Rebecca Hamilton

Which class or lecturer at the University of Sydney most inspired you?

Frank Stilwell and Evan Jones in the Political Economy department instilled in me that an understanding of historical context combined with an ability to make a well-supported argument can form a powerful weapon to challenge “conventional wisdom.” They were really the people that got me thinking critically about structural elements in society  – something that has stood me in good stead. And of course my supervisor for my Honours thesis, Associate Professor of Psychological Medicine, Lea Williams, was and still is a source of inspiration for her capacity to connect evidence-based research from different fields of brain research on the micro level to macro questions of human behaviour. Although I’m no longer working in the field of neuroscience, the ability to integrate knowledge from different disciplines is a skill that I’ve been able to carry with me.

What has been the most exciting part about studying at Harvard?

The community. My classmates were inspirational people from across the globe. The dynamic was very different from university in Australia because relatively few of my classmates were actually from Boston, where Harvard is located. This meant that rather than students being able to rely on a pre-existing network of family or high school friends at the end of the day, we instead form a stronger community of our own. In addition, you have a veritable embarrassment of riches in terms of the resources at hand: on any topic you are interested in, chances are that a world expert on the matter is either on campus, or just a phone call away. Put together, these things foster a climate which is incredibly energising – you find yourself collaborating and developing projects that haven’t been done before, because so few people are in a position to access the people and knowledge that you have at your fingertips.

You have won a range of prizes in your academic career. What’s the one achievement you are most proud of?

I’m not sure prizes are things to be proud of per se – the one exception for me would be something called the Gary Bellow Award at Harvard Law School because it is a public service award that you are nominated for and the winner is selected by a vote from the entire school community – students, faculty and staff.

Tell us about your academic area of specialisation. What is it that excites you about government and the law?

I’m currently researching the impact of the citizen-driven advocacy movement for Darfur on United States Executive Branch decisions. Although the foreign policy agenda is typically defined in terms of “national interests” there is at least some space within a democracy for the agenda to become a contested political space. I want to flesh out how that does and does not work in practice. I’m also interested in how the framework of The Responsibility to Protect (something championed by Australia’s former foreign minister, Gareth Evans, and partially adopted by the UN General Assembly in late 2005) can be translated into practice.

I’m excited to be working at the International Criminal Court, the first permanent international court with the ability to hold perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity accountable.

Can you tell me why you founded the Harvard Darfur Action Group and what you hope to achieve through it?

I had gone from working with displaced populations in Sudan to the first week of Harvard Law School, an experience in global disparity if ever there was. Colin Powell had just declared the situation in Darfur to be genocide, yet on campus there was complete silence on the issue. My headspace was still in Sudan and I couldn’t function at Harvard without feeling like I was using the incredible resources that were available to me there to do something about what was happening in Darfur. What stuck with me was something a Sudanese friend of mine had said when we had talked about me going back to America. He said that in America, you will be able to have a voice, whereas if we speak we out about what is happening here we will be detained, tortured.

Harvard Darfur Action Group pushed Harvard to become the first university to divest from companies doing business with the Government of Sudan. This spurred a number of others to divest and now there is a global divestment movement to cut the flows of funds to the Sudanese military budget (see www.sudandivestment.org). Harvard Darfur Action Group continues to push for policies that support the protection of civilians in Darfur through student mobilisation. But through the Genocide Intervention Network (www.genocideintervention.net), I am working to build a permanent, politically-educated constituency against genocide and mass atrocity so that in the future we are not stuck with the limitations of ad hoc responses once a crisis has hit the headlines (by which time the death toll is already too high).

What motivates you to pursue change for a better society?

A sense of possibility. I believe in that quote by Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever does.”

What’s the issue you are most passionate about?

In general, the re-working of foreign policy towards a recognition that a life “here” is as precious as a life “there”. In the specific, the prevention of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

If you had the power to make a single, overnight change to government policy, either in the US or Australia, what would it be?

[this interview was conducted before the 2007 Australian Federal election]

Don’t make me chose one! I have about 10 on my wishlist, so the following is me being restrained!

In Australia:

1. As an absolute baseline, for the Prime Minister [John Howard] to apologise for the atrocities committed against Indigenous Australians, and for the Federal Government to realise that effective progress can only be made by working collaboratively, alongside Indigenous communities, rather than dictating policy in a top-down fashion.
2. To stop operating from a baseline assumption that asylum seekers threaten the national identity of Australia. I was volunteering with kids at the Villawood detention centre before I went to the USA, right in the aftermath of the Tampa crisis. At that time, I thought that things were as bad as they could be for asylum seekers in Australia. But recently I had a rare sense of being thoroughly embarrassed to be Australian when Kevin Andrews’ statements about Sudanese refugees not  “fitting in” to Australia were broadcast over here.

In the US:

1. Stop using 9/11 and the politics of fear to justify regressive policies, like the torture of detainees, that not only violate human rights in the immediate term, but also further diminish America’s moral credibility and thus ability to condemn any other government for human rights abuses over the long term.
2. A cultural change that I would love to see in the US would be for the whole population to start voting. It’s a democracy, yet not even a majority of citizens vote. It drives me crazy: there are so many people in the world that would relish the opportunity to participate in the selection of the US President, for instance.

Who or what inspires you?

People who have lost their families and friends during the course of genocide and mass atrocity and who not only survive, but who have the resilience and compassion to engage with those of us in the international community who failed to provide the protection they needed, in order to ensure we do not repeat the same mistakes in the future.

What is it about your approach that has enabled you to achieve so much at such a young age?

Well, I haven’t done that much yet! But I guess I’d just say that I’ve had some incredibly lucky breaks. When I started at the University of Sydney I had been out of the education system for seven years because I had left school early. I was starved of knowledge and was like a sponge, absorbing everything I could from the university experience. That translated into studying absurdly hard and loving it. Getting the University Medal was a lucky break in that I suspect it clinched the deal in terms of getting the Knox Fellowship to study at Harvard – something that would have seemed absurdly out of reach to me just a couple of years before. Once I was there, the whole world opened up to me. I think that being so conscious of how lucky I am, and how things could have so easily turned out differently, means that I make the most of every possible opportunity. But the bottom line is that I love what I do.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?

Considering that 10 years ago I was eking out a living by handing out flyers to shoppers outside Target, did not know anyone who was studying, had never dreamt of going to university, and thought that higher education was something for “other people” (people who had finished high school for instance), I am acutely aware that anything can happen in a decade, which makes me reluctant to speculate about the future. I am interested in all the facets that can contribute towards genocide prevention –  citizen activism, investigative journalism, teaching, foreign policy formulation, the International Criminal Court and the United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities. Who knows where it will lead...