Centre for the Study of Human Rights

Contributor(s): Toby Landau QC | Andrea Saldarriaga, Lead of the LSE Investment & Human Rights Project, interviews Toby Landau QC, arbitration practitioner and barrister from Essex Court Chambers, on the relationship between arbitration and human rights. In his interview, Toby reflects on how human rights issues are relevant to investment arbitration, how these issues are being raised and handled in arbitration proceedings and what challenges this poses for arbitration practitioners and the protection of human rights. This is the first of the Project’s learning videos on arbitration and human rights.

Contributor(s): Latefa Guemar | Latefa Guemar was a research scientist and feminist activist in Algeria. When life for her and her journalist husband became increasingly untenable, they sought asylum in the UK. In 2003, Latefa and her family were offered housing in Swansea. With the assistance of CARA - the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics - Latefa learned English, took a degree in sociology and is now a visiting fellow with LSE's Gender Institute. In this short film, she talks about how she came to flee her homeland and transition from engineering to social science.

Trailer to introduce the new multimedia self-study on the UN Principles for Responsible Contracts being made available by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

3 minute video introducing The Investment and Human Rights Project within the Laboratory for Advanced Research on the Global Economy. The video introduces the need to draw connections between investment and impacts on peoples' enjoyment of their human rights.

Contributor(s): Dr Chaloka Beyani | When does a soldier become a mercenary? When does a private security company become a mercenary army? Although mercenaries are prohibited by international law, many state actors continue to rely on the availability of "guns for hire" as a means of pursuing their international interests without the entrenchment that official military involvement involves. In this short film, Dr Chaloka Beyani talks about how shrinking military ranks has led to the rise of private security companies, and where these de facto "mercenary armies" fit within international law. Dr Beyani is Senior Lecturer in International Law in the Law Department, a member of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights and Chair of its Advisory Board, and a member of the Centre for Climate Change at LSE. He is also the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons. He joined the Department of Law at LSE in 1996 and lectures in international law and human rights. He was formerly a Research Fellow at Wolfson college, Oxford, with Lectureships in Law at Exeter and St. Catherine's colleges, Oxford, and a Crown Prince of Jordan Fellow, Queen Elizabeth House, as part of the Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford.

Contributor(s): Professor Chetan Bhatt, Dr Hakan Seckinelgin | The Dahrendorf Symposium takes place 9-10 November 2011 in Berlin. In this short film, Professor Chetan Bhatt and Dr Hakan Seckinelgin, both of LSE, discuss how the new Europe calls for a new conception of the European social space. As open borders within Europe change our sense of what it means to be a migrant, new - and troubling - definitions of "European" are emerging.