María Corina Machado is the leading figure of the Venezuelan democratic movement and was the central architect of the historic victory of Edmundo González in the July 28th, 2024, presidential election. Her leadership and vision unified Venezuela's pro-democracy forces during a pivotal moment in the country's history.

Machado won the Venezuelan opposition primaries on October 22nd, 2023, with an overwhelming 92.35% of the vote. Despite her landslide victory, she was illegally disqualified from running by the regime in a blatant move to undermine the democratic process. Undeterred, she continues to lead the fight for freedom and democracy in Venezuela, inspiring millions to stand up against authoritarianism.

Her tireless work in the face of adversity has made her a symbol of hope and resistance for Venezuelans and a crucial voice in the global conversation on democracy and human rights.

Machado holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (UCAB) and a specialization in Finance from the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (IESA). She has also taught Human Resources Management in the Industrial Engineering Department at UCAB. In 2009, she participated in the prestigious World Fellows Program at Yale University. She is the recipient of the 2024 Sakharov Prize, presented by the European Parliament, and the 2024 Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, presented by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg.

Machado is also the founder and national coordinator of the political movement Vente Venezuela and co-founder of the Venezuelan civil association Súmate.

Larry Diamond is William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. His research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy, and U.S. and international policies to advance democracy and counter authoritarian influence. He was the founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and he remains a consultant to the National Endowment for Democracy. Among his books is Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency.

The registration form for this event is closed. If you wish to attend, please proceed to the event check-in table in front of the Bechtel Conference Center, Encina Hall.

The College Freedom Forum connects university students with world-renowned activists working to promote democracy and human rights in authoritarian regimes. During this event, students will gain exposure to some of today’s most pressing human rights issues, resources to enhance their academic endeavors, and connections for professional growth.

Programming will focus on human rights, democratic movements, and activism in countries ruled by authoritarian regimes in the Asia-Pacific region. Speakers will shed light on some of the region’s most pressing human rights issues, from the Chinese Communist Party’s repression of the Uyghur people to Kim Jong-un’s totalitarian regime in North Korea to crackdowns on free speech in Vietnam, among others. Activists will convene to share their personal stories and highlight what the international community can do to stand in solidarity with their causes.

Confirmed Speakers:

• Jewher Ilham, Uyghur advocate and daughter of imprisoned scholar Ilham Tohti
• Mai Khoi, Vietnamese pop star and political activist
• Eunhee Park, North Korean defector
• Lobsang Sangay, Former Prime Minister of the Central Tibetan Administration’s government-in-exile

We will also have a panel discussion with Stanford faculty on authoritarian repression in the Asia-Pacific region and the responses of civil society and pro-democracy movements.

At a catered reception following the event, students will have the opportunity to meet and talk with the speakers.

This event is hosted by the Human Rights Foundation, and co-sponsored with Stanford's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Center for Human Rights and International Justice.

As 2023 marks the 10th anniversary of the UN Human Rights Council's vote to create a Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea, this conference brings together scholars, experts, and officials to discuss the direction of North Korea's human rights issues.

This event is made possible by generous support from the Korea Foundation and other friends of the Korea Program.

AGENDA

1:00-1:30 pm    Opening Session

Welcoming Remark:
Gi-Wook Shin, Director of Shorenstein APARC, William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea, Stanford University

Opening Speech:
Shin-wha Lee, ROK Ambassador-at-Large on International Cooperation for North Korean Human Rights

Keynote Speech:
His Excellency Elbegdorj Tsakhia, former President of Mongolia; Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow, Stanford University

1:30-3:10 pm    Session I: North Korean Human Rights from the Standpoint of Universal Values

Presenters:
Andrew S. Natsios, Executive Professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University; former Administrator of USAID 
Kiyoteru Tsutsui, Director of Japan Program at APARC, Professor of Sociology and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University

Discussants: 
Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University
Dafna Zur, Associate Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford University. 
Soo Kyung Kim, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Welfare, Hanshin University

Moderator: Gi-Wook Shin

3:10-3:30 pm    Break

3:30-5:00 pm   Session II: North Korean Human Rights from Regional Security Perspectives

Presenters:
Frank Jannuzi, President and CEO, Mansfield Foundation
Hee-Seok Shin, Legal Analyst, Transitional Justice Working Group

Discussants:
Chaesung Chun, Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Seoul National University; Chair of the National Security Research Center, East Asia Institute
Jae Jeok Park, Professor at the Graduate School of International Studies, Yonsei University

Moderator: Ambassador Shin-wha Lee

Hicham Alaoui, Robert Springborg, Lindsay Benstead, Glenn E. Robinson, and Sean Yom join ARD to discuss their recently released book, Security Assistance in the Middle East: Challenges ... and the Need for Change (Lynne Rienner, 2023). To order, click here.

