This event will feature guest speaker, Andreas E. Feldmann, Associate Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies and Political Science, University of Illinois-Chicago and past Lecturer in Human Rights at the University of Chicago.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015
12:15 - 2:00pm | Light lunch provided 
Kelly Hall, Room 114
5848 S University Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637

The presentation reflects on the existing security environment in Latin America and elaborates on the repercussions that this scenario is having for human rights in the region. Several countries, such as Haiti, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico, are enduring acute human rights crises characterized by a twin pattern of abuse: state and non-state. Contemporary patterns of abuse are qualitatively different than in the past: whereas in the 20th century most human rights crises derived from repressive policies undertaken by authoritarian states, nowadays they obey to a more complex dynamics derived from the abuses perpetrated by a plethory of Armed Non-State Actors (ANSAs) that have attained state-like attributes in some pockets of these states' territories. Another disturbing pattern is the collusion between state authorities and ANSAs resulting in egregious human rights abuses. The recent disappearance of 43 students in the Mexican state of Guerrero, in which state agents and cartels cooperated in the abduction, is a case in point.

About Andreas Feldmann
Andreas Feldmann is Associate Professor in the Latin American and Latino Studies Program and Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois-Chicago. His research specializes in International Relations with a focus on Latin America. Among the topics he investigates are human rights, population uprooting, political violence and terrorism, and international cooperation and development. Read Andreas's full biography here.

This event is organized by the Center for Latin American Studies and cosponsored by the Pozen Family Center for Human Rights.

This event is free and open to the public.

For more information, please contact Steven Schwartz.