WSD Handa Center for International Justice and Human Rights

Stanford University

The Handa Center situated at Stanford University equips the next generation of leaders with the knowledge and skills necessary to protect and promote human rights and dignity for all. Reflecting a deep commitment to international justice and the rule of law, the center collaborates with partners across Stanford University and beyond on innovative programs that foster critical inquiry in the classroom and in the world.

David Cohen is a leading expert in the fields of human rights, international law and transitional justice, as well as one of the world’s leading social and legal historians of ancient Greece. Cohen holds the WSD-HANDA Professorship in Human Rights and International Justice, is appointed in the Classics department at Stanford, and serves as the Faculty Director of the Center for Human Rights and International Justice.

As the WSD-HANDA Professor, Cohen has developed and taught a number of new and continuing Stanford courses recently, including HUMRTS 103: Transitional Justice, Human Rights, and International Criminal Tribunals; HUMRTS 114: Human Rights Practice and Challenges in Southeast Asia: Issues, fieldwork, career paths; and HUMRTS 120: Human Rights in an Age of Great Power Rivalry, War, and Political Transformation.  Outside the classroom, Professor Cohen’s research work and collaborations focus on contemporary tribunals, human trafficking, and transitional justice initiatives. For decades, he has been integrally involved in justice sector reform initiatives and tribunal monitoring programs in Indonesia, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Bangladesh, Rwanda and Cambodia. Recently, he traveled to Cambodia to moderate a legacy workshop organized by the ECCC focused on victim participation. The Extraordinary Chambers recently received a three-year residual mandate from the Royal Government of Cambodia and the United Nations, due to commence upon the conclusion of judicial proceedings before the ECCC. Recognizing the vital standing of victims of the Khmer Rouge regime in the work of the Extraordinary Chambers, the workshop aimed to extend to victims and related stakeholders the opportunity to come together at the workshop, to discuss and develop ideas on how the ECCC can include meaningful victim related initiatives as an integrated part of its residual work. The workshop was centered on the three distinctive yet interrelated themes of recognition, remembrance, and reconciliation, and moderated by Dr. Cohen.

Further recent activities in Indonesia include preparation to monitor resumption of Human Rights Court trials in partnership with the Indonesian Institute for an Independent Judiciary (LeIP). Dr. Cohen and Dian Tita Rositawati have mentored several Stanford undergraduate students each year working as interns with LeIP, and this summer and into 2023, they will focus on tracking active trials at the newly resumed Human Rights Courts in Indonesia. Regionally in ASEAN, Dr. Cohen and colleagues at the Center for Human Rights and International Justice have been pleased to continue a partnership with the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation, Stanford’s Center for Ocean Solutions, and the Indonesia Ocean Justice Initiative to address labor abuses in the tuna sector, where finding solutions for social and environmental sustainability is becoming increasingly urgent. The team recently grew to include technology partner Fifty Eight, working to develop a suite of digital tools that both enable companies to act on their commitments and serve as a mechanism for governments and civil society to increase transparency and accountability in the recruitment process, where some of the most common forms of labor abuses can take hold, including under-/non-payment of wages and failure to honor contract terms.

Learn more about the work at Center for International Justice and Human Rights