Human Rights: Conversations Across Generations

Bert & Meredith Lockwood
  • 5.0 (12)
  • Society & Culture
  • Updated Weekly

For over fifty years, Professor Bert B. Lockwood has had a front-row seat to the evolution of international human rights law. He is the longtime Director of the Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights at the University of Cincinnati College of Law and has served as Editor-in-Chief of Human Rights Quarterly since 1982. Now, he and his daughter, Meredith Lockwood, who has followed in his footsteps, are sharing that expertise with you. Human Rights: Conversations Across Generations is a podcast exploring the multifaceted and evolving world of human rights. Through engaging, intergenerational conversations, Bert and Meredith connect with distinguished guests from around the world, including Nobel Peace Prize recipients, political leaders, lawyers, scholars, activists, journalists, authors, and changemakers. Conversations span a wide range of important topics, including international human rights law, women’s rights and gender equality, racial justice, democracy and the rule of law, climate and environmental justice, migration and displacement, economic justice, modern slavery, and business and human rights. Through the personal stories and expertise of their guests, the show connects the history of the human rights movement with the urgent challenges shaping its future. If you have any suggestions for future guests or topics for conversations, please reach out to us. We would love to hear from you! Email: humanrightsconversations@gmail.com Website: www.meredithlockwood.com 

  1. 2d ago

    A Story of Family, Land, and Legacy in Old Hawai'i with Sara Kehaulani Goo

    In Hawaiian, Kuleana means "Our Responsibility." 'Āina means "The Land".  For generations, Sara Kehaulani Goo's family has held onto their ancestral land on Maui's eastern coast. In her memoir, Kuleana, Sara takes us through the high and low tides of protecting this land. And the profound responsibility to care for it while honoring those who came before. More than 90 acres, stretching from the road to the sea. Land that has survived the overthrow of a kingdom, generations of displacement, and mounting pressure to sell. In 2019, an email from Sara's father, Dennis, popped up in her inbox with alarming news. The family's property taxes had increased by nearly 500 percent.  Sara is an acclaimed journalist and author whose career has taken her from The Wall Street Journal to The Washington Post, NPR, and Axios. Today, she serves as President of The Washington Post's Creator Network. In Kuleana, Sara turns her reporter's eye toward her own family story, uncovering a history of Hawaiʻi that many of us were never taught.  In our conversation, we go beyond the familiar image of Hawaiʻi as a lush tropical paradise. Sara guides us through Native Hawaiian land loss, the extreme wealth reshaping the islands, and the hardship on families to remain in their ancestral homeland. We discover how language, hula, and storytelling carry culture across generations. Together, Bert, Sara, and Meredith ask, "What do we owe those who came before us and those who will come after? You can explore Sara's work and purchase her book through her website: www.saragoo.com. SHOW NOTES Full Episode Transcript  Sara Kehaulani Goo Sara's Bio: The Washington Post Her Memoir Kuleana  “What Hula Taught Me”: The Atlantic Podcast: Story & Craft featuring Sara Kehaulani Goo, with Marc Preston Podcast: Justice Matters - “Protecting Native Land in Hawaii,” featuring Sara with Maggie Gates

