degrees from the University of Sussex and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She is a Japanese national and speaks Japanese, English and French.

Richard Goldstone (South Africa)
Richard J Goldstone was a Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa (1994-2003). He also served as the first Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (1994-1996). He is presently the co-chairperson of the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association and a member of the committee, chaired by Paul A Volcker, appointed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to investigate allegations regarding the Iraq Oil for Food Program. In addition to being on the Board of CESR, Judge Goldstone is on the Boards of Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights and the Institute for Justice in Transition.

Chris Jochnick (United States)
Director, Private Sector Engagement, Oxfam America
Chris Jochnick is the Director of Private Sector Engagement for the international NGO, Oxfam America and teaches a seminar on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He has worked for many years in the field of human rights and is the co-founder and a director of the Ecuador-based, Centro de Derechos Economicos y Sociales (CDES) and the co-founder of the Center for Economic and Social Rights. He also spent five years in the private sector as an attorney for the Wall Street law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. He was the Editor in Chief of the Harvard Human Rights Journal and a MacArthur Foundation Research and Writing Fellow. He has authored many publications on human rights and development.

Jose Maria Maravall (Spain)
Academic Director of the Center for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, Juan March Institute

Jose Maria Maravall was the Spanish Minster of Education and Science between 1982 and 1988 and is currently a member of the Research Council of the European University Institute, Florence. He is the Academic Director of the Center for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, Juan March Institute, Professor of Sociology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Honorary Fellow of St. Antony's College, Oxford, and Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. Maravall holds doctorates from the universities of Madrid and Oxford as well as a D.Litt (Hons.) from the University of Warwick.

Alicia Ely Yamin (United States)
Director of Research and Investigations, Physicians for Human Rights
Petrie-Flom Fellow on Global Health & Human Rights, Harvard School of Public Health

Alicia Ely Yamin, is Director of Research and Investigations at Physicians for Human Rights and an Instructor at the Harvard School of Public Health. She has conducted documentation and advocacy with human rights NGOs in Latin America and the United States for over 15 years and has published several books and dozens of articles on health and human rights in both English and Spanish. In the United States, Yamin is on the Boards of the Center for Economic and Social Rights and Mental Disability Rights International, as well as on the advisory board of the Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health. In Peru, she is on the advisory boards of the Program on Human Rights and Health of the Asociación pro Derechos Humanos (APRODEH) and the Health and Human Rights Program at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, as well as MINGAPeru. She is on the editorial review boards of the Human Rights Quarterly (US) and the Revista Iberoamericana de Derechos Humanos (Mexico). Yamin received her JD from Harvard Law School (1991) and her MPH from Harvard School of Public Health (1996).

Centro de Derechos Economicos y Sociales, Ecuador
CDES General Email: admin@cdes.org.ec
CDES Web Page: www.cdes.org.ec
TeleFax:
(593-2) 563-517
(593-2) 529-125
(593-2) 560-449
Tele:
(593-2) 526-789.

History

Tue, 29 Jun 2004 12:56:00 -0400

Some brief highlights of CESR’s past work

Established in 1993 by recent graduate students (two lawyers and a scientist) from Harvard University, CESR has gone through several evolutionary phases during its ten-plus years, in response both to organizational imperatives and to developments in the larger field.

During the initial phase from 1993-96, the founders' overriding concern was to undertake comprehensive research and advocacy projects designed to demonstrate the viability and effectiveness of an economic and social rights practice. At the time, there were very few precedents and models, in part because of legal and methodological misconceptions that developed within the human rights field during the polarizing atmosphere of the Cold War. We tackled this on two fronts. First, we undertook direct project work starting with a project on health and environment in Ecuador. Second, CESR convened a set of discussions and workshops with human rights, development, and social justice groups aimed at challenging the conceptual framework that viewed economic and social rights as difficult and downright impossible.

In this initial phase, CESR was able to contribute to a fundamental rethinking in the human rights community about the need to return to the interdependent vision of all human rights established in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

From 1997-2000, CESR consolidated its project work within regionally-based projects in Latin America, the Middle East, and the United States. We established offices in Latin America which after a few years emerged as a leading voice on economic and social rights in the region. Our sister organization based in Quito, the Centro de Derechos Economicos y Sociales, is now independently established with local staff and an international board. Our effort to establish a similar CESR office in Gaza was eventually abandoned as it became difficult to obtain necessary legal permits. We worked with local human rights activists to develop programs in economic and social rights and assisted in establishing a women's rights organization, Mashraqiyat.