On Monday October 5, 2015, UWCHR held a conference on Access to Information as a Human Right. View conference recordings below. This fall, the University of Washington Center for Human Rights hosted a one-day conference, “Access to Information as a Human Right,” on October 5, 2015, at the UW School of Law. Grounded in the UWCHR’s partnerships

In November, 1981, during the height of the Salvadoran armed conflict, an estimated 1,200 soldiers invaded the rural northern province of Cabañas, El Salvador, to carry out a “cleansing operation.” Survivors of the invasion, however, tell a story of carnage, in which the armed forces directly targeted the unarmed civilian population, including the elderly and

(Español abajo) In recognition of the Day of the Disappeared Child in El Salvador on Sunday, March 29, UW Center for Human Rights’ Unfinished Sentences project  is proud to release two videos and a written report on two civil war-era massacres in which children were taken from their families by government forces and subsequently disappeared. In

CHR & LSJ Launch New Project Rethinking Punishment: Human Rights in an Age of Mass Incarceration The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, a reality that often escapes serious, widespread consideration. This new project works to enhance public understanding of the fiscal, social and moral costs of our unprecedented imprisonment boom.

February 19, 2015. A reflection by Nicole Einbinder, a student participant in the International Studies “Task Force” supporting the Salvadoran human rights organization Asociación Pro-Busqueda: “This whole quarter, I have focused on researching the La Quesera massacre. I dug through human rights documents and radio and newspaper clippings, tracked down important dates, and learned in general

Letter from the Director Five years already! Since the UW CHR’s founding in June 2009 we’ve been launched headlong into the process of institution-building. When June rolled around this year, I could hardly believe five years had already passed. Happily, the anniversary provided a welcome occasion to look back on the work we’ve accomplished, and

(An excerpt from our 2013-2014 Annual Report) By Angelina Godoy As Baltasar Garzón argues in the essay that opens this Annual Report, the need for justice in El Salvador remains urgent, despite the decades that have passed since the conclusion of the civil war. The urgency and importance of this work was brought home to us

(An excerpt from our 2013-2014 Annual Report) Editorial by Baltasar Garzón Just a few weeks before the newly-elected Salvadoran president, the FMLN’s Salvador Sánchez Cerén, takes office—and following a tumultuous electoral process in which the opposition party, ARENA, went so far as to demand the nullification of the electoral results when the Supreme Electoral Tribunal refused its