On December 10, 2008, "Eleanor Roosevelt" visited the IPJ at a Voices of Women event to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Human Rights.  A panel discussion followed Mrs. Roosevelt's speech.  

Harle Montgomery sponsored Rosina Reynolds' performance, for which we are very grateful.

San Diego actor Rosina Reynolds reenacted the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt by delivering a moving speech about the Declaration and the vital need to draft this document for humankind.  She remained seated on the stage while the panel discussion continued.  Panelists were:  William Aceves, Associate Dean at the California Western School of Law; Professor Marjorie Cohn of the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, and Dustin Sharp, Senior Program Officer at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice at USD, where the event was presented.

Professor Cohn explained that the US is not one of the 185 countries which have ratified CEDAW.  In 1980 President Carter signed CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women) with the intent to ratify however, following Administrations dropped the initiative.  Religious rights trumped women's rights.  (President Obama supports CEDAW and there is hope that it will be ratified by the US in 2009.) The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) also has not been ratified and 193 countries support this.  US and Somalia are the only two 'hold-out" countries.  (Pres. Obama has promised to review CRC.)

Professor Aceves address Genocide and the Convention that was adopted on December 9, 1948 at the insistence of Polish Lawyer Lemkin who lobbied Congress tirelessly.  The US has ratified the Convention which took 40 years of persistence, largely by Senator William Proxmire who made 3,211 speeches over 19 years until in 1988 it was signed by President Reagan.