Dr. Jean Geran is a human rights practitioner with more than 20 years of experience in international affairs, policy formulation and implementation, and impact analysis. She has a Ph.D. in Development Studies from the UW-Madison and has spent the better part of the past twenty years serving in a variety of capacities in the State Department: as a Foreign Affairs office responsible for implementing democracy and human rights policies, as an advisor on United Nations reform, and as a human rights and human trafficking policy planner in the Office of the Secretary of State. She has been Director for Human Rights in the National Security Council and an adjunct professor in the Elliot School of Public Affairs at George Washington University. She served for two years as a Senior Fellow at the Legatum Institute in London, and in 2010 founded Each Inc., a non-profit corporation developing technology solutions to facilitate child protections work globally. She continues with Each Inc., as president. Jean Geran has had overseas postings and positions in Thailand, Laos, Zambia, Central America, Kuwait, Iraq, and England, and is a leading expert and practitioner in human rights policy making, especially around issues of human trafficking.
The course is structured around advocacy approaches and tools used by a range of actors involved in promoting human rights in East and Southeast Asia. Students will become familiar with basic human rights frameworks, key thematic and emerging issues in Asian human rights, points of leverage, and how various advocacy tools can be effectively applied to specific human rights situations in specific countries. Throughout the course, students will be encouraged to think creatively about the link between human rights and other global issues such as trade, security, law-enforcement, conflict, and development so that these links can inform and improve any human rights advocacy efforts. The course is taught at 395 Van Hise Hall on Wednesdays and Fridays at 2:30-3:45 pm.