Monday marks the start of two Specialized Courses at the Perry Center. Combating Transnational Organized Crime and Illicit Networks in the Americas (CTOC) examines the serious problems of crime groups and their associated enterprises in the hemisphere. Led by Professors Celina Realuyo and Boris Saavedra, the students will spend two weeks examining money laundering, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, and regional efforts to combat crime groups, among other topics.

The second specialized course, Strategic Implications of Human Rights and the Rule of Law (HR/ROL) covers issues of trafficking in persons, penitentiary reform, women’s rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, transitional justice, international humanitarian law, humanitarian intervention, just war theory, and international organizations like the United Nations and International Criminal Court (ICC). The human rights course also examines a number of case studies including Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Syria, and the United States.

Almost 60 students attending the two courses hail from nearly 20 countries in the hemisphere and come from diverse backgrounds including the security forces, civilian representatives of government, civil society, and academia.

Both courses take advantage of the Perry Center’s location in Washington, DC to visit government and policy centers in the capital. The CTOC course will attend the CNAS National Security Conference and the US Congress. The HR/ROL course will visit the Organization of American States, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the Holocaust Museum.