At February, 3, upon the invitation of Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program, our Association’s expert, professor Borys Babin took on-line participation in Program’s Conference “Decolonizing Ukraine in Theory and Practice”. Harvard Univercity’s Temerty Program is a bridge between the scholarly and policy communities with the goal of promoting a deeper understanding of Ukraine in the world. Its role is to recognize, describe, and explain the complexity of contemporary Ukraine through contributions from social scientists and policy researchers.
Program’s Conference joined current discussions of what it means to decolonize how expets think about Ukraine, with a focus on policymaking, diplomacy, and advocacy. Conference’s panels focused on the meaning of decolonization, what a decolonizing practice would look like in policymaking, how to approach Ukraine and its neighbors amidst a perpetual Russian threat. Researchers from Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, U.S. National Defense University, Stanford Univercity, Polish Institute of International Affairs, Johns Hopkins University, Tufts University, George Mason University and Ukrainain Ambassador to the United States Oksana Markarova participated in conference.
In Conference’s questions & answers framework professor Babin initiated discussion regardign correlation of the current activities on decolonisation in Ukraine with issues of de-occupation of Ukrainain territories, including the Crimea. ARC’s expert reminded the participants on relevant planning, taking into account the ICJ desicions of January, 31 and February, 2 regarding racial discrimination and genocidal issues. Regaring this topic Olga Skrypnyk from Crimean Human Rights Group described previous legal and organisational steps for reintegration of the Crimea, including relevant Ukraine’s Strategy, 2021, also as the Crimean Platform’s activities.
