Karen Tse, founder and CEO of International Bridges to Justice and Scripps alumna, will give the Scripps Commencement address to the Class of 2007 on Sunday, May 13, at 3 p.m. on Elm Tree Lawn. Kimberlina McKinney ’07, a sociology major from Corona, California, will deliver the senior address for the ceremony.
Tse, an international human rights attorney and ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, founded International Bridges to Justice (IBJ) in 2000. The non-profit organization is dedicated to training public defenders and raising awareness of criminal rights in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Paraguay, and Zimbabwe.
Tse’s Watson fellowship in the year following her graduation from Scripps was a defining experience. As a teacher in refugee camps in Southeast Asia, she witnessed people detained without access to legal aid or trial. As the refugees shared their stories of abuse and false imprisonment, Tse was motivated to dedicate her career to promoting a more equitable justice system.
Tse returned to the U.S. and studied to be a public defender at UCLA Law School. In 1994, Tse relocated to Cambodia and helped train the country’s first group of public defenders and establish the first arraignment court in the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge.
Frequently profiled in international media including Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, and The New York Times, the mother of two was featured as the cover story for the February 2007 issue of Working Mother magazine. She was also on the cover of the winter 2006 Scripps Magazine.
Tse joined the world’s foremost business and political leaders at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in January 2007. Highlighting the importance of sustainable judicial systems in developing post-conflict nations, she joined a panel discussion that included Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia; Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees; and Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, among others.