Graduate Conference on Human Rights:

Challenges to Human Rights Theory and Practice

Call for Papers

The postgraduate cluster of the Glasgow Human Rights Network (GHRN), based at the University of Glasgow, will be holding its second Graduate Conference on Human Rights on Thursday 21st May 2015. The keynote will be public and held on the evening of Wednesday 20th May 2015.

We encourage postgraduates working in the area of human rights to participate in this one-day conference at the University of Glasgow in a friendly and supportive environment. We aim to explore critical challenges currently facing human rights theory and practice. As such, we are keen to consider abstracts that directly or indirectly address this theme. We welcome applicants from a range of disciplines, such as political science, international relations, philosophy, sociology, law, anthropology and history.

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following issues:

•  The confrontation between the UK government and the European Court for Human Rights
•  The trials and tribulations of the International Criminal Court
•  The development of the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Inter-American Court for Human Rights
•  Humanitarianism and the doctrine of the responsibility to protect in light of recent cases (such as) Darfur, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sri Lanka, Syria)
•  Access to human rights protection for refugees and asylum seekers
•  (Western) states of exception: Rendition, torture and surveillance
•  Gender, sexuality and human rights, including sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status in relation to human rights
•  Documentary film-making and human rights discourse
•  The conditions and limits of philosophical justifications of human rights
•  Future directions and conceptions of human rights

Please submit abstracts of no more than 200 words by no later than Friday 6th February 2015 to Beth Pearson at bethiapearson@gmail.com. If you would like more information about the Glasgow Human Rights Network, please visit http://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/glasgowhumanrightsnetwork/