Participant Info

First Name
Debbie
Last Name
Sharnak
Country
United States
State
30
Affiliation
Rowan University
Website URL
http://www.debbiesharnak.com/
Keywords
us foreign policy, latin america, transitional justice, international relations, southern cone, human rights, dirty wars, US-Latin American relations
Availability
Media Contact
Additional Contact Information
PhD
PhD

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

My work studies the history of human rights, transnational networks, Latin America, and international relations. In my book manuscript, “Of Light and Struggle” inUruguay: Contesting the International History of Human Rights, I explore the origins and evolution of human rights discourse in Uruguay, particularly during its transition back to democratic rule. The research addresses issues of  transitional justice, the rise of the transnational human rights movement, and the shifting terrain of human rights in the 1970s and 1980s.

I have worked at various NGOs including the International Center for Transitional Justice, the New Media Advocacy Project, and Public Action Research. I am currently a country specialist for Amnesty International’s Southern Cone co-Group and an analyst at Freedom House. I was a Fulbright Scholar in Uruguay and have been published in Diplomacy & Statecraft, the Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Foreign Policy, NACLA, Upside Down World, Latin Correspondent and has contributed chapters to various edited volumes. I hold a PhD in History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Recent Publications

“Reagan and the Waning Years of Uruguay’s Military Rule: Democracy Promotion and the Redefinition of Human Rights,” in The Reagan Administration, The Cold War, and the Transition to Democracy Promotion, edited by Michael Schmidli and Robert Pee (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019): 189-208

“Uruguay’s Long Transitional Decade and a New Era of Gendered Activism,” Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies ​23 no. 1 (October 2017): 383-398.

“Silêncios, direitos humanos e o referendo uruguaio de 1989 sobre a lei de anistia,” TALLER: Revista de Sociedad, Cultura, Politica en America Latina 4 no. 5 (2015): 43-62.

“El Caso Gelman and the Battle Against Impunity in Uruguay,” in 40 Years is Nothing: History and Memory of the 1973 coups d’état in Uruguay and Chile, eds. Fernando Lopez and Pablo Leighton (UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015).

“Uruguay and the Re-conceptualization of Transitional Justice,” in Transitional Justice and Legacies of State Violence in Latin America, eds. Marcia Esparza and Nina Schneider (Lexington Books, 2015), 135-153.

“Sovereignty and Human Rights: Re-examining Carter’s Foreign Policy Towards the Third World,” Diplomacy & Statecraft (June 2014): 303-330.

Media Coverage
Have talked on radio about my work, been published in the Washington Post and Philadelphia Inquirer
Country Focus
Uruguay, Argentina
Expertise by Geography
Latin America, United States
Expertise by Chronology
8, 9
Expertise by Topic
Diplomacy, Genocide, Government, Human Rights, Politics, Sports