The sixth Deltaville Great Decisions session of 2026 will take place on Friday, March 6 at 10 a.m. at the Deltaville Community Association (DCA) building at 17147 General Puller Highway in Deltaville when Professor Francesca Parente of Christopher Newport University (CNU) presents a talk entitled “The Future of Human Rights and International Law.” All are welcome. There is no charge to attend.
The United Nations, along with regional organizations in the Americas, Europe and Africa, embraced the historically radical idea that sovereign states could not be trusted to protect the rights of their own peoples but needed the help – and the scrutiny – of international law. As democracy and human rights retreat globally — and the U.S. pulls back — how can civil society and legal norms remain effective in a divided world? What is the role and force of international law in this era of impunity?
Dr. Francesca Parente is an assistant professor of political science at CNU and director of the Reiff Center for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution. She is an alumna of the University of Virginia, Class of 2013. After receiving her Ph.D. in political science from UCLA in 2019, she held post-doctoral fellowships at Princeton and at the University of Pennsylvania before joining CNU in 2021. Her research concerns the role of institutions and law in the aftermath of violence and human rights abuses, particularly in newly transitioned democracies. She has published widely in highly regarded political science journals on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which focuses on human rights abuses in Latin America, and the International Criminal Court.
The seventh and penultimate Deltaville Great Decisions session of 2026 will take place on March 13 when Pep Fuller presents a talk entitled “Trump Tariffs and the Future of the World Economy.”
For the complete 2026 schedule of topics and speakers, see www.rivah.life/greatdecisions.