Why, given the enormous resources spent by the US and Europe on security assistance to Arab countries, has it led to so little success? Can anything be done to change the disheartening status quo? Addressing these thorny questions, the authors of this state-of-the-art assessment evaluate the costs and benefits to the main providers and recipients of security assistance in the MENA region and explore alternative strategies to improve outcomes for both.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Hicham Alaoui is the founder and director of the Hicham Alaoui Foundation, which undertakes innovative social scientific research in the Middle East and North Africa. He is a scholar on the comparative politics of democratization and religion, with a focus on the MENA region. In the past, he served as a visiting scholar and Consulting Professor at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. He more recently served as postdoctoral fellow and research associate at Harvard University. He was also Regents Lecturer at several campuses of the University of California system. Outside of academia, he has worked with the United Nations in various capacities, such as the peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. He has also worked with the Carter Center in its overseas missions on conflict resolution and democracy advancement. He has served on the MENA Advisory Committee for Human Rights Watch and the Advisory Board of the Carnegie Middle East Center. He served on the board of the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University and has recently joined the Advisory Board of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard. He holds an A.B. from Princeton University, M.A. from Stanford University, and D.Phil. from the University of Oxford. His latest book is Pacted Democracy in the Middle East: Tunisia and Egypt in Comparative Perspective (Palgrave, 2022). His memoirs, Journal d'un Prince Banni, were published in 2014 by Éditions Grasset, and have since been translated into several languages. He is also co-author with Robert Springborg of The Political Economy of Arab Education (Lynne Rienner, 2021), and co-author with the same colleague on the forthcoming volume Security Assistance in the Middle East: Challenges and the Need for Change (Lynne Rienner, 2023). His academic research has been widely published in various French and English journals, magazines, and newspapers of record.

Robert Springborg is a Scientific Advisor of the Istituto Affari Internazionali and Adjunct Professor at SFU School for International Studies (Vancouver). Formerly he was Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, and Program Manager for the Middle East for the Center for Civil-Military Relations; the holder of the MBI Al Jaber Chair in Middle East Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he also served as Director of the London Middle East Institute; the Director of the American Research Center in Egypt; University Professor of Middle East Politics at Macquarie University in Sydney Australia; and assistant professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also taught at the University of California, Berkeley; the College of Europe; the Paris School of International Affairs of Sciences Po; the Department of War Studies, King’s College, London; and the University of Sydney. In 2016 he was Kuwait Foundation Visiting Scholar, Middle East Initiative, Kennedy School, Harvard University. His publications include Mubarak’s Egypt. Fragmentation of the Political Order (1989); Family Power and Politics in Egypt (1982); Legislative Politics in the Arab World (1999, co-authored with Abdo Baaklini and Guilain Denoeux); Globalization and the Politics of Development in the Middle East first and second editions, (2001 and 2010, co-authored with Clement M. Henry); Oil and Democracy in Iraq (2007); Development Models in Muslim Contexts: Chinese, ‘Islamic’ and Neo-Liberal Alternatives(2009) and several editions of Politics in the Middle East (co-authored with James A. Bill). He co-edited a volume on popular culture and political identity in the Gulf that appeared in 2008. He has published in the leading Middle East journals and was the founder and regular editorialist for The Middle East in London, a monthly journal that commenced publication in 2003.

Lindsay J. Benstead is Associate Professor of Political Science in the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government and Director of the Middle East Studies Center (MESC) at Portland State University. Her research on women and politics, public opinion, and survey methodology has appeared in Perspectives on Politics, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Governance, and Foreign Affairs. She holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Political Science from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and served as a doctoral fellow at Yale University and a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton University. For more on her research, see https://pdx.academia.edu/LindsayBenstead.

Glenn E. Robinson is Professor of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California, and is also affiliated with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California at Berkeley.  He retired from NPS after 30 years in December 2021. He has authored or co-authored four books on Middle East politics as well as over 150 journal articles, book chapters, government reports and conference papers.  His most recent book, Global Jihad: A Brief History, was named by both Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy as a "Best Book of 2021."  He has won awards for his teaching at both Berkeley and NPS.  Robinson has been active in policy work, especially for USAID and DOD, and in his professional work for the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) and (as a Founding Board Member and Treasurer) for the Association for Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Studies (AGAPS).

Sean Yom is Associate Professor of Political Science at Temple University, Senior Fellow in the Middle East Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Project on Middle East Democracy in Washington, DC.  He is a specialist on regimes and governance in the Middle East, especially in Arab monarchies like Jordan, Kuwait, and Morocco. His research engages topics of authoritarian politics, democratic reforms, institutional stability, and economic development in these countries, as well as their implications for US foreign policy. His publications include the books From Resilience to Revolution: How Foreign Interventions Destabilize the Middle East (Columbia University Press, 2016); the co-edited volume The Political Science of the Middle East: Theory and Research since the Arab Uprisings (Oxford University Press, 2022); and articles in print journals like Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of International Relations, Studies in Comparative International Development, and Journal of Democracy.