Jesse Lava was a Summer Fellow with the Hauser Center’s Justice & Human Rights Domain and is a Masters in Public Policy student at the Harvard Kennedy School. This past summer Jesse conducted research and organizing in Vieques, Puerto Rico, with the faith-based NGO, the American Values Network. The executive summary of his report is published below as an excerpt, while the full report can be downloaded here in both English and Spanish in DOC format.

Bob Rabin is a tough guy to miss in Vieques. He’s only 5’10ish, but with his unruly curly hair, some of the biggest eyebrows I’ve ever seen, and a swagger befitting a legendary community activist, his presence fills a room. He serves as director of the local museum on this 9200-person island that serves as a municipality of Puerto Rico. Every day when Bob drives home from work, people wave to him from the streets, sometimes holding a fist in the air to honor Bob’s status as one of the island’s preeminent rabble-rousers…

The main body that works on advancing justice and human rights, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (a governmental watch-dog) is overwhelmed by requests and inquiries into the numerous human rights violations that occur daily. These include brutality and torture by police and other armed groups against people, lack of fair trials and corruption in the judicial system and constitutional violations of peoples’ rights by the government.

Next week the world community will gather in Kampala Uganda for the first-ever Review Conference of the Rome Statute. During this two-week stocktacking exercise, key actors in international relations - high-ranking government officials, court leaders, non-state actors, United Nations representatives, and civil society leaders - will examine the ICC’s 12-year effort to bring justice to communities ravaged by mass atrocities. In this five-minute video, Lloyd Axworthy, Former Minister of Canada highlights complex challenges in this “new era” of international relations…

Is there a system of international criminal justice, with the International Criminal Court now at its center? What might be its component parts, and how do these many institutions and actors best align their work? In this five-minute video, leaders from across the field discuss and debate the role of police organizations, NGOs, regional courts and the ICC within this dynamic infrastructure of actors who are working to advance complementary goals.

Are peace and justice being achieved together in Colombia? In this 6-minute video, Colombia’s senior government officials, civil society leaders, and scholars debate that question. Gustavo Gallón, Ivan Cepeda and Eduardo Montealegre argue over Colombia’s “Peace & Justice” law, and if it is being used as an amnesty to shield those who have committed serious crimes. General Óscar Naranjo, Colombia’s National Police Director and ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo consider whether the prosecutor’s preliminary examination is helping strengthen domestic justice.

Today the International Criminal Court is examining allegations of grave crimes in Georgia, Colombia, Afghanistan, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire and Gaza. These “preliminary examinations” are further raising the stakes in these already high-stakes areas of conflict. In this four-minute video, leading figures in international criminal justice discuss the role of the ICC’s newly public examinations. Ken Roth, CEO of Human Rights Watch, applauds them as a useful “prod” for domestic justice as well as a way of rebutting complaints that the ICC is too focused on Africa. ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo describes his authority to conduct these inquiries…

Would international justice be advanced or thwarted if an African Regional Court was given jurisdiction to try individuals for war crimes and crimes against humanity? Is it part of international justice to provide training and other assistance to domestic police, prosecutors, and defense lawyers as well as judges, or is this beyond the scope of the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court? In this six-minute video, leading figures in international justice debate these questions and others under the rubric of “positive complementarity,” the principle that the ICC should complement, rather than displace, domestic justice systems.

This six-minute micro-documentary explores the tensions between humanitarian NGOs and advocates for international justice. The president of Save the Children describes his organization’s explusion from Sudan by President Bashir after the ICC charged Bashir with crimes against humanity in March 2009. The ICC Prosecutor argues that President Bashir expelled these groups, not because of any real cooperation between the NGOs and his office, but to pressure the international community. The president of Human Rights Watch calls for a “parallel partnership” between humanitarian NGOs and the ICC to prevent…

This week, the judges of the ICC authorized a formal investigation of Kenya’s post-election violence, raising the prospect that political leaders from the East African nation might face trial at the court. The Prosecutor asked judges last November to approve an investigation into the 2007-08 violence and whether Kenyan political leaders organized and financed attacks against civilians. In this 5-minute mini-documentary, leading figures in the field of international justice discuss the possibility of an ICC case in Kenya in light of the controversy over the fact that all of the ICC’s current cases are also in Africa.