Human rights activist to deliver Harder lecture March 22

Julianne Cartwright Traylor, a 1968 Skidmore College graduate, will return to the campus Thursday, March 22, to present the College's 28 ^th annual F. William Harder Lecture, titled "Perspectives on Human Rights and Corporate Accountability." 

Free and open to the public, the talk will begin at 5:15 p.m. in Gannett Auditorium, Palamountain Hall. The public is welcome.

Traylor noted that corporations play a powerful role in the world today and, as a result, have an enormous impact on the human rights of individuals and communities. Holding corporations accountable for their operations has presented human rights activists with new challenges as they have worked to promote respect for and to protect human rights principles, including advocating for effective redress when they are violated. She will offer some perspectives on corporate accountability issues based on her long career in international human rights on the local, national and international levels in many different arenas.

Traylor is a founding member and current president of the board of directors of Human Rights Advocates (HRA), the international human rights non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting and protecting international human rights in the United States and abroad. HRA has consultative status at the United Nations. Traylor is one of its permanent accredited representatives to the UN and in this role has led its delegations to many UN-sponsored international conferences and meetings. HRA participates in the work of various United Nations human rights bodies such as its Commission on the Status of Women and its Human Rights Council, and several of its treaty bodies such as its Human Rights Committee.

Founded in 1978 in Berkeley, Calif., HRA addresses the panoply of human rights issues, including corporate accountability, women's rights, juvenile sentencing, right to food and water, trafficking of women and children, and migrant worker rights.

Traylor also is currently the associate director of International Programs at the University of San Francisco School of Law.

As a long-time member of Amnesty International USA, she was the first African-American woman to chair the board of directors of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.2 million supporters, activists, and volunteers in more than 150 countries. She continues to co-chair its Ginetta Sagan Fund Committee, which bestows an annual award of $10,000 to recognize and assist a woman doing effective work to protect the dignity, liberties, and lives of women and children in crisis regions around the world where abuse of human rights is widespread.

Among her other human rights activities, she is also the convener of the Human Rights Task Force of the California Women's Agenda, a statewide action alliance of more than 600 organizations working to implement the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and is a member of the International Advisory Council of the Women's Intercultural Network.

After receiving her B.A. in government from Skidmore, Traylor earned a master's degree in political science at the University of California, Berkeley, and pursued advanced training in international law and international human rights law at U.C. Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, and at the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. She was a visiting research fellow at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, Norway, for five years where she worked on a number of international human rights issues, and for many years she was a research associate of the late Justice Franck C. Newman, former dean at Boalt Hall and a member of the California Supreme Court.

In 2001 Skidmore presented Traylor with an honorary doctorate. She served on the College's board of trustees from 2007-11.

Skidmore's annual F. William Harder Lecture was inaugurated in 1985 through the generosity of F. William Harder, a Skidmore parent who served as trustee from 1968 to 1980. The lecture brings together students and faculty with industry leaders to explore the current business environment and upcoming challenges.