Dear AHRI colleagues,

Welcome to the September edition of our Newsletter. We hope that the summer proved to be restful before the upcoming term starts. We would like to thank everyone who attended the AHRI Conference for a job well done. We would like to especially thank the presentors and the host, The Univeristy of Pretoria, South Africa for a wonderful job well done. The conference was fruitful and many outcomes are highlighted here. 

- AHRI Secretariat

AHRI 2022

The Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, hosted the AHRI 2022 conference. The conference was presented in hybrid format with many returning to in person attendance. There were many significant outcomes of the conference including a few highlights listed here. 

1. AHRI adopts the the Pretoria Declaration on Technology and Human Rights. Read it here.

2. The 2023 AHRI Connference dates have been announced. It will take place from September 7-9, 2023 at the University of Deusto in Bilbao, Spain. Check here, for more information soon. 

3. The AHRI 2024 Conference will be hosted by the University of Lund in Sweden. 

4. The AHRI Secretariat will move from The Global Justice Academy in Edinburgh, Scotland to the University of Pretoria in South Africa. 

Publication of the second book in the AHRI Series

Edited by Norman Weiß, Extraordinary Professor, Law Faculty and Permanent Senior Fellow, Human Rights Centre, University of Potsdam and Andreas Zimmermann, Professor of Public, Public International and European Union Law, Professor of European and Public International Business Law, and Director of the Human Rights Centre, University of Potsdam, Germany

Where contemporary developments have significantly altered the implementation methods of, and relationship between, human rights law and international humanitarian law, this timely book looks at the future challenges of protecting human rights during and after armed conflicts. Leading scholars use critical case studies to shed light on new approaches used by international courts and experts to balance these two bodies of law. 

Divided into four thematic parts, chapters explore the protection of specific groups and actors during conflicts, including organised armed groups, armed non-state actors, and refugees, as well as using divergent methodological approaches to analyse the extra-territorial application of human rights treaties. Shifting to post-conflict, the book further examines the tools and practices involved in building lasting peace and sustainable post-conflict order while avoiding future resurrection of armed conflict. It concludes by considering whether the traditional interpretation of international law is still apt for the twenty-first century. 

You can find it, here. 

AHRI was very glad to welcome Birmingham City University as a new member institute this year. 

The Centre for Human Rights, Birmingham City University 

 was founded in 2014, the Centre for Human Rights at Birmingham City University (BCUCHR) conducts its work under Four Streams (Consultancy, Clinic, Research and Education, and Partners). The link to the BCUCHR is here.  

Members of the BCUCHR undertake advisory roles for international organisations, governments, and civil society organisations. We file amicus curiae briefs in human rights cases in domestic and international courts, and produce leading publications on a variety of human rights themes. Our teaching on human rights at undergraduate and post graduate levels utilises simulated exercises, including a Model United Nations.  

 Professor Jon Yorke is the Director of the BCUCHR, and Dr Rebecca Smyth is the Centre’s AHRI contact.

BCU Model United Nations 

Jon, Alice and Amna at the UN ( Geneva) 

Centre for Human Rights Research, University of Manitoba, Canada

News

Launch of Human Rights Research Hub 

The “Human Rights Research Hub” has been launched. The purpose is to share YOUR events and build a stronger human rights research community in Canada.

Are you based in Winnipeg and the surrounding area and work on human rights issues and want to let people know what you are doing? Do you have a book launch coming up? Hosting a speaker? Organizing a workshop? Involved in a film screening, performance or art show focused on human rights? Then please send us information regarding your event so that we can add it to our Human Rights and Human Rights Research calendar and share it on our wide-reaching social media. In-person events will be in Winnipeg (and surrounding areas) but virtual events can also be included (regardless of location) for those of you who are CHRR affiliates and/or board members or are members of the Canadian Association for HUman Rights Institutes and/or Association of Human Rights Institutes .

Please email information about your event (when, where (including web-platform link if applicable and/or registration information) and a short description to chrrman@umanitoba.ca.

More information can be found, here.  

Danish Institute for Human Rights

News

DIHR’s research and inventory on National Human Rights Action Plans

The DIHR is pleased to announce the release of two new outcomes of its research project on National Human Rights Action Plans. The project investigates processes of norm diffusion, methodological evolutions as well as state engagement with NHRAPs since the 1993 Vienna Declaration encouraged the adoption of such plans.

