Advocate to discuss human rights and arms in Afghanistan, Nov. 26

Joost Hiltermann, executive director of the arms division of Human Rights Watch, will present a public lecture at 4:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 26, in Dodds Auditorium, Robertson Hall.

His lecture, titled "Arming Afghanistan: A History of Arms and Human Rights," is sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and Students for Informed Dialogue.

The arms division of Human Rights Watch coordinates research and advocacy on weapon systems, arms transfers and targeting in warfare as these issues relate to international human rights. The executive director of this division since 1994, Hiltermann has been instrumental in bringing about international bans on antipersonnel land mines and blinding lasers and contributed to the creation of the United Nations' investigation of arms trafficking in Africa.

He has overseen the publication of numerous reports on arms transfers to conflict zones, arms export practices and the alleged use of chemical weapons in Bosnia as well as on civilian casualties resulting from the 1999 NATO air campaigns over Serbia and Kosovo and NATO's use of cluster munitions in the same campaign.

The principal researcher for Human Rights Watch from 1992 to 1994 on the Iraqi genocide of rural Kurds, Hiltermann is the author of "Bureaucracy of Repression: The Iraqi Government in Its Own Words." He is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and a professional lecturer at the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University.