In 1978, Caroline Sparks stumbled upon Adelaide Johnson's suffragist statue known as The Portrait Monument to Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. That chance encounter in the Crypt of the U.S. Capitol awakened a resolve in Sparks to move the Statue from the obscurity of the Crypt and into the light of the U.S. Rotunda, the original and more visible of Johnson's statue. Almost 20 years later after ...

Philosopher, poet, advocate of non-violence and advocate for democracy, Ham Sok Hon (1901-1989) was one of the most important figures in South Korea's peace and democracy movement. In this show, we are honored to be joined by Dr. Song Chong Lee, who recently published "Ham Sok Hon's Ssial Cosmopolitan Vision" (Lexington Books 2020) in which he argues that the philosophy of Ham Sok Hon can inform contemporary disc...

March 1st is a sacred day in Korea as it marks the moment when, in 1919, citizens throughout the peninsula organized a widespread non-violent and democratic uprising against their colonizers, imperial Japan. Long before the division of the country into "North" and "South," citizens from Pyonyang to Seoul to Cheonan, participated in the March 1st Movement. In this show, which marks the 102nd anniversary of the Mar...

One hundred years ago today, an important monument to the women's equality movement was unveiled in the U.S. Capitol. On February 15, 1921, Susan B. Anthony's 101st birthday, the suffrage statue titled "Portrait Monument to Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton" was unveiled in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in a ceremony of great beauty and dignity. 100 years later, on the centenary of this ...

Frederik Heffermehl is an international lawyer, peace activist and author of “The Nobel Peace Prize: What Nobel Really Wanted” (2010 Praeger). Former Vice President of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA), Heffermehl joins us as we continue to reflect on the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which entered into force on 1/22/2021. We also discuss Heffermehl’s work on the Nobel Peace ...

January 22, 2021 marks the day when the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) enters into force. To help usher in this historic moment, we are joined by Anti-nuclear activist Vanda Prošková of the Czech Republic, co-convener of Youth Fusion, a global network that engages and educates young people regarding the nuclear threat. In this show, we discuss not only the spirit and purpose of the Treaty found in its preambl...

January 22, 2021 marks the day when the historic Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons enters into force. To help usher in this historic moment, we are joined by Anti-nuclear youth activist Vanda Prošková of the Czech Republic, and co-convener of Youth Fusion - a global anti-nuclear network that engages and educates youth about the nuclear threat. Learn how young people are organizing around the nuclear issue through netw...

We begin our 2021 series with special guest Ms. Vanda Proskova – a member of global civil society and Vice chair of the Prague based NGO The Prague Vision Institute for Sustainable Security which advocates for policies that foster international peace and human security. Ms. Proskova and PragueVision have been hard at work in moving us closer to the more humane world that Bertha von Suttner envisioned. This task involves an appr...

Article 33 of the United Nations Charter found in a section (Chapter VI) titled “Pacific Settlement of Disputes”, enumerates a number of non-violent means by which to secure international peace: among them "arbitration" and "judicial settlement." But what is "arbitration" and how does it differ from "judicial settlement"? In this final show of 2020, we welcome special guest Steven van Hoogstraten...

On this Human Rights Day, we focus on some of the epistemic Human Rights and Duties specifically to Duty to Remember, the Right to Know and the Right to Truth. Before the International Human Rights Community began articulating the contours of these epistemic human rights, Evelyn Grubb (1931-2005), in her capacity as the national coordinator for the National League of POW/MIA families, petitioned the Secretary General of the Unite...

We continue our series on the Duty to Remember by once again welcoming special guest, Dr. Jennie Jin, a forensic anthropologist who works for the DPAA (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency). Last week, in Part 1 of this interview, Dr. Jin talked about her work as leader of the Korean War Identification Project of the DPAA. She discussed the circumstances surrounding the recent identification of PFC John Shelemba of Hamtramck, Michig...

In honor of Veterans Day, we continue our series on the Duty to Remember by welcoming special guest, Dr. Jennie Jin, a forensic anthropologist who works for the DPAA (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency). Dr. Jin leads to the Korean War Identification Project of the DPAA. Under her leadership, hundreds of missing US service members who fought in the Korean War have been identified. In this special episode, Dr. Jin discusses her wor...

The very first article of the American Journal of International Law, page 1, volume 1 issue 1 is titled “The Need of Popular Understanding of International Law.” Written by Elihu Root and published in 1907, the article lays out the case for why basic understanding of International Law is necessary for world in which democracy is becoming the norm and in which international peace-through-law is the goal. Elihu Root won the Nobel ...

Opened for signature in 2017, the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) recently reached an historic milestone when Honduras became the 50th country to ratify the Multilateral Treaty that prohibits its signatures from developing, using and threatening to use nuclear weapons. In effect, the Treaty “bans” its signatory states from possessing nuclear weapons. But what about those states which possess massive nuclear a...

This show continues our series connecting the Duty to Remember and the Ethics of Memory to the issue of Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA). We begin this show with a photo of Wilmer Newlin “Newk” Grubb, an American Pilot who was shot down in North Vietnam in 1966 and died shortly after becoming a POW. Clearly alive in the photo (taken in 1966), and being tended to by a nurse, the photo was promoted by the Democratic Re...

This show continues our series devoted connecting the Duty to Remember and the Ethics of Memory to the issue of Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA). Joining us is the talented team behind "Fruits of Peace" a 2019 documentary film that focuses on the reconciliatory journey of Du Pham, a Vietnamese National, who fought for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) during the Vietnam War. Du belongs to th...

In his book “The Ethics of Memory”(Harvard 2004) philosopher Avishai Margalit argues that although we have a duty to remember others, the nature of those duties shifts depending on our specific relationship to “the other”. We have a duty to remember friends and family, but that duty is weaker and even non-existent if the other is a stranger. In today’s show, we use the issue of Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) to ref...