Annual Lecture
The Human Rights Law Centre annually invites a distinguished human rights leader and expert on international human rights issues to deliver its Annual Lecture to students and staff. For details of upcoming and previous lectures, please read below.
2011: Argentoratum Locutum: Is the Supreme Court Supreme?
Expert Lecture by The Rt. Hon. Baroness Hale of Richmond DPE PC, Justice of the UK Supreme Court, on 'Argentoratum Locutum: Is the Supreme Court Supreme?'
1 December 2011
HRLC was pleased to welcome The Right Honourable Baroness Hale of Richmond DBE PC, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, to deliver its Annual Lecture for the academic year 2011-2012. In her lecture Baroness Hale reflected on the relationship between the UK Supreme Court and the European Court for Human Rights. Follow this link to download the full text of Baroness Hale's lecture.
Speaker Profile
Brenda Hale became the first woman ‘Law Lord’ in January 2004, after a varied career, first as an academic lawyer, then as a law reformer, and then as a judge. With her fellow Law Lords, she became a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom when that court was established on 1 October 2009.
After graduating from Cambridge in 1966, she taught Law at Manchester University from 1966 to 1984, also qualifying as a barrister and practising for a while at the Manchester Bar. She specialised in Family and Social Welfare Law, publishing textbooks on Mental Health Law, Parents and Children, The Family, Law and Society (with David Pearl) and Women and the Law (with Susan Atkins). Her many other publications include the 1995 Hamlyn lectures, From the Test Tube to the Coffin - Choice and Regulation in Private Life.
In 1984 she was the first woman to be appointed a member of the Law Commission, a statutory body set up to promote the reform of the law. She led the work which ultimately resulted, inter alia, in the Children Act 1989, the Family Law Act 1996, and the Mental Capacity Act 2005. In 1994 she became a High Court judge, the first to have made a career as an academic rather than a practising lawyer, then in 1989 the second woman ‘Lord Justice of Appeal’ in the Court of Appeal for England and Wales, and in 2004 a ‘Lord of Appeal in Ordinary’ in the appellate committee of the House of Lords, the highest court in the United Kingdom. She retains her links with the academic world, principally as Chancellor of the University of Bristol and Visitor of her old Cambridge College, Girton. She holds several honorary degrees and is also an honorary Fellow of the British Academy and an honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
She is married to Dr Julian Farrand LL.D. QC, a distinguished academic property lawyer and former pensions and insurance ombudsman, and has one daughter, three step-children, two grandchildren and five step-grandchildren. As a home-maker as well as a Judge she has thoroughly enjoyed working with the architects and designers to create a fitting new home for the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.
Counter-Terrorism: The Human Rights DeficitExpert lecture by Professor Sir Nigel Rodley KBE on 'Counter-Terrorism: The Human Rights Deficit'
22 February 2011
In his lecture, Sir Nigel analysed the serious challenge to the international human rights protection system posed by the counter-terrorist policies adopted in the US and elsewhere after 9/11. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 exposed an enemy that requires maximum resistance, provided that resistance is within the law and consistent with human rights. However, the world witnessed a series of responses that were without the law, in flagrant violation of the law or which sought to circumvent the law. Torture, unlawful interrogation techniques, secret detention, extraordinary rendition, internment and the use of special tribunals or military commissions were justified and defended in legal memoranda that effectively rewrote the rule book, re-interpreting international law so that not even peremptory rules such as the absolute prohibition of torture apply to alleged terrorists, creating a ‘legal black hole’. This legal black hole though was not created by a monolithic system, it was rather a strategy put together by a political cabal, which did not reflect the traditional culture of values of the US civil service and armed forces. The change in the US administration brought with it a stop to unlawful policies in counter-terrorism, but it has failed so far to address the issue of impunity and responsibility of the perpetrators of human rights violations and the drafters of legal memoranda justifying those violations. However, the US Supreme Court has recently given judgments more in keeping with human rights standards.
Speaker Profile
Professor Sir Nigel Rodley has been a member of the UN Human Rights Committee since 2001, having served as UN Special Rapporteur on Torture from 1993 to 2001. He is also a Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists. He has worked at UN Headquarters in New York and was founding head of the legal office at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International. He has taught human rights and international law at the University of Essex since 1990. He was knighted in 1998 for services to human rights and international law.
Spring Lecture podcast part 1 Spring Lecture podcast part 2
Expert lecture by Professor William A Schabas, Director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights on 'Victor's Justice: Politics and International Criminal Prosecution'
2 March 2010
HRLC was pleased to welcome Professor William A. Schabas to deliver the Annual Spring Lecture on ‘Victor’s Justice: Politics and the International Criminal Prosecution’. Professor Schabas reflected on the question of whether international criminal prosecutions are still to be currently considered as exercises of ‘victor’s justice’.
