Dear ISA-HR Section members,

I am writing to introduce myself as the new chair, and the rest of the Executive Committee (ExComm), for the International Studies Association Human Rights Section (ISA-HR) for 2008-9. 

I would first, however, like to extend a sincere note of appreciation to Dr. Kurt Mills, our founder and outgoing chair, for the incredible amount of work he has done in initiating the section, and promoting our rapid growth in membership and activities.  I can only hope to carry on his good work.

I would like now to introduce you all to your new and continuing members of the HR-ISA section ExComm:

Chair: Chandra Lekha Sriram

Vice-Chair: Sylvia Maier

Outgoing Chair: Kurt Mills

Secretary: Tristan Anne Borer

2009 Elections Officer: Eric Leonard

2009 Program Co-chair: Amy Ross

At-large members: Clair Apodaca, Bethany Barratt, Amy Ross and Daniel Whelan

You will all have seen the recent emails to the membership regarding nominations for two best paper awards: graduate student and faculty/professional.  I strongly encourage you to self-nominate, and nominate others.  Procedures are available on our website and posted through H-Human Rights.

This brings me to our web presence.  Kurt has set up and will continue to maintain the HR-ISA website, at http://web.mac.com/vicfalls/HR-ISA/HR-ISA.html, which is also linked from the ISA site.  He will also, as co-editor with Melissa Labonte continue to maintain H-Human Rights, a listserv sponsored by the section providing announcements of important events, serving s a clearinghouse for human rights and human rights-related teaching queries, and book reviews. You can subscribe to H-Human Rights and learn more about it at: http://www.h-net.org/~hrights/.

I would encourage you all to think about submitting organized panels for ISA-2009, and particularly to think about co-sponsorship with other sections and the convention theme.  This will enable us to have more panels and further expand our presence in ISA. I would also encourage members to avail themselves of the Working Groups being organized for ISA 2009 by Carolyn Shaw, as one of them will follow a human rights theme.  She has advertised this widely, but details are available from her on carolyn.shaw@wichita.edu.

We are moving forward with the development of a Scholars at Risk/Academic Freedom policy for the section and to encourage the wider membership to adopt, under the leadership of Alison Brysk.  We are also initiating closer links with Human Rights-Human Welfare, with the collaboration of Joel Pruce.  Further details to come.

For those of you who are not yet members, let me take the opportunity to encourage you to join.  You will have the opportunity to support and shape a rapidly developing new section, and promote further scholarship in the field.

As ever, if you have questions or suggestions, please do send them to me or an appropriate member of the ExComm.

Sincerely,

Professor Chandra Lekha Sriram
Chair, Human Rights-ISA