    A Story of Family, Land, and Legacy in Old Hawai'i with Sara Kehaulani Goo

  2. Oct 2

    Elisa Massimino: Human Rights Advocacy in a Changing World

    Today's guest is Elisa Massimino, one of the nation's leading human rights advocates and Executive Director of the Human Rights Institute at Georgetown University Law Center. For more than three decades, Elisa has worked at the intersection of human rights, national security, refugee protection, and U.S. foreign policy. Before joining Georgetown, she spent 27 years at Human Rights First, including a decade as President and CEO. Throughout her career, Elisa has testified before Congress dozens of times and helped shape some of the most consequential human rights debates in Washington. Following 9/11, she helped assemble an influential coalition of retired generals and admirals to challenge U.S. policies authorizing torture. In 2026, Washingtonian once again named Elisa among Washington, D.C.'s 500 Most Influential People, recognizing her work on torture and U.S. military assistance and human rights. Today, she brings those decades of experience into the classroom at Georgetown, helping prepare the next generation of human rights advocates. In this conversation, we begin with Elisa's own path into human rights, from philosophy and refugee advocacy to discovering what she describes as her calling. We explore the two qualities she believes effective advocates need: chutzpah and humility. Elisa takes us inside her Georgetown classroom, where students learn not simply to care about injustice, but to develop practical strategies for changing it, including listening to those who disagree, building unlikely coalitions, understanding power, and knowing when compromise can move an issue forward. We also examine the challenges facing democracy and human rights today, the importance of civic engagement beyond elections, and the rapidly evolving promise and danger of artificial intelligence. Elisa reflects on one of the defining campaigns of her career, the effort to end U.S. torture after 9/11, and why successful advocacy sometimes requires asking whether we want to make a point or actually make a difference. Throughout this episode, we return to an idea that has shaped both Elisa's work and ours: human rights begin in the places closest to us. Even amid rising authoritarianism and increasing challenges to democratic institutions, Elisa sees an opportunity to rebuild a broader movement for freedom, democracy, and human rights rooted in our homes, schools, communities, and everyday lives. SHOW NOTES Episode Transcript PDF Elisa Massimino: Georgetown Law, Visiting Professor of Law; Executive Director, Human Rights Institute Human Rights Institute: Georgetown Law Washingtonian: Washington DC's 500 Most Influential People of 2026 Chutzpah and Humility: Twin Virtues for Changing the World - Watch Elisa Massimino's Robert F. Drinan Chair Lecture at Georgetown Law Religion and Human Rights: A Conversation with Elisa Massimino - Read Elisa's conversation with Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. Global South World: Interview "Don’t wait for the UN to act" Sara Kehaulani Goo: Her new book, Kuleana

    Elisa Massimino: Human Rights Advocacy in a Changing World

  3. Sep 4

    Alice Achan: The School of Restoration & Te-Kworo Foundation

    Alice Achan is the Founder and Executive Director of the Te-Kworo Foundation, a community-based organization providing education, maternal and child healthcare, and social protection to girls, women, and children in northern Uganda. Founded in 2002, Te-Kworo has grown to include three boarding schools and has educated more than 4,000 girls, while its healthcare programs have expanded from mobile clinics and maternal care to a new hospital in Agago. Alice’s commitment to educating girls is rooted in her own extraordinary story. She was 13 when the Lord’s Resistance Army first terrorized her village, beginning years in which war repeatedly forced her from school and sent her family running and hiding to escape rebel abduction. Through those years, her father remained unwavering in his belief in his daughter’s education. Alice eventually completed her education and trained in social work before returning to northern Uganda to work with girls coming home from LRA captivity, many of whom returned with children of their own. They faced stigma and rejection within their own communities. Alice shares how gatherings with women beneath a kworo tree became the beginning of what she calls a “School of Restoration.” By listening to the needs of girls and young mothers, she developed an approach to healing and education that extended far beyond the classroom. Today, that vision extends from education into maternal and child healthcare. In this episode, we discuss the remarkable full-circle story of former students who became nurses and midwives and are now caring for women in their own communities. SHOW NOTES Episode Transcript Te-Kworo Foundation Support and Donate: Te-Kworo Foundation 2025 Annual Impact Report: Te-Kworo Foundation Book: Alice Achan & Philippa Tyndale: The School of Restoration Resources & Podcast Episodes: Fix The News Podcast: How Education Is Rebuilding Northern Uganda: Girls, Hope & Healing featuring Alice Achan UC Berkeley Human Rights Center: Pader Girls Academy Human Rights: Conversations Across Generations Podcast, Professor Eric Stover