Professor Schabas analysed Victor’s Justice, within the framework of the evolution of international criminal law and current problems faced by the International Criminal Court (ICC). He drew on personal experience from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Sierra Leone and the drafting of the Rome Statute of the ICC. Professor Schabas observed that the cases selected by the Prosecutor of the ICC, with the exception of the indictment against Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir, all related to rebel leaders rather than government agents. This suggests that political factors and considerations might still play a role in international criminal prosecutions. Professor Schabas concluded that it is difficult to create an international criminal tribunal which is not political and that this needs to be acknowledged in order for the ICC to be successful.
Speaker Profile
Professor Schabas is a leading international expert and scholar in international human rights law and international criminal law. He is the author of twenty one books dealing in whole or in part with international human rights law and he has published more than 250 articles in the fields of his expertise. He is editor-in-chief of Criminal Law Forum, the quarterly journal of the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law. In May 2002, he was appointed to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Sierra Leone. In 2006, the Secretary-General of the United Nations appointed him a member of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Technical Assistance in the Field of Human Rights. In 2009, he was elected President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. He is also the President of the Irish Branch of the International Law Association. , the quarterly journal of the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law. In May 2002, he was appointed to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Sierra Leone. In 2006, the Secretary-General of the United Nations appointed him a member of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Technical Assistance in the Field of Human Rights. In 2009, he was elected President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. He is also the President of the Irish Branch of the International Law Association.
Expert Lecture by Mr. Morten Kjaerum, Director of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights on 'Bringing Rights Home - Challenges for the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights'
28 January 2009
Mr Morten Kjaerum, Inaugural Director of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights and former member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, visited the Human Rights Law Centre on 28 January to deliver the Centre's annual spring lecture on 'Bringing Rights Home - Challenges for the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights'. The lecture was introduced by HRLC Co-Director and UN Human Rights Committee Member Professor Michael O'Flaherty.
In a thought-provoking lecture, Mr Kjaerum highlighted the positive impact that human rights law has had over the last 50 years, critically addressing the human rights challenges laying ahead, which the new EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) seeks to address. The lecture attracted more than 70 students and staff from across the university.
HRLC is part of the FRA's legal expert group (FRALEX), and as such, produces a number of thematic studies, flash reports and bulletins with respect to specific fundamental rights issues in the UK.
For further information on the Fundamental Rights Agency, please the FRA website.
Speaker Profile
Morten Kjaerum is an expert within the field of international human rights law, in particular in the field of racial discrimination and asylum and refugee law. He served for six years as an expert on the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), and was working as its special coordinator on follow-up to CERD concluding observations and recommendations. Since June 2008 he has been Director of the new EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) in Vienna. The FRA provides assistance and expertise to the EU and its Member States on fundamental rights matters when they are implementing Community law.
Expert Lecture on Protecting Human Rights Defenders; Hina Jilani, UN Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders
14 February 2008
Ms Hina Jilani, UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, delivered the 2008 Spring Lecture on Protecting Human Rights Defenders. The Lecture was introduced by HRLC Co-Director Professor Michael O’Flaherty. Ms Jilani's visit directly contributed to the development of an HRLC project to support Human Rights Defenders.
Hina Jilani, a leading lawyer in Pakistan, is an Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and has been a human rights defender for many years, working in particular in favour of the rights of women, minorities and children. Ms Jilani was a co-founder of the first all-women law firm in Pakistan in 1980. She also founded Pakistan's first legal aid centre in 1986.
As UN Special Representative, Ms Jilani's mandate is to support implementation of the 1998 Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. The mandate calls upon the Special Representative to gather information on the situation of human rights defenders, to enter into dialogue with Governments and other interested actors, and to make recommendations to improve the protection of defenders. Actions taken under the mandate include conducting country visits, taking up individual cases of concern with governments and reporting to the Human Rights Council and to the General Assembly.
For further information on the Special Representative, please see the OHCHR website.
Expert Lecture on 'The Great Human Rights Challenges of Today’; Professor Bertram Ramcharan, former Acting United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
1 February 2007
Former Acting United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Professor Bertram Ramcharan, delivered the inaugural Spring Lecture in February 2007 at the University of Nottingham.
Professor Ramcharan discussed the greatest human rights challenges of our time and gave his unique and thought-provoking insights on the human rights issues faced by the international community in situations such as Darfur and Iraq, as well as how they can be better handled in the future.
He is the Chancellor of the University of Guyana, former Acting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and former UN Assistant Secretary General. He has been Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists and also Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration.
Professor Ramcharan is Distinguished Visiting Fellow of the Human Rights Law Centre.