Glasgow Human Rights Network

Recorded live at the Glasgow Human Rights Network’s Early Career Researcher event, Dr David Scott talks with Dr Elaine Webster (Strathclyde University), Prof Bruce Adamson (University of Glasgow), and Mhairi Snowden (Human Rights Consortium Scotland) on how to bring academia and practice together to work on human rights in Scotland.

The Glasgow Human Rights Network hosted its first Early Career Work-in-Progress Workshop at Strathclyde University on 13 June 2024, bringing together PhD students from the Universities of Glasgow, Strathclyde, Glasgow Caledonian University, and the University of the West of Scotland to present their work and make new connections with other early career academics.

On this episode of the SCGA podcast, the network presents the workshop’s keynote panel on Human Rights Work in Practice, with Dr David Scott (Postdoctoral Research Associate in International Law and Governance at the Glasgow Centre for International Law and Security, University of Glasgow, and the Scottish Council on Global Affairs) joined by Dr Elaine Webster (Reader in Law at Strathclyde University), Prof Bruce Adamson (former Professor of Legal Practice at University of Glasgow and former Children and Young People’s Commissioner for Scotland), and Mhairi Snowden (Director at the Human Rights Consortium Scotland) to discuss their careers in human rights, the successful collaborations they have seen between academics and civil society, and the challenges and obstacles that can be encountered when trying to work together.

Check the Podcast here from the SCGA: https://scga.scot/2024/07/25/podcast-human-rights-collaboration/

Formed in 2011, the Glasgow Human Rights Network aims to support human rights teaching and research across the University of Glasgow, Strathclyde University, Glasgow Caledonian University, and the University of the West of Scotland, as well as facilitating external knowledge exchange between academics, practitioners, government, and civil society within Scotland and beyond. 

Having fallen dormant during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Network secured a SCGA Connections Award to organise two relaunch events—one for civil society and one for early career researchers—to ask how the relaunched Network could best support the range of human rights work being undertaken across Glasgow and Scotland today.

Community Re-launch event – 26 April 2024

Our April relaunch event focused on engaging with civil society from across Scotland. Over 50 third sector and community and activist groups joined us at the Albany Centre to discuss how academics and civil society could best work together. Presentations from Reach Advocacy and members of the Glasgow Human Rights Network’s Working Group helped focus our discussions on how academics and community groups could collaborate together, as well as identifying obstacles in getting these two sectors together, and groups worked together to find areas for future work for the Network.

^{Participants at the Community re-launch event at the Albany Centre, Glasgow}

A participant survey helped identify proposals for next steps for the Network, including the suggestion to produce a rolodex of academic expertise and topic-specific working groups to help civil society and academia work together on concrete policy areas. SCGA funding helped us not only to hire the venue but also provide for an interpreter for the event and provide participation vouchers for community groups, ensuring wide accessibility. 

_{Dr Yingru Li (left) and Dr David Scott (right) outline next steps for the Network}

Early Career Work-in-Progress Workshop – 13 June 2024

Our second event in June engaged with early career researchers across our four Network universities, to provide a space for those at early stages in their careers to forge new connections and discuss how the Network could support their research. More than 20 researchers from across Scottish universities joined us to hear three panels of papers:

_{Panel presentation on Human Rights and Criminal Justice with (left-right) Tordue Simon Targema, Olivia Benítez, and Conor Hill} 

The Network also organised a Keynote Panel on Human Rights Work in Practice with Dr. Elaine Webster (Reader in Law and Director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights Law at Strathclyde University’s School of Law); Prof. Bruce Adamson (Professor of Practice at the University of Glasgow’s School of Law and Former Children and Young People’s Commissioner), and Mhairi Snowden (Director of the Human Rights Consortium Scotland), chaired by Dr David Scott (University of Glasgow). This discussion focused on successes and challenges in academic and civil society collaboration on human rights matters, which was recorded as a future episode of the SCGA Podcast series.

_{Keynote panel presentation with (left-right) Dr David Scott, Dr Elaine Webster, Prof Bruce Adamson, and Mhairi Snowden}

Next steps for the Network

The Network’s Working Group will now meet to take forward the discussions from both events and plan the Network’s next steps as an organisation. Anyone interested in joining the Network or finding out more about its work can sign up to the mailing list at https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/glasgowhumanrightsnetwork/. Academics, Masters, and PhD students across all subjects, as well as practitioners, civil society, and community groups, are all encouraged to join. 