    Alice Achan: The School of Restoration & Te-Kworo Foundation

  4. Aug 17

    Professor Paul Hunt: Reimagining the Future of Human Rights

    Professor Paul Hunt is a British-New Zealand human rights lawyer and Emeritus Professor at the University of Essex. His work has been particularly influential in advancing social rights and establishing the right to health as a practical human rights framework. Paul served on the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights before becoming the first UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health. He later advised the World Health Organization and served as Chief Human Rights Commissioner of New Zealand. His experiences in Palestine and The Gambia shaped that work from its earliest years. Paul and our co-host, Professor Bert B. Lockwood, also share more than thirty years of friendship through Human Rights Quarterly and the University of Essex. “Human rights are meant to control states, but states control human rights,” Paul writes in his 2026 Human Rights Quarterly article, “Empowering Human Rights for Revolutionary Change.” Paul argues for strengthening human rights from the ground up and placing greater power in the hands of people and communities. At a time when the movement is confronting renewed authoritarianism, Paul continues to look ahead. His vision is not to abandon the human rights framework, but to rethink where power sits within it. It is a call to build on decades of progress while making human rights more responsive to the people they are meant to serve. SHOW NOTES Episode Transcript Here Professor Paul Hunt, University of Essex Human Rights Quarterly Articles: Empowering Human Rights for Revolutionary Change, Human Rights Quarterly Children’s Rights in West Africa: The Case of The Gambia’s Almudos, Human Rights Quarterly Configuring the UN Human Rights System in the “Era of Implementation”: Mainland and Archipelago, Human Rights Quarterly Resources: Articles, Reports, and Media Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health, The Lancet Equality: The Road Less Travelled, TEDx University of Essex In Conversation with Professor Paul Hunt, RightsCast Podcast Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health: Mission to Sweden, Uganda, the World Bank and the IMF, United Nations Maranga Mai! Te Kāhui Tika Tangata Human Rights Commission

    Professor Paul Hunt: Reimagining the Future of Human Rights

  5. Aug 7

    Professor Ryan Thoreson: Protecting LGBTQIA+ Rights and Human Dignity

    Across the United States and around the world, legal protections for LGBTQIA+ communities are being tested in ways that would have been difficult to imagine just a decade ago. Courtrooms have become battlegrounds over gender identity, conversion therapy, marriage equality, and the recognition of queer families. At the same time, governments in dozens of countries continue to criminalize same-sex relationships and, in some cases, impose the death penalty. In this episode of Human Rights: Conversations Across Generations, we welcome Professor Ryan Thoreson, Associate Professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, Deputy Editor of Human Rights Quarterly, and colleague of our co-host, Professor Bert B. Lockwood. Before joining UC, Ryan served as Senior Researcher in the LGBT Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, where he spent more than a decade documenting human rights abuses and advancing LGBTQIA+ rights around the world. He is the author of Transnational LGBT Activism: Working for Sexual Rights Worldwide and co-editor of The SAGE Handbook of Global Sexualities. Today, Ryan's scholarship and teaching focus on constitutional law, international human rights law, and the evolving legal landscape surrounding LGBTQIA+ rights. Ryan reflects on the experiences that first drew him to human rights, from growing up in North Dakota to witnessing the fight for marriage equality as a college student. Those early moments continue to shape how he approaches constitutional law, scholarship, and the classroom today. Together, we examine the rapidly changing legal landscape surrounding conversion therapy, marriage equality, anti-trans legislation, and the criminalization of same-sex relationships. Drawing on years of documenting human rights abuses, Ryan reflects on the power of listening. Behind every court decision is a person, a family, and a lived experience that deserves to be seen with dignity. The discussion also turns to Human Rights Quarterly, where Ryan serves as Deputy Editor alongside Professor Lockwood. Together, they reflect on the journal's enduring role in advancing global human rights. SHOW NOTES EPISODE TRANSCRIPT PDF Ryan Thoreson: Website University of Cincinnati College of Law: Ryan Thoreson Faculty Profile Human Rights Quarterly, Johns Hopkins University Press Human Rights Watch: Ryan Thoreson Transnational LGBT Activism: Working for Sexual Rights Worldwide, University of Minnesota Press The Dream of a Common Movement: Selected Writings of Urvashi Vaid, Human Rights Quarterly Book Review The SAGE Handbook of Global Sexualities Can Global LGBTQ Rights Jurisprudence Survive the Authoritarian Turn? Jotwell: Equality Newsweek: Supreme Court to Hear New Case Tied to Same-Sex Couples Newsweek: Map Shows States Banning Transgender Athletes as Supreme Court Rules Cincinnati Edition, WVXU: What Impact Could a SCOTUS Decision Have on Cincinnati's Conversion Therapy Ban? Matthew Shepard Foundation | Our Story Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2023 - Human Dignity Trust

