October 30, 2007
NEWSBRIEF
State awards $1.5 million to Center for Global Peace
AU’s Center for Global Peace has been awarded $1.5 million from the U.S. Department of State to continue its work on human rights in Iraq. The 18-month grant will continue the work begun by the center to help establish a human rights commission and enable it to work effectively in Iraq’s challenging circumstances.
Carole O’Leary, director of the Iraq Human Rights Commission Program, is optimistic the commission will be established by the end of this year. The center also has designed a capacity-building program to assist the commission when it launches its work.
The AU team has been working to build bridges among key human rights institutions in Iraq, including the human rights ministry and the parliamentary committee on human rights.
The center’s previous $900,000 grant enabled the team to conduct training and capacity building for Iraqi leaders in Amman, Jordan, which “gave them a psychological break from the violence,” O’Leary said. The center also has worked closely with key leaders on legislation to create a human rights commission and has designed a document on roles and responsibilities to ensure that the different institutions, such as the ministry of human rights and the parliament’s human rights committee, are clear on their roles and can avoid redundancy and overlap.
In addition to O’Leary, the Iraq Human Rights Commission Project team includes faculty members Julie Mertus, School of International Service (SIS); Mary Gray, College of Arts and Sciences; senior advisor and coprincipal investigator Abdul Aziz Said, SIS; Kathy Guernsey, adjunct faculty, SIS; Janet Lord, human rights expert and lawyer; Betty Sitka, Center for Global Peace; and project manager Chris Argyris, a graduate student at SIS.
