On March 25, Professor Belinda Cooper gave a talk on domestic violence and human rights to the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission in a Zoom event organized by the SEC’s Women’s Committee in honor of Women’s History Month.
Prof. Srdja Popovic was awarded the “Brown Medal For Democracy” by Penn State University McCourtney Insitute for democracy. As a part of award, Prof. Popovic published a book in conjunction Prof. Sophia McClennen named “Pranksters vs Autocrats, how dilemma actions help boost nonviolent movements” which is ranked among top 10 free kindle books on democracy and human rights on Amazon” and participated in Penn State zoom panel on March 23rd.
Professor Mary Beth Altier published a lengthy report, “Violent Extremist Disengagement and Reintegration: Lessons from Over 30 Years of DDR” with The RESOLVE Network at the United States Institute of Peace. The report summarizes findings from over 30 years of research and 300 sources on ex-combatant disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration to inform policy and practice surrounding the reintegration of violent extremists across a range of contexts. She discusses the application of the research to the tens of thousands of Islamic State detainees in a recent Lawfare post.
Dr. Christian Busch, Director of the CGA Global Economy Concentration, published a new paper in the leading entrepreneurship journal Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, entitled, “Planned Luck: How Incubators Can Facilitate Serendipity for Nascent Entrepreneurs Through Fostering Network Embeddedness.” The study found that serendipity (“unexpected good luck”) can be cultivated by support organizations such as enterprise incubators and government programs.
The paper shows how entrepreneurs can benefit from a support structure that makes it more likely that “positive coincidences” occur. The researchers (co-author: Harry Barkema, LSE) found that given that entrepreneurs typically face high uncertainty and goal ambiguity, often the resources and contacts needed for achieving the respective goal are unknown in advance – thus, an effective way to support entrepreneurs is to facilitate a conducive environment that allows for cultivating serendipity. The researchers analyze practices such as fostering an openness to the unexpected and developing adaptive partnerships, showing how conditions can be created that catalyze “coincidence” into opportunity – and thus help create “smart luck”.
On March 1, Professor Jennifer Trahan had a book launch event for her book Existing Legal Limits to Security Council Veto Power in the Face of Atrocity Crimes (Cambridge U Press 2020) through the Jindal Global Law School, in India (remotely). And on March 10, she had a book launch (also remotely), where she spoke to the University of Vienna School of Law’s faculty and members of the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
On Mach 12, she then participated in a panel entitled “The Syrian Civil War: 10 years later,” organized by Syracuse University College of Law and featuring Sierra Leone Special Court Prosecutor David Crane, Irwin Cotler (former Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of Canada), and Tom Sheehey (former Staff Director of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs).
Her speech from the 2020 annual meeting of the American Society of International Law was also published in the volume “The Proceedings” of the American Society of International Law.