CfP: Conference on Sexuality, Human Rights and Public Policy

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3rd International Conference of the Transatlantic Research Group in collaboration with the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center and Women and Gender Studies Program, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
23-24 April 2014

Social and legal discourses around same-sex marriage, gay and transgender rights have seen vigorous debates globally in recent times. These issues are being debated in European societies including France where the Supreme Court is considering two cases that may have significant social implications. Some states in the United State and the District of Columbia have now legalized same-sex marriage. On the other hand, some counties in Africa and most recently, Russia, have passed legislations limiting gay rights. African churches in particular have taken a more conservative stance than their Western counterparts in these debates as public policy, religious, ethnic, and sexual minorities are often pitted against one another. Continue reading →

Conference Registration Open: Social Practice of Human Rights

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Registration is open for the Social Practice of Human Rights Conference, at the University of Dayton, USA. Friday will feature 18 panels of original research in the field of human rights, and Saturday will host three plenary panels comprised of speakers from major NGOs, philanthropic foundations, and academia to engage in critical issues confronting the human rights community.

You are welcome to attend for either one or two days. A preliminary program is posted on the website. Please follow the site’s navigation for online registration and travel information.

NYC Event: Estelle Freedman: Redefining Rape – Sexual Violence in the Era of Suffrage and Segregation

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In Redefining Rape, Professor Estelle Freedman of Stanford University explores not only the ways in which rape has defined citizenship throughout American history but also how aspiring citizens have tried, repeatedly, to redefine rape. Long before second-wave feminists adopted an anti-rape platform, generations of women’s rights and racial-justice advocates rejected the narrow understanding of rape as a brutal attack on a chaste, unmarried, white woman by a stranger, often depicted as a black man.
Freedman shows how these critiques exposed the ways that white men’s freedom to be sexually coercive or violent lay at the heart of their political power. The modern civil rights and feminist movements, she points out, continue to grapple with both the insights and the dilemmas of these first campaigns to redefine rape in American law and culture.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013 at 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Wollman Hall (B500), Eugene Lang College
65 West 11th Street, New York, NY
Email: langeducationstudies@newschool.edu
Event website.

Harvard University, Tenure Track Professor of modern history of gender and culture

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The Department of History and the Committee on Degrees in History and Literature seek to appoint a tenure-track professor (at the assistant or untenured associate professor level) in the modern history of gender and culture, in a regional specialty other than the United States. The appointment is expected to begin on July 1, 2014. The tenure-track professor will be responsible for teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels in history, and for interdisciplinary instruction in history and literature. Doctorate in history or a related discipline is required by the time the appointment begins. Strong teaching experience as well as demonstrated competence in relevant research languages is desired.

Applicants should submit a letter of application, including a brief statement of current and future research and teaching interests, a curriculum vitae with a complete bibliography, and the names and contact information of three references to: http://academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/4919. Applications are not considered complete until the required three letters of recommendation are received. The deadline for receipt of applications is October 15, 2013. Harvard is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Applications from women and minorities are strongly encouraged.

“Human Rights Review Gary Herbert Award” Recipient

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Human Rights Review Editor-in-Chief Steven D. Roper is pleased to announce
the first recipient of the “Human Rights Review Gary Herbert Award” for
the best article published in the preceding year (2012).

William H. Meyer, Professor of Political Science and International
Relations at the University of Delaware, was chosen by the Award Committee
based on the topic, scholarship and contribution to the field of human
rights for his article “Indigenous Rights, Global Governance, and State
Sovereignty” published in Volume 13, Issue 4. The commendation noted that
the article “nicely links disparate developments regarding indigenous
rights to the broader notion of global governance. Meyer analyzes such
matters as the 2007 UN General Assembly Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples, certain cases in the OAS Inter-American Court of Human
Rights and activities by the Inuit Circumpolar Council. From these and
other developments he concludes that ‘sovereign’ states can be made to pay
attention to indigenous human rights and the other claims based on these
fundamental entitlements. The structure of the article is very clear, with
details adding up to a general overview about the international management
of ‘the problem’ of indigenous peoples who now find themselves inside
territorial states within the context of the global state system. The
research is broad; the writing is clear, and the subject matter is
important. The views presented are worth reading and reflection.”

The Award Committee was composed of David P. Forsythe, Charles J. Mach
Distinguished Professor at the University of Nebraska (Chair), Patrick
Hayden, Professor of Political Theory and International Relations at the
University of St Andrews and Lilian Barria, Professor of Political Science
at Eastern Illinois University.

This Award is named after Gary Herbert, who served as the journal’s
Editor-in-Chief from 2003 to 2011. This Award was made possible with the
generous support of Springer and Neil Olivier, who serves as Senior
Publishing Editor.

For more information about Human Rights Review, please visit
http://www.springer.com/law/journal/12142

CfP: Dissent! Histories and Meanings of Opposition from 1968 to the Present

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International Conference, January 16-17, 2014

Dissent!