Glasgow Human Rights Network: Early Career Work-in-Progress Workshop (Thursday 13 June, Strathclyde University)

The Glasgow Human Rights Network comprises members from the Universities of Glasgow, Strathclyde, Glasgow Caledonian University, and the University of the West of Scotland, with the aim of connecting academic work on human rights with practitioners, civil society, community groups, and national/local government representatives across Scotland.

As part of our relaunch, we are hosting the Network’s first Early Career Work-in-Progress Workshop at Strathclyde University on Thursday 13 June. The Workshop is open to early career academics and PhD students from all disciplines, with the aim of facilitating new connections between people working on human rights across Glasgow’s four Universities. 

Researchers from these institutions should submit an abstract of no longer than 300 words along with a short bio and affiliation information to GHRN@glasgow.ac.uk. The closing date for applications is Thursday 23 May and applicants will be notified if their paper has been accepted the following week. Full papers do not need to be submitted for the workshop, but successful applicants are welcome to circulate a draft prior to the event if this would help with discussion. 

Alongside paper discussions, members of the Glasgow Human Rights Network will provide an introduction to the Network and the insights gained from our two previous relaunch events with academics and students and civil society and community groups, with the aim of involving ECRs in the Network’s next steps. More information about the Network can be found here: https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/glasgowhumanrightsnetwork/ and https://twitter.com/GlasgowHumRts.  

An event link to attend the workshop as a non-presenting audience member will be circulated closer to the date. If you have any other inquiries, please do not hesitate to contact us at GHRN@glasgow.ac.uk. 

Glasgow Human Rights Network Working Group and the CoSS Community Matters Programme, are delighted to announce the upcoming relaunch of the Glasgow Human Rights Network (GHRN) as a Scottish hub for interdisciplinary human rights expertise! Join us for the first stage of this remarkable journey to find out more about the Network, how you can get involved, and to meet other academics working on human rights across Glasgow.

Date and time: Thursday, 7th December, 2-3.30pm.

Venue: Clarice Pears Building (room 103b), 90 Byres Road Glasgow, G12 8TB.

This event is open to academics and students from any university in Glasgow, who are curious about the Network’s activities and eager contribute in the coming year.

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/community-matters-relaunching-the-glasgow-human-rights-network-tickets-761228433737?aff=oddtdtcreator

The event:

On 7 December, the Glasgow Human Rights Network was officially relaunched at an event at the University of Glasgow. The relaunch event was co-organised by the Network’s Working Group – including Dr David Scott (Glasgow Centre for International Law & Security, School of Law, University of Glasgow), Dr Douglas Jack (Centre for the Study of Human Rights Law, Law School, University of Strathclyde), and Dr Yingru Li (Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow), who are recipients of a Scottish Council on Global Affairs Connections Award to support the relaunch of the Network in 2023-24 – and the University of Glasgow’s Community Matters Programme, a human rights-based knowledge exchange programme committed to facilitating community participation and involvement with the revitalised Network.

Formed in 2011, the Glasgow Human Rights Network aims to support human rights teaching and research across the universities of Glasgow, Strathclyde, Glasgow Caledonian, and the University of the West of Scotland, and facilitate external knowledge exchange between academics, practitioners, government, and civil society within Scotland and beyond. Having fallen dormant during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Network’s relaunch event brought together over 30 colleagues from academia, practice, and the third sector to make new connections and revitalise the Network, asking how the relaunched Network could best support the range of human rights work being undertaken across Glasgow today.

_{Dr Yingru Li introducing the history of the Glasgow Human Rights Network}

The event began with an overview of the history of Glasgow Human Rights Network by Dr Yingru Li, Convenor of the Glasgow Human Rights Network since 2019. This was followed by attendees introducing their work on human rights through one-minute presentations. These introductions showcased the breadth of human rights work being done across Glasgow, covering a wide range of disciplines such as law, education, gender, business, policy, and many other fields.

_{Group discussions on how the Glasgow Human Rights Network can best support those working on human rights across Scotland}

Following these introductions, attendees broke into group discussions to suggest what activities the Network should focus on in the coming year. Attendees emphasized that the Network should serve as a platform to connect individuals from diverse disciplines, backgrounds, and regions across Scotland. Ideas for future activities included the hosting of an annual lecture and conference on human rights research, a focus on supporting students and early career researchers through research exchange events, and the possibility for the Network to offer training and human rights education to organisations and community groups seeking to engage with human rights in their work.

