Our work includes cooperation with diaspora communities and participation in delegations invited by organizations in non-Western nations. Acting on behalf of the Amhara and Sudanese exiles living in the United States, for example, we helped formulate letters to the UN and the Sudanese government detailing the genocidal abuses undertaken against the Amhara people and providing Western views of the crisis in Sudan; in both cases we sought to articulate policy options and put forward a report on conditions in the Amhara homeland.
In 2022, Dr. Stephen Bronner, President and Executive Director of ACJCR, participated in a delegation that had been invited to Guinea to discuss human rights abuses, educational reform, and suggestions how to deal with both. A “Report on the Status of Guinea” was written that was then distributed to national officials. Following our visit, dissident community groups asked us to participate in the “Commission nationale des Droits de l’Homme”, Guinée Conakry,” which had the aim of strengthening human rights in the country.
Our organization also forged ties with the Roma community, spread across the West and even met with two of its “kings.” We had been asked to foster connections between disparate parts of the Roma community and, for the benefit of Western politicians, draft a “Declaration of the Needs and Rights of the Roma People.”
In 2021, Dr. Stephen Bronner delivered a speech to the Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee – 2021) of the United Nations concerning Western Sahara’s demands for independence from Morocco.
Of particular interest, however, was Dr. Bronner’s participation in campaigns exposing and publicizing the human rights abuses perpetrated, mostly by the Houthis, which are still plaguing Yemen. This included speeches at the United Nations: Geneva and leadership in the “Yemen Can’t Wait!” campaign for the liberation of jailed Yemeni women as well as mediating meetings between a Yemen delegation and the Israeli Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva and other NGOs such as CAP Freedom of Conscience.
With other organizations in 2022, we actively lobbied the UNHRC to launch an international investigation into the 1988 mass extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances of political prisoners in Iran. In December 2023, Dr. Stephen Bronner participated in the campaign for the release of political prisoners in Iran and joined the appeal to Dr. Mai Sato, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, to publicly condemn these death sentences and demand their immediate repeal and protection of these political prisoners.
ACJCR is actively involved in the lobbying campaign to push for the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act in the United States Congress, and in December 2023 also joined a letter addressed to members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee urging them to bring the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act to committee consideration as soon as possible, so the United States Senate can join the House of Representatives in sending a clear message to not only China, but the rest of the world that the United States is combating and not complicit in the heinous practice of forced organ harvesting.
In addition, members of ACJCR regularly participate in the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw, as well as in the UNHRC sessions in Geneva, we have presented reports on xenophobia, radicalism and minority rights in the OSCE area, which are also available upon request. In particular, in October 2024, Dr. Bronner participated in the 57th session of the UNHRC and held a site event, where he presented the results of his research on radicalism in the United States and Europe.
Deputy Director Igor Kotler has also organized numerous educational events dealing with Holocaust. On May 8, 2024, in coordination with Museum of Human Rights, Freedom and Tolerance, he conducted an online symposium entitled De-Judaization of the Term “Holocaust”. The symposium featured a discussion by the distinguished Holocaust scholars, who shared their perspectives on this very timely topic.
Research in the field of extremism is also one of the areas of activity of the ACJCR. With the participation of the organization, more than 5 monographs and more than 50 articles devoted to this topic have been published.
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ACJCR offers public conferences and symposia on history, politics, and the conduct of diplomacy. They concern all aspects of our organization’s activities – from human rights to international conflict resolution.
Conferences
Racism, Xenophobia, and Anti-Semitism in the Russian-Speaking Segment of YouTube. Ilya Altman, Igor Kotler, eds. Protecting the Future: Second Moscow International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism, Xenophobia, and Racism. Moscow. October 29-30, 2018. Moscow: Kaleidoskop, 2020 [In English and Russian]
Panel Participant: “Intercultural Communication and Public Diplomacy” Kiev School for Public Diplomacy, November 2020 (Igor)
Community Activities (Igor Kotler)
Armenian Genocide, 1915-1918 (Museum of Human Rights, Freedom, and Tolerance), 2024
Member, New Jersey State Commission on Holocaust Education, 2012 – Present
Invited Keynote Lectures (Dr. Stephen Bronner)
Keynote Speech: “The Illusions of the Vital Center’ for the Jean Monnet Program for the European Union (April 28, 2025)
“The Authoritarian Personality Reconsidered” for Psychoanalysis and the Public Sphere for the Freud Museum (November 30, 2024)
“Extremism and American Democracy” for the United Nations: Geneva (0ctober 8, 2024)
“American Media and the Russia-Ukraine War” for the European Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Warsaw (October 1, 2023)
Keynote: “What is a State” for the Graduating Class of \ the Ukrainian National Institute for Politics (July 27, 2023)
Keynote: “Global Politics and Ukraine: On the First Anniversary of the Russian Invasion” for the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (2/23/2023)
“Mass Media and Human Rights” for the UPR Shadow Report Launching/Arab European Forum in Brussels (2/20/2023)
Keynote: “Lessons of Diplomacy and Dialogue” Dutch UN Student Association at SIB Gröningen Netherlands (September 28, 2020)