Intensive Course on the Role of Human Rights in Development: Impact and Responsibility 8-12 Nov. 2010

Host

Institute for Human Rights at Åbo Akademi University, Åbo, Finland.

Course Description

This one-week intensive course offers participants an opportunity to acquire specialist-level knowledge in the field of human rights and development. It offers critical examinations of the conceptual and practical relevance of the international human rights framework to development cooperation, focusing on strategies to integrate the two fields, including but not limited to human rights-based approaches to development. There is special focus on human rights as an accountability framework and women and children as claimants of rights. The course will provide both theoretical and practical insights, for example in the area of assessing impact and the value of human rights-based approaches to development.

Requirements

The course is conducted in English, and is composed of seminars, working-group exercises and an optional written examination. The course is designed for PhD students, scholars, practitioners (e.g., law, human rights and/or development), policy-makers and advanced master’s students. The number of participants is restricted to 40.

Deadline

The deadline for applications is 14 September 2010.

More information

Details of the course, including application forms, can be obtained from the Institute’s website.

Human Rights - Past, Present, Future' - Helsinki Summer Seminar 16-27 August 2010

Helsinki Summer Seminar of International Law, 16-27 August, Helsinki FINLAND

Human rights are commonly celebrated as 'values for a godless age'. Their integration in national constitutions is regarded as a cause for celebration and their inclusion in the agendas of international institutions is seen to signal worldwide progress. How did we come to witness this triumph of human rights? This seminar brings together scholars of various theoretical orientations to discuss the history and ideology of human rights as well as the role of rights in domestic and international societies. Through its combination of critical query, historical analysis and empirical data, the seminar hopes to challenge commonplace understandings and to inspire critical discussions on the future.

The Helsinki Summer Seminar is aimed at students, trainees and professionals.

Mobility scholarships are offered to Nordic and Baltic doctoral candidates and young researchers (within five years of PhD) who wish to conduct human rights research in one of the Nordic countries for up to two months. Read more!

The International Criminal Court and the Responsibility to Protect Synergies and Tensions 3-4 December 2010

An International Conference, Helsinki, December 3-4, 2010

Venue: Small Hall, University of Helsinki main building (Fabianinkatu 33)

As the 2005 UN World Summit decided to advance the project on “responsibility to protect” (R2P), it stated that each State had the “responsibility to protect it populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”. The international community (including the UN itself) was called upon to “help States to exercise this responsibility”. Since 2005, the content of the R2P project has been increasingly identified with the prevention of the four crimes laid out in the summit document. These crimes clearly coincide with the province of international criminal justice and especially with the jurisdiction of the ICC. This raises some important and interesting questions. What is the relationship between political action undertaken through R2P and judicial action by the ICC? Whether and how their respective fields of operation should be coordinated?

The Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights (ECI) at the University of Helsinki will organize a conference in Helsinki on 3-4 December 2010 with the intention of examining the interface between the political project of “responsibility to protect” and the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (“R2P/ICC”). The conference is organized with the sponsorship of the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and one of its aims is to provide critical and intellectually rigorous guidance for policy-makers working in the two fields.

The conference is intended to have three sessions:

1. “The ICC and R2P, from Promise to Practice” – an assessment of the development and present status of these two normative endeavours;
2. “The Politics of the ICC and R2P” – an analysis of the possible overlaps between the two enterprises and their effects;
3. “The Road ahead” – a discussion of how the international community might best coordinate its future action in these fields.

Peace Processes and the Role of National Human Rights Institutions

2010 International Summer School Lecture

Professor Monica McWilliams ( Chief Commissioner , Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission)

'Peace Processes and the Role of National Human Rights Institutions’

Wednesday 9 June 2010, 6.30pm in the Great Hall, Magee campus, 

Transitional Justice Institute, University of Ulster