GHRN Inaugural Human Rights Lecture

Tuesday 29 November 2011, University of Glasgow, Wolfson Medical School Building
Campus Map location C8: http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_1887_en.pdf

One of the aims of the GHRN is to establish connections and collaborations between academics, practitioners and the public working on human rights in Scotland.   This event will comprise of a discussion session and public lecture by Baroness Helena Kennedy QC.

Draft programme details are below - these will be updated as further speakers and details are confirmed.
Download: 111129 Inaugural Human Rights Lecture

Discussion: “Creating a human rights culture in Scotland: local and global perspectives”
 16.00 – 17.45 Wolfson Medical School Building, Seminar Room 1 (Yudowitz)

Jo Ferrie and Vikki Turbine, co-convenors of the GHRN Equality and Diversity Cluster (in conjunction with the Promoting Awareness & Respect for Human Rights Cluster), will reflect briefly on their own work on disability rights in the UK and women’s access to human rights in Russia. They will be joined by Alison Hosie from the Scottish Human Rights Commission and other practitioners reflecting on their and their organization's work, to raise a number of important questions that have arisen in their research and that could lead to interesting collaborations within the network:

  • How are human rights used in Scotland (by individuals, the state, agencies, and activists)?
  • What can we learn from comparative perspectives on human rights and human rights research conducted in other places (questions about the universality of human rights in understandings, access and practices)?
  • What do different disciplinary perspectives bring to the debate (legal, policy, sociological, political perspectives)
  • What points of resistance to human rights to we encounter (why/when/where/by whom; are there still taboo/illegitimate concerns for human rights)?

We hope this event will stimulate an interesting starting discussion and we welcome suggestions for future events to be supported by the Network and Clusters.

Inaugural Human Rights Lecture: "Where Are Human Rights Going?"
 18.00 - 19.15 Wolfson Medical School Building, Seminar Room 2 (Hugh Fraser)

Speaker: Baroness Helena Kennedy QC

About the speaker:  Helena Kennedy is a barrister, broadcaster, and Labour member of the House of Lords. She is an expert in human rights law, civil liberties and constitutional issues and Chair of Justice – the British arm of the International Commission of Jurists.

She is the current chair of Inquiry for the Equality and Human Rights Commission on Human Trafficking in Scotland and a member of the Government Commission on a British Bill of Rights, a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and an honorary Writer to the Signet in Scotland.

Helena Kennedy has acted in many of the prominent cases of the last three decades including the Brighton Bombing, the Michael Bettany espionage trial, the Guildford Four appeal and the bombing of the Israeli embassy. 

She has received many honours, nationally and internationally, for her work on the Rule of Law and has recently been elected Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford.

This event will conclude with a reception in the Wolfson Atrium

All are welcome – free of charge

Registration essential: to attend please email your name and organisation details to GHRNadmin@glasgow.ac.uk by 25 November