The Chair was involved in organising the seminar “Sexual Assault Among University Students: Parallels Between USA and UK/Ireland?” by Dr Bill Flack, along with INCORE, the Transitional Justice Institute (TJI) and UUSU. Sexual assault among students is an area that has received little attention in the UK and Ireland, although in the US has been growing in focus. According to Dr Flack, survey research in the USA and UK/Ireland indicates significant rates of sexual victimization among university students. This talk summarised the available research, focusing on the import roles of student activism and faculty/staff advocacy in recent developments in the USA, with implications for the same in the UK/Ireland.
William F. (“Bill”) Flack, Jr. is a US-UK Fulbright Scholar (Northern Ireland Governance and Public Policy) at INCORE at Magee campus and Psychology at Coleraine campus from September through December 2015. Bill is a critical clinical psychologist, Associate Professor of Psychology, and Senior Fellow in the Social Justice Residential College at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
mpunity Watch (IW), International Development Law Organization (IDLO), and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) organised an expert meeting entitled “Making Transitional Justice Work” from 25-27 November 2015 in The Hague. The meeting convened a highly qualified group of policy makers, practitioners and experts in the field of traditional justice to discuss and develop new ideas for effective and reinvigorated transitional justice policy in accordance with practical challenges. The meeting also focused on the practical guide on transitional justice to be used by the Dutch government and other policy-makers in the field. The Chair attended the meeting, participated and facilitated a session.
eeting focused on the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence latest report. The report focuses specifically on the issue of non-recurrence. The Special Rapporteur draws attention to different interventions that can impact of non-recurrence including the role of civil society, the spheres of culture and personal dispositions, as well as the role education reform, arts and culture, and trauma counselling. Professor Hamber focused his interventions and presentation on “Cultural Interventions in Divided Societies: Lessons from Northern Ireland”.
On returning from Washington DC, Professor Hamber spoke on 12 September 2015 at the Irish Association for Economic, Cultural and Social Relations, Stephen’s Green-Hibernian Club in Dublin on the topic of “Transforming Societies After Political Violence”. The lecture focused on the challenges of building peace in societies emerging from conflict and emphasised the importance of creating context-driven approaches to political and social trauma. The lecture also focused on how dealing with the past remains a key aspect of the Northern Ireland peace process that still needs to be grappled with.
