Human Rights Day is observed every year on December 10 — the day the United Nations General Assembly adopted, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The UDHR is a milestone document that proclaims the inalienable rights that everyone is entitled to as a human being – regardless of race, color, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Available in more than 500 languages, it is the most translated document in the world.

On Friday, December 11^th, the DEI Committee at CMBG3 hosted a virtual event in honor of Human Rights Day and our speakers discussed the recent military conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in which Russia and Turkey were also involved. While this conflict was very briefly reported on in the media, what was not reported on were the significant humanitarian issues that arose from the conflict, all of which were identified and brought to light by humanitarian watchdog organizations.  While our guest speakers used the Armenia conflict as the foundation for the day’s topics, the speakers provided a dialogue on several international and human rights law issues.

Guest Speakers

ANOUSH BAGHDASSARIAN (JD ‘22)

Anoush Baghdassarian is a J.D. Candidate at Harvard Law School. She has a Master’s in Human Rights Studies from Columbia University, and a Bachelor’s in Psychology and Genocide Studies from Claremont McKenna College. She is co-founder of the Rerooted Archive, documenting over 200 testimonies from Syrian-Armenian refugees who have fled Syria in the last ten years. She has a career focus on transitional justice and international criminal law, and some of her work experiences include interning as an advisor to the Armenian Permanent Mission to the U.N. and serving as an upcoming visiting professional at the International Criminal Court.

HAROUT EKMANIAN (LLM ‘18)

Harout Ekmanian is a New York attorney working in public international law at Alston & Bird. He graduated from Harvard Law School, LL.M. class of  ‘18, where he was also a research associate at the Program on International Law and Armed Conflict and an editor of the Harvard International Law Journal. He previously worked as an associate at Human Rights Watch. He was also a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights of Columbia University and an O’Donnell Global Studies Fellow at Whitman College. Harout has spoken to numerous groups, both nationally and internationally, on human rights, humanitarian and war crimes issues.