_{Dr Douglas Jack gathering feedback from the group discussions}

The Network’s Working Group will now meet in January to take forward these discussions and plan events for the coming semester. Anyone interested in joining the Network or finding out more about its work can sign up to the mailing list at https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/glasgowhumanrightsnetwork/. Academics, Masters, and PhD students across all subjects, as well as practitioners, civil society, and community groups, are all encouraged to join. 

Sperker: Kate Phillips 

Date and time: Wednesday 28 September, 4pm - 6.30pm

Venue: Fore Hall, West Quadrangle, Gilbert Scott Building, University of Glasgow

The Glasgow Human Rights Network is delighted to welcome Kate Phillips with her recently published book 'Bought and Sold, Scotland, Jamaica and Slavery', to discuss Scotland's role in the Jamaican slave trade. The event is co-hosted with Adam Smith Business School and will be hosted by our network's convenor, Dr. Yingru Li. 

Detailed event information: https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/business/events/headline_870162_en.html

Eventbrite registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bought-and-sold-scotland-jamaica-and-slavery-tickets-399476403677 

Summary:

The book “Bought and Sold, Scotland, Jamaica and Slavery” traces the story of how and why thousands of Scots made money from buying and selling humans. In the book, author Kate Phillips, traces Scotland and Jamaica’s closely entwined story from its early beginnings in the 1700s to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, and reflects on the meaning of those years for both nations today. Talking about her book to an audience at the University of Glasgow on the evening of September 28th, Kate argued that in the seventeen and 1800s, Scots were deeply involved in slavery.

She began by describing how Glasgow merchants controlled a three cornered trade, giving loans to planters in the colonies to buy enslaved workers and in return receiving payment in produce: the sugar, tobacco and cotton which the slaves planted and harvested. This produce was processed and sold in Glasgow, where planter profits were built up to be invested in other industries, such as coal mining, iron smelting, textiles and banking. 

Pressure to pay loans and rapidly build profit for further investment led planters to force slaves into long hours and intense hard work, which often led to an early death. Orders for further slaves were passed to Glasgow merchants, who made further profit by hiring and equipping ships to trade off the West African coast and carry human cargoes to the biggest slave market in the world in Kingston, Jamaica.

Wealthy merchant families displayed their resulting rise in social status by building themselves large mansions. A Glasgow townscape of large private homes, ornate churches and grand civic buildings all testified to Scotland’s involvement of the slave trade.

Kate went on to describe the ways in which slavery divided opinion in the city. Within the University a strong and active anti-slavery group of staff and students was established, arguing that slavery was immoral and encouraging the public and fellow students to send petitions to parliament. She pointed out that Adam Smith debated the issues with merchants in the coffee houses of Glasgow and provided an economic critique of slavery. He argued that a waged workforce was much more efficient.

In the discussion which followed the recent activity of the university in researching and publishing how far the institution may have profited from slavery was highlighted, along with their ongoing work, publishing previously hidden histories, correcting colonial perspectives and cooperating with partners to address some of the economic and social development problems faced by countries such as Jamaica.

The Adam Smith Business School is holding a seminar with Professor Florian Wettstein on the topic of business and human rights. The seminar is part of the business school's Wards Seminar Series, and will be hosted by our network's convenor, Dr Yingru Li. Please feel free to join. 

The seminar will be held online on Wednesday 25 May, 1.00pm-2.15pm. 

Title: Three perspectives on the relation between BHR and CSR

Abstract: The relationship between the long-standing discussion on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the more recent discussion on business and human rights (BHR) has attracted some scholarly attention by now, producing different and sometimes conflicting conceptualisations. In this seminar we will assess three such proposals and reflect on their interrelation and the implications deriving from them. The three perspectives emphasise 1) BHR as a critical response to CSR, 2) the co-optation or colonisation of BHR by CSR, and 3) the co-evolutionary potential of the two discussions. What is at stake is the legitimacy of CSR both as a practice and a scholarly concept, and the very viability of BHR as a distinct field of scholarship.

