2017 Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights

Recommended by the instructor Erica MacDonald in the Humanity House, in Thursday, November 2rd, 2017, I attended the award ceremony of the 2017 Thomas J. Dodd Prize in the Konover Auditorium. The winner of the prize is a world renowned human rights organization: Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). The Thomas J. Dodd prize in International Justice and Human Right is awarded biennially by the University of Connecticut to “an individual or group who has made a significant contribution to the advancement of international justice and human rights around the world” (introduction Letter for the Ceremony). The award commemorates “the distinguished career in public service of Thomas J.Dodd who served as Executive Trial Counsel at the Nuremberg Trials, as U.S. Representative from 1953 to 1957, and as Connecticut Senator from 1959 to 1971.”(Dood Prize) Since the award began in 2003, PHR has been the eighth recipient of the prize while past recipients included President Bill Clinton, former Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair (Uconn Today).

The picture is from the website of Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. https://thedoddcenter.uconn.edu/2017-dodd-prize/

As a human rights organization, PHR brought doctors, scientists and other health professionals onto the frontlines of human rights protection and promotion. Since 1986, it has used medicine and science to document and call attention to mass atrocities and severe human rights violations. Their work has contributed to convictions for war crimes, torture and extrajudicial killings and has helped to establish key professional standards for documenting abuses and new international legal norms for protecting human rights, as stated on the official website of the PHR. Now, the PHR is striving to document attacks on medical personnel and facilities in Syria.

In the ceremony, the executive director of the PHR, Donna McKay, had a speech introducing their works and accomplishments around the world and advocating people to focus on issues of human rights. One thing impressed me most in her talk is PHR’s investigations of the health impact of landmines in Cambodia. The result of researches is startling: one in 256 Cambodians had lost a limb due to a landmine as documented by Dr. Jim Kobe in 1992. In order to cease this human right crisis, PHR cofounded the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, an nongovenment orgnization working for a world free of landmines It also mobilized the health community’s engagement and participated meetings that lead to the international Mine Ban Treaty. Attributed to its work with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, PHR shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.

Director McKay showed us photographs of Cambodian children who lost their limbs because of landmines buried after wars and armed conflicts. She stated that besides Cambodia, in many societies, children are responsible for tending livestock and often reach remote areas, which places them at great risk of encountering landmines. In addition, caused by poverty, the injured children are usually unable to accept enough therapies and abandoned by their societies due to their disabilities(Impact of Landmine). I also found the fact that until 1997, there were 100 million un-detonated antipersonnel mines still remain buried in 60 countries. Each year 25,000 people are injured( Nobel Prize). These number striked me. Before attending the ceremony, I had no idea the sufferings brought by landmines to these people in poor areas including children. It reminds me that while we, as UConn students, have our peaceful lives in a good society, Human Rights crisis keeps happening in the world. These disasters and tragics should not be ignored and they ought to be ceased. Although most of us do not have the influences and capabilities like physicians in PHR, we can also contribute our efforts by paying more attention to the Human Rights issues and giving encouragements and praises to the Human Rights protectors around us.