BUILDING BRIDGES TO JUSTICE THROUGH UNITY: by Karen Tse (USA, Switzerland & China), Founder of IBJ

Home for Humanity’s Living Curriculum:

Rev. Karen Tse speaks to us from the heart of her home in Geneva, on the edge of a forest, where she finds replenishment in the trees from the demands of her worldwide campaign to end torture. Her experience as a young UN human rights officer in Cambodia shaped her life’s calling to eliminate torture. “I established International Bridges of Justice because every day in countries around the world, people are arbitrarily detained and tortured. Because torture is the cheapest form of investigation… IBJ has built a worldwide movement to end torture as an investigative  tool.” Karen shares how she brings together the linear results-oriented challenge of her legal work with her parallel path as a scholar of divinity studies and a universalist preacher. She speaks poignantly of the importance of being  ‘at home’ in oneself, in one’s calling, and in the world, and she offers precious advice to today’s youth on how to find their calling, within themselves.

BIOGRAPHY: Rev.  Karen Tse is a Human Rights defender and social entrepreneur. In 1994, she moved to Cambodia to train the country’s first core group of public defenders and subsequently served as a United Nations Judicial Mentor. She then pursued Divinity studies at the University of Harvard. In 2000, she founded International Bridges to Justice (IBJ), a non-profit organization which aims to eradicate torture in the 21st century, and protects due process rights for accused people throughout the world. Tse’s method is unique, being both bottom-up and top-down, inspired by her twin roles of minister and lawyer.  Learn more about IBJ and join their campaigns at: www.ibj.org

About the Living Curriculum: The conversation with Rev. Karen Tse was conducted by Marc L’Eplattenier and Stefanie Kriech, Members of the Home for Humanity Team 2020. The team worked on the creation of a Home for Humanity Living Curriculum – a task that was embedded in the 2020 “Reshaping International Development” Course at the University of St. Gallen, directed by the co-founders of Home for Humanity. This Living Curriculum is part of the HumanivEARTHsity Programme in Transformative Education of Home for Humanity.