CMU students attend international conference to awaken the human conscience

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich., March 14, 2012 — Central Michigan University students had the opportunity to speak out against human rights criminals like Joseph Kony at the first International Criminal Court Student Network conference in The Hague last week. The focus of the conference explored the Thomas Lubanga trial, the first trial to be heard by the International Criminal Court.

 

Mount Pleasant junior Erica Maylee says the timing of the conference could not have been more perfect since it came in conjunction with the Kony 2012 movement.

 

“I feel like the world brought together all of these forces into one moment that was really good to get people to recognize the ICC,” Maylee said.

 

Maylee, along with Grand Rapids senior Caitlin Cheevers and Clinton senior Randi Shaffer, were three of 22 presenters from around the world who spoke at the conference on the illegality of forcing children into hostile activities. Middleville junior Amber Duryea also attended the conference.

 

For Cheevers and Shaffer, whose paper focused on “proving the universal truth that child soldiering should be stopped through the specific cases of Lubanga and Kony,” the chance to speak against Joseph Kony was “surreal.” Cheevers thinks the conference helped to shed light on what lies ahead for Kony.

 

“It’s very important that the international community know about Lubanga and see how Kony is similar in the respect that they have both enlisted child soldiers,” Cheevers said. “We need to know what is going to happen in the Lubanga case to know how it will affect Kony.”

 

Maylee says that though the U.S. is currently not a member of the ICC, it provides the three students an opportunity to represent the country on an international scale.

 

“To be able to attend this conference says that Americans do care what is going on in this world,” Maylee said. “We care about humanity, human rights and international justice.”

 

Hope May, a CMU philosophy faculty member, believes that CMU undergraduate students representing the U.S. at this conference was monumental.

“I think it’s extremely significant that a public university in the heartland of the U.S. was there in The Hague on this historical moment of the very first verdict of the ICC,” May said.

 

Today, the court convicted Lubanga for his crimes. He faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

 

Shaffer says that presenting in front of like-minded young professionals from various countries gave her an experience that no classroom could offer.

 

“There’s only so much you can learn in your classes,” Shaffer said. “I was able to present a paper to people who care about the subject, and people were actually listening to what I have to say. It puts a lot in perspective.”

 

Also in attendance at the conference was U.S. Ambassador for Global Criminal Justice Stephen J. Rapp.