    Professor Ryan Thoreson: Protecting LGBTQIA+ Rights and Human Dignity

  6. Jul 31

    Ruth Kimani: Head of Programs for Africa, Freedom Fund

    Ruth Kimani has spent more than two decades working alongside communities across Africa to address some of the world's most complex human rights challenges. Today, as Head of Programs for Africa at the Freedom Fund, she leads initiatives across Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Nigeria that have invested more than $26 million in frontline partners and directly impacted more than 223,000 people through locally led efforts to combat modern slavery. In this episode, Ruth joins us to discuss one of the world's most widespread yet least visible forms of modern slavery: child domestic work. Hidden behind closed doors, at least 10 million children, many of them girls, spend their days cooking, cleaning, and caring for households instead of attending school, often isolated from their families and vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Together, we explore why community-led solutions are essential to protecting children's rights, how trust-based philanthropy is reshaping international development, and what it takes to create lasting, systemic change. Ruth also shares how the Freedom Fund's hotspot model is transforming communities across Africa. We discuss the impact of international funding cuts and why ending child domestic work requires long-term investment, stronger protections, and communities working together.   SHOW NOTES Ruth Kimani | Head of Programs for Africa, Freedom Fund Freedom Fund Donate to the Freedom Fund Reports, Articles, and Resources 2025–2026: Freedom Fund Impact Report What Is Modern Slavery? Understanding Child Domestic Work Freedom Fund's African Hotspots:  Kenya Hotspot: Ending Child Domestic Work Nigeria Hotspot: Ending Child Domestic Work Ethiopia Hotspot: Ending Child Domestic Work Behind Closed Doors: Millions of Girls Are Working Instead of Learning | More to Her Story by Ruth Kimani What Three Years of Listening Have Taught Us About Child Domestic Work | Global Peer Learning Group Ideas in Action: Pilot Program Evaluation in Nigeria | NORC at the University of Chicago, The Khana Group & The Freedom Fund

  7. Jul 17

    Hans Thoolen: True Heroes Films and Protecting Human Rights Defenders

    Human rights defenders are often the first to expose injustice, challenge those in power, and protect the rights of the world's most vulnerable communities. They also face extraordinary risks for doing so. For more than five decades, Hans Thoolen has worked to ensure these courageous individuals are recognized, protected, and never forgotten. Today, Hans focuses much of his work on advancing the protection of human rights defenders around the world. In 2006, he established True Heroes Films, a nonprofit organization that partners with human rights defenders and organizations to produce films, strengthen communications, and bring their stories to audiences that can inspire action. Through his blog, Human Rights Defenders, Hans shares news, analysis, and resources from across the global human rights movement while advocating for greater recognition and protection of those on the frontlines. He also serves on the Board of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, one of the world's most prestigious awards recognizing individuals who have demonstrated exceptional courage in defending human rights. Hans' commitment to human rights spans more than fifty years. He founded the Netherlands Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights, served as Executive Secretary of the International Commission of Jurists, was the first Director of the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, and spent fifteen years with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He also co-founded HURIDOCS and International Alert, helping build institutions that continue to strengthen the global human rights movement today. In this conversation, Hans reflects on the experiences that shaped his remarkable career, from his early involvement in the anti-apartheid movement to helping build institutions, documentation systems, and storytelling initiatives that have strengthened the protection of human rights defenders. We explore the power of documentation and film, the stories of courageous defenders on the frontlines of justice, and the challenges facing the global human rights movement today. SHOW NOTES Show Episode Transcript True Heroes Films Website True Heroes Films Trailer Video  Human Rights Defenders Blog Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders HURIDOCS International Commission of Jurists UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) True Heroes Films Featured: Huda Al-Sarari Story Ana Paula Gomes de Oliveira | Martin Ennals Award

