Sample Lectures & Panels

  • RightsCon 2018 Toronto, “Do Bots Have Rights? Do They Threaten Rights?” panel organizer/moderator, May 17, 2018

  • American Society of International Law Annual Meeting, “Examining the Legal Restrictions on Warfare Technology,” April 6, 2018

  • RightsCon 2017 Brussels, “Tackling Harmful Speech: What Harms Rights Least?” March 29, 2017

  • Reclaiming Protection of Civilians Under IHL, a global conference series for military leaders and IHL specialists sponsored by the Foreign Ministry of Norway, “State Responsibility for Documentation and Evaluation of IHL Impact and Compliance,” Oslo April 2011 and Buenos Aires November 2011

  • Annual Meeting of AAAS Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, “Human Rights Research Under the Microscope,” Boston, September 2011

  • International Law, Human Rights and the Politics of Religious Difference, a Luce Foundation conference at Princeton University, “Freedom of Religion and the Discourse of International Human Rights Law,” April 2011

  • Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence & Research inter-agency conference on cyberwar, “International Law and Cyberspace,” Washington, D.C. September 2010

  • C.V. Starr Lecture, New York Law School, New York, “Defamation of religion and incitement: the international debate,” April 2010

  • Floerscheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy, Benjamin Cardozo School of Law, Workshop Series on Hate Speech, lectures on counter-narratives to incitement and the social science of incitement, April-May 2010

  • Elizabeth Neuffer Forum on Human Rights and Journalism, JFK Library, Boston, “A Presidential Agenda for Human Rights,” August 2008

  • World Justice Forum, Vienna “Corruption and Human Rights: Their Relation as Problem and Solution,” July 2008

  • World Association of Newspapers Annual Meeting, Gotteborg, “Trading Speech Bans, Losing Rights,” May 2008

  • University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, “The Discourse of Terror and Torture Prevention,” February 2008

  • ASIL Annual Convention, Washington, DC, “What Does Hamdan Mean for Human Rights?” March 2007 published in Vol. 101 of Proceedings of the American Society of International Law pp. 341-345

  • International Institute of Humanitarian Law, San Remo, “The Role of NGOs in Ensuring Respect for International Humanitarian Law,” July 2006

  • Columbia University, New York, “The Construction of Death in the Human Rights Movement,” February 2006

  • New York City Bar, Keynote Address to the Human Rights Committee on the Global State of Human Rights, September 2005

  • Russel Sage Foundation, New York, “Torture as U.S. Policy,” July 2004

  • Brown University, Watson Institute for International Studies, Providence, “Torture as a Network Phenomenon,” September 2004

  • Columbia University, New York, “International Law as Law: Response to John Bolton,” September 2004 and September 2005

  • Cornell University, Ithaca, “Command Responsibility and the Communication of Torture,” October 2004

  • Center for Jewish History, New York “Israeli Compliance with the ICJ Wall Decision,” December 2004

Speaking on human rights issues

UN whistleblower report featuring Edward Snowden

Dinah PoKempner talks with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, UN whistleblower Kathryn Bolkovac and former UN Special Rapporteur David Kaye on the importance of protecting people who make public disclosures that address human rights abuses.

ACLU suit against the Foreign Intelligence Service Act

Dinah PoKempner explains how the warrantless wiretapping authorized by amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act inhibits human rights fact-finding by compromising the security of communications. FISA has been reauthorized multiple times, and warrantless searches of Americans’ communications exceeds 3 million as of 2022.