Biography: Florian Wettstein is Chair and Professor of Business Ethics and Director of the Institute for Business Ethics at University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.  Florian has published widely on topics at the intersection of corporate responsibility, business ethics and business and human rights and is the author of Multinational Corporations and Global Justice: Human Rights Obligations of a Quasi-Governmental Institution (Stanford University Press, 2009), and of the recently published textbook, Business and Human Rights: Ethical, Legal, and Managerial Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 2022). Florian is a founding Editor-in-Chief of the Business and Human Rights Journal (BHRJ).

Please find the zoom link:

https://uofglasgow.zoom.us/j/97267893014?pwd=RU0vbTUrZmEycUtTTHhnblN0UGFOQT09

Speaker: Professor Virginia Mantouvalou

Virginia Mantouvalou is Professor of Human Rights and Labour Law at UCL, Faculty of Laws. In 2021 she held a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship for her work on structural injustice, workers’ rights and human rights. Her book Structures of Injustice, Workers’ Rights and Human Rights is forthcoming by OUP in 2022. Her most recent co-edited book, Philosophical Foundations of Labour Law (with Hugh Collins and Gillian Lester), was published by OUP in 2018. She is Articles Co-Editor of the Modern Law Review, member of the editorial board of the Stanford Studies in Human Rights, Co-Editor of the UK Labour Law Blog and the Studies in Law and Social Justice and was Joint Editor of Current Legal Problems. She has held visiting positions at Georgetown University Law Centre in Washington DC and the Universite Libre de Bruxelles.

Date and Time: 31st March, 12:00 - 13:30.

Zoom Link: https://uofglasgow.zoom.us/j/97617887723?pwd=ZjBOcWI5dXluLzlOQ24wN2I4dnhtdz09 

Meeting ID: 976 1788 7723  Passcode: 920575

Abstract: An increasing number of jobs are precarious, making workers vulnerable to various forms of ill-treatment and exploitation. The UK Government’s main approach has been to criminalise the actions of unscrupulous employers who seek to exploit precarious workers. This approach, however, has been ineffective, partly because it ignores the broader socio-economic structures that place workers in conditions of vulnerability. This project seeks to identify structures that force and trap workers in conditions of exploitation. It focuses specifically on what I call ‘state-mediated structural injustice’, where laws that promote aims with an appearance of legitimacy create vulnerabilities that force and trap workers in conditions of exploitation. In order to illustrate the unjust structures, I use examples such as restrictive visa regimes, work while in prison or immigration detention, and welfare conditionality programmes that force people into precarious work.

In my talk I will discuss some of these examples, and will consider whether these legal structures are compatible with human rights law. I suggest that these instances of state-mediated structural injustice may violate rights, such as the prohibition of slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour, the right to work, the right to private life and the prohibition of discrimination. This injustice will be rectified not through modern slavery laws that criminalise employers who engage in serious exploitation and abuse, but through broader legal reform.

This talk will be followed by a Q&A session.

Summary: 

The topic of the seminar is Structures of Injustice, Workers’ Rights and Human Rights, and Professor Virginia Mantouvalou started by introducing the UK Government’s main approach to address various forms of exploitation. She suggested that the UK Government’s approach has been to criminalise the actions of unscrupulous employers who seek to exploit precarious workers. This approach focuses on individual criminal responsibility for those who ill-treated workers. However, this focus on individual responsibility for precarious and exploitative work is ineffective because it ignores broader socio-economic structures that place workers in a position of vulnerability.

Secondly, examples of legal rules are discussed to show that laws could create vulnerabilities that force and trap workers in conditions of exploitation. In this talk, Professor Virginia Mantouvalou provided three examples: first, immigration rules such as restrictive visa schemes that domestic workers and migrant workers need to follow; second, working prisoners as well as immigration detainees; third, welfare-to-work schemes that force people into precarious work.

Next, Professor Virginia Mantouvalou proposed a new concept, the concept of “state-mediated structural injustice”, to describe the situation where laws that promote aims with an appearance of legitimacy creates vulnerability to exploitation. Focused on the state-mediated structural injustice, Professor Virginia Mantouvalou argued that the state is responsible and should be held accountable for this structural injustice, and furthermore, the human rights law could be used as an effective tool to challenge the legal rules. It was suggested that the state-mediated structural injustice may violate human rights, such as the prohibition of forced and compulsory labour, the right to private life, labour inspections, and health and safety, the right to social security, the right to work, and the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment, etc. And to change the injustice structure, it requires work from a variety of actors including human rights courts as well as other civil society organisations.