    Hans Thoolen: True Heroes Films and Protecting Human Rights Defenders

  8. Jul 3

    Guadalupe Marengo: Amnesty International, Head of the Global Human Rights Defenders Programme and Head of the Global Relief Programme

    Human rights defenders are essential to every movement for justice. They expose abuses, defend their communities, challenge those in power, and help advance the rights many of us rely on every day. Yet across the globe, the space for this work is rapidly shrinking, making the defense of human rights itself an increasingly dangerous act. Our guest is Guadalupe Marengo, Head of Amnesty International's Global Human Rights Defenders Team and Head of the Global Relief Programme. Amnesty International is one of the world's most respected human rights organizations, with a movement of more than 10 million people across the globe. She leads the efforts to protect and support human rights defenders around the world while overseeing emergency assistance for those facing persecution because of their peaceful work. With more than two decades of experience spanning research, advocacy, and campaigning, Guadalupe has worked alongside defenders across Latin America and beyond, helping ensure they are not left to face these risks alone. In this conversation, she introduces us to the remarkable people behind the title "human rights defender." We discuss why attacks against defenders are increasing across the globe, the communities most at risk, Amnesty International's work to protect them, and why safeguarding those who defend the rights of others is essential to protecting human rights for us all. SHOW NOTES Episode Transcript Here Amnesty International Get Involved with Amnesty International Instagram: Amnesty International Facebook: Amnesty International TikTok: Amnesty International LinkedIn: Amnesty International  Human Rights Defenders Memorial Rainforest Alliance Front Line Defenders Declaration on Human Rights Defenders +25 Report & Article Amnesty International: State of the World's Human Rights Report (2025) Why Protecting Human Rights Defenders Must Be a Priority for Us All by Guadalupe Marengo

    Guadalupe Marengo: Amnesty International, Head of the Global Human Rights Defenders Programme and Head of the Global Relief Programme
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Ratings & Reviews

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About

For over fifty years, Professor Bert B. Lockwood has had a front-row seat to the evolution of international human rights law. He is the longtime Director of the Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights at the University of Cincinnati College of Law and has served as Editor-in-Chief of Human Rights Quarterly since 1982. Now, he and his daughter, Meredith Lockwood, who has followed in his footsteps, are sharing that expertise with you. Human Rights: Conversations Across Generations is a podcast exploring the multifaceted and evolving world of human rights. Through engaging, intergenerational conversations, Bert and Meredith connect with distinguished guests from around the world, including Nobel Peace Prize recipients, political leaders, lawyers, scholars, activists, journalists, authors, and changemakers. Conversations span a wide range of important topics, including international human rights law, women’s rights and gender equality, racial justice, democracy and the rule of law, climate and environmental justice, migration and displacement, economic justice, modern slavery, and business and human rights. Through the personal stories and expertise of their guests, the show connects the history of the human rights movement with the urgent challenges shaping its future. If you have any suggestions for future guests or topics for conversations, please reach out to us. We would love to hear from you! Email: humanrightsconversations@gmail.com Website: www.meredithlockwood.com 

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