STUDY: National Human Rights Action Plans: An Inventory
DIHR Senior Adviser Sébastien Lorion decrypts the global diffusion of NHRAPs since the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights. The study sets the record straight in terms of state engagement with NHRAPs. Findings point to a paradox: states limitedly adopted NHRAPs when the model was actively promoted by international organisations and soft law, but more than half the NHRAPs were adopted after 2012, at a time when the tool was deprioritised by international human rights actors. The study further delves into the contents of plans and shows the heterogeneity of state practice. It argues that accrued knowledge based on empirical research is key to informing future state practice as well as a pre-requisite for the promotion of new planning models.

RESOURCE: The inventory of NHRAPs
Alongside the study, the DIHR released an original and comprehensive inventory of all NHRAPs ever adopted. The inventory currently features 141 NHRAPs adopted by 76 countries, suggesting that the diffusion of NHRAPs is far more significant than accounted for so far. By showing the extent of state engagement with NHRAPs and making all plans available to researchers, the hope is to enable further inquiries to understand whether, and under which conditions, NHRAPs enhance human rights implementation.

In addition, states and practitioners might find this inventory and study useful to identify and reflect upon a number of key issues, as they are again increasingly prompted to consider engaging with NHRAPs by the UN. In 2017, the UN Secretary General heralded NHRAPs as a key element of national human rights systems.

Visit the research project webpage, here. 

For further information and to help us maintaining the inventory up-to-date, please contact Sébastien Lorion at selo@humanrights.dk.

• Call for Papers: International Conference "The Consequences of War and their Interdependence. Bringing Human Security Back to the Global Political Agenda"

• Call for Applications: Membership to the Scientific Committee
• Call for Survey Response: Experiences and Views of Ukrainian Refugees

University of Padova Antonio Papisca Human Rights Center, Italy 

Call for Applications

Deadline: 30 September, 2022

International Conference "The Consequences of War and their Interdependence. Bringing Human Security Back to the Global Political Agenda"

In the context of the International Conference on "The Consequences of War and their Interdependence. Bringing Human Security Back to the Global Political Agenda" (Padova, 14 and 15 November 2022), the Human Rights Centre “Antonio Papisca” and the UNESCO Chair “Human Rights, Democracy and Peace” of the of the University of Padova have launched, in tight cooperation with other international partners, a call for papers open to human rights scholars, researchers as well as Ph.D candidates.

Preference will be given to sound proposals which contribute addressing, from different disciplinary perspectives the following topics (see detailed topic descriptions, below the "Dates and Instructions" section).

- Migration: Bringing human security back to the agenda
- The environmental consequences of war
- The consequences of war on the rights of minorities
- The consequences of war on accountability for international crimes
- Post war Europe? The consequences of the war in Ukraine for the European Union/Europe
The conference is however open to other relevant human-security related topics that have been left out from the proposed topics.

To participate in the call for papers, please submit a 250 words abstract with 3-to-5 keywords by 30th September 2022 (midnight) at the following link: https://forms.gle/6yy4txC63dwmWUFK8 (Notification of acceptance will be sent by 12th October).

Information about the Conference, which will be the highlight of the 40th anniversary celebrations of the University Human Rights Centre (1982-2022) are available and constantly updated in the Conference's website (https://bit.ly/HRResearchConference2022). 

Event partners include the following institutes: Human Rights Consortium, University of London (UK), UNESCO Chair "Human Rights and Human Security" University of Graz (Austria), Institute of International Studies, University of Wroclav (Poland).

FRA (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights) 

Call for Applications 

Deadline: 19 September, 2022

Membership to the Scientific Committee 

We are pleased to inform you that today FRA has published the call for expressions of interest for Members of the Scientific Committee. The publication has been done simultaneously both on FRA website and the EU Official Journal: EUR-Lex - C2022/297A/01 - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu). 

New FRA survey to capture the experiences of people fleeing the war in Ukraine

Call for Survey Response

Experiences and Views of Ukrainian Refugees

“As war in Ukraine continues, EU countries are welcoming and supporting unprecedented numbers of people seeking safety in the EU,” says FRA Director Michael O’Flaherty. “This poses a wide variety of fundamental rights challenges now and potentially later. With this survey, FRA seeks to assist the EU and affected countries to find sustainable solutions that will benefit host countries and the people who fled this tragic war.”

The online survey will capture the experiences and views of all adults and their children who left Ukraine to come to the EU to escape the war. The questions cover issues related to work, education, housing and healthcare. The survey also includes questions about language learning, integration, as well as experiences of discrimination and racism.

The survey runs in Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Spain. It closes in September.

People fleeing from the war in Ukraine can fill in the survey in English, Ukrainian or Russian.

The survey is part of a range of FRA activities looking into the war’s fundamental rights implications in the EU.

Read the full call, here