Histories and Meanings of Opposition from 1968 to the Present

An Activity of the Research Group in International Studies, Aalborg
University

Globalization, post-9/11 politics and the post-2008 financial crisis have
all birthed modes and histories of opposition and dissent, be they dissent
from global political-economic systems or opposition to ranges of
international authoritarian regimes. Contemporary dissent, however,
oft-draws from forms and imaginations of earlier modes of protest, be they
student protests from the late ‘60s onward, the peace movement in the same
period, the anti-nukes movement of the 1980s or the anti-Apartheid movement
spanning the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s. Still, dissent takes other historical
forms: individual critiques of “actually existing” socialist systems, be
they civil rights based critique from individual figures such as Sakharov
or Rostropovich (or Solzhenitsyn’s nationalist-culturalism), media-driven
dissent, such as the political magazine Mladina’s criticisms of the
Yugoslav regime in the late 1980s and early 1990s or the voices of
“everyday” social actors, such as the Damas de Blanco in Cuba. In a
historical period encapsulating the last decades of the Cold War and an
unfolding twenty-first century, dissent and social opposition undergo and
have undergone redefinition within the confines of modern and contemporary
culture. Continue reading →

CfP: War, Memory, and Gender: An Interdisciplinary Conference

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Location: Mobile, Alabama
Conference Date: March 27-29, 2014
Deadline for Proposals: October 15, 2013

The past several decades have seen an explosion of scholarly interest in
the subject of war and gender. At the same time, the study of collective or
cultural memory, especially in connection with armed conflict, has become a
veritable cottage industry. This conference seeks to bring these two areas
of intensive study into dialogue with each other, exploring the complex
ways in which gender shapes war memory and war memory shapes gender.
Comprised of a select number of presentations (so that all participants
will be able to hear every paper), together with a keynote address by
Professor Jennifer Haytock (SUNY-Brockport) and a panel discussion
featuring women military veterans, the conference will address multiple
conflicts and nationalities from the perspectives of multiple disciplines. Continue reading →

Letters from Samoa: Climate Change & the Law

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Last week some of us from the Office of the Ombudsman attended a workshop on Climate Change and the Law. Climate change is an issue that has a specific and worrying relevance here in the Pacific, where populations live on small islands, some of which are low-lying, and all of which are subject to the extreme weather events of climate change. Only recently in December 2012, Samoa was hit by Cyclone Evan, which devastated large areas of the islands. There are many human rights that are affected by climate change, such as the right to life, the right to take part in cultural life, the right to use and enjoy property, the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to food, the right to water, the right to sanitation, the right to development, the right to adequate housing, and the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Other areas of rights that come into play are gender rights, education, and trade. This has been highlighted in such international documents as the Male’ Declaration on the Human Dimension of Global Climate Change (November 2007), and several Human Rights Council Resolutions: 7/23 (2008); 10/4 (2009); 18/22 (2011).

Presenters and attendees of the 2013 UNESCO/DLA Piper Climate Change and the Law Workshop in Apia, Samoa

Continue reading →

SHARES Seminar on the EU Accession to the European Convention on Human Rights

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On 5 April 2013, a draft agreement was concluded on the modalities for the accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights. The seminar critically reflects on one key aspect of the draft agreement: the allocation of international responsibility between the EU and its Member States, as well as between the Member States. In particular, it reviews whether the agreement adequately addresses the gaps in human rights protection that presently arise from the specific relationship between the EU and its Member States.

During this seminar, four issues will be discussed: attribution and responsibility; the co-respondent mechanism; allocation of responsibility within the legal order of the EU; and the relationship with the case law of the European Court of Human Rights.

Information can be found on the SHARES website.

The capacity of the venue is limited. To attend the event you must register in advance, please contact Iona Tjiong at: shares-fdr@uva.nl.

Gojil’s Student Essay Competition on “Principles of International Criminal Law”

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The Goettingen Journal of International Law published a Call for Papers for its annual Student Essay Competition on the topic “Principles of International Criminal Law”.

The Goettingen Journal of International Law (GoJIL) is the first German student-run international law journal. GoJIL seeks to foster debate among scholars of international law with its numerous and diverse fields.

This is the text of the call for papers:

As we are students ourselves, we would like to give students and young doctoral candidates the chance to gain practical experience and to publish their first scientific papers. To that end, GoJIL is hosting an annual Student Essay Competition. This year’s topic is “Principles of International Criminal Law”. The winning article will be published in one of GoJIL’s next issues.

 

International criminal law has increasingly gained importance during the last decades, mainly owed to the international community’s strive to fight and prosecute human rights violations. Ever since the Nuremberg Trials, this field has experienced growing attention. Given the number of contemporary scholarly publications, such development is likely to remain dynamic. The International Criminal Court’s first judgment in the Lubanga Case of 2012, amendments to the Rome Statute in 2010, and the observable trend of international crimes handled by national jurisdictions support this prediction. To contribute to the increased formalization of international criminal law caused by, among others, these developments, this year’s Essay Competition is dedicated to current questions of this field of law.

 

Participants are free to choose both the topic and the exact area of international criminal law on which their submissions will elaborate. We particularly welcome submissions addressing the modes of participation, problems of attribution, or the interdependency of international and national criminal law.

 

The deadline for your submission is 15 November 2013. The maximal word count is 5 000 words (excluding footnotes).

 

If you would like to write an article or are already working on the subject, send in your essay!

 

Further information: www.gojil.eu
In case of questions: info@gojil.eu