RightsCast

In this episode, Anne-Katrin Speck and Professor Clara Sandoval discuss the findings from their research into the implementation—or non-implementation—of human rights judgements/decisions in the Inter-American and European human rights systems. Their work was undertaken as part of the ESCR-funded Human Rights Law Implementation Project (HRLIP), in collaboration with colleagues from leading human rights centres (Bristol, Essex, Middlesex and Pretoria). The project aims to examine the factors which impact on human rights law implementation across Europe, Africa and the Americas, with the hope that the research will impact the compliance by states and result in greater justice for individual victims. Clara and Anne-Katrin join Lorna McGregor to discuss some of the cases they have researched, and to suggest how implementation and compliance can be improved, including by increasing the role played by civil society.

You can read more about The Human Rights Law Implementation Project here: https://www.bristol.ac.uk/law/hrlip/

Anne-Katrin Speck is Co-Director of the European Implementation Network (EIN), an NGO based in Strasbourg which works with civil society actors from across the Council of Europe region to promote the full and timely implementation of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. Anne previously worked as a Research Associate on the Human Rights Law Implementation Project (HRLIP) at Middlesex University London, and within the Secretariat of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). She holds an LL.M. in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex and is currently an MPhil/PhD candidate at Middlesex University, where she researches the implementation of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.

Professor Clara Sandoval is a qualified lawyer and Professor in the School of Law at the University of Essex. She was Acting Director of the Human Rights Centre (January to December 2017), Director of the Essex Transitional Justice Network and former Director of the LLM in International Human Rights Law. She teaches and researches on areas related to the Inter-American System of Human Rights, Legal Theory, Reparations, Business and Human Rights and Transitional Justice. Clara is co-investigator and leads on the Americas part of a major three years ESRC funded Human Rights Law Implementation Project which looks at the factors that hinder or enable implementation of reparation orders/recommendations of regional systems and UN treaty bodies.

This discussion was moderated by Lorna McGregor, who is a Professor of International Human Rights Law in the Law School, and PI and Director of the multi-disciplinary Human Rights, Big Data and Technology Project (HRBDT) funded with £4.7m from the UK Economic and Social Research Council. Lorna is a Co-Chair of the International Law Association's Study Group on Individual Responsibility in International Law and a Contributing Editor of EJIL Talk!. She was the Director of the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex for two terms (2013 - 2019) and has held positions as a Commissioner of the British Equality and Human Rights Commission (2015 - 2019) and as a trustee of the AIRE Centre.

Globally, there appears to be a rise in hatred threatening to destroy societal harmony and the foundations of peace. Against this backdrop, this panel discussion, held last year to commemorate International Tolerance Day, features leading practitioners who are working on identifying ways to promote societal cohesion and democracy using human rights as a beacon. Panellists speak to a broad range of issues related to tolerance and intolerance, especially on the intersections between freedom of expression, freedom of religion or belief and the rights of minorities, and consider conceptual challenges in addressing ‘hate speech’ and concrete examples of good practice.

Professor Sir Malcolm Evans outlines the relationship between freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief, focusing on the challenges imposed by the spread of ‘hate speech’, and highlights the core elements of a human rights-based approach. Malcolm is Professor of Public International Law at the University of Bristol. He is a member and Chair of the UN Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture and is also currently a member of the Commission on Religious Education established by the Religious Education Council.

 

Simona Cruciani highlights the role of the United Nations in addressing hate speech and preventing incitement to discrimination, hostility and violence, focusing on the recent launch of the UN Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech. Simona is Political Affairs Officer at the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect (OSAPG) where she runs the Global Program with Religious Leaders on Preventing Incitement to Violence that could lead to Atrocity Crimes.

Promoting tolerance is an aim many teachers cite for Holocaust education, but the subject is challenging for both teachers and students. Dr Ruth-Anne Lenga will discuss these challenges and how those at UCL's Centre for Holocaust Education are working to respond to them. Ruth-Anne is Programme Director at the Centre for Holocaust Education at the University College of London and provides strategic leadership and management to the Centre. She is a UK delegate to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and advises many organisations including the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation.

 

Andrew Copson of Humanists UK speaks on the right to freedom of religion or belief and the non-religious, surveying the global situation for nonreligious people’s enjoyment of this right and discussing why the rhetoric of ‘religious freedom’ needs to be replaced with renewed focus on the human right to freedom of religion or belief. Andrew has been Chief Executive of Humanists UK since 2010 and President of Humanists International since 2015. His most recent book, Secularism: A Very Short Introduction, was published in July 2019 by Oxford University Press. 



Professor Paul Hunt responds to the mosque massacres of 15th March 2019 in Christchurch, New Zealand. The attacks have forced New Zealanders to confront Islamophobia, racism and antisemitism. Paul considers the role of national human rights institutions in responding to such events and, more broadly, in promoting social cohesion. Paul has lived and undertaken human rights work, in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Aotearoa; he became the New Zealand Chief Human Rights Commissioner in January 2019. In 2000, he was appointed professor at Essex University School of Law and Human Rights Centre. Paul also served as an independent expert on the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1999-2002) and as UN Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health (2002-2008). 

This discussion was moderated by Dr Ahmed Shaheed, who is Senior Lecturer in the School of Law and co-Deputy Director of the Human Rights Centre. He is also currently the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

.In this episode, Dr Daragh Murray chairs a discussion with Dr Matt Lodder, Dr Emily Jones and Alexandra Grolimund about the lasting impact of the infamous judgement in R v Brown [1994], which established the legal precedent that the “consent” of a victim is not a valid defence when it comes to the criminalisation of assault through certain ‘extreme’ but consensual acts, including sadomasochism and, more recently, body modification, in the case of R v BM [2018].

Dr Matt Lodder is a Senior Lecturer in Art History and Theory, and Director of American Studies at the University of Essex. He teaches European, American and Japanese art, architecture, visual culture and theory from the late 19th century to the present, including modern and contemporary art post-1945, digital and "new media" art, and the intersections between art & politics. Matt is currently Director of American Studies, overseeing the US degree programs within the Interdisciplinary Studies Centre.

Dr Emily Jones is a feminist international legal theorist working from a critical posthuman perspective. Her current areas of focus include on military technologies; feminist and queer methodologies; gender and conflict; and the interplay between property, work, technology and the law. Emily has held visiting positions at multiple institutions including at the University of Melbourne, Sciences Po Paris, SOAS University of London and Utrecht University. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Alexandra Carina Grolimund has a background in human rights and is currently completing her PhD with a focus on Operation Spanner and R v Brown at the University of Essex, under joint supervision by Matt and Emily.

In this episode of RightsCast, we bring you a panel discussion, chaired by Sheldon Leader, with Dr Miriam Saage-Maaß and Daniel Leader, both leading practitioners in the business and human rights field, as they outline recent developments in the litigation of business and human rights cases.

Taking Lessenich’s and others’ sociological concept of the “imperialistic lifestyle” to describe the dynamics of global economy and the lack of fundamental resistance against it, Miriam Saage-Maaß demonstrates how the law organises and enables exploitative practices of global economy. She also analyses how the law nevertheless opens space to develop resistance, and how it can be a driver of self-empowerment of workers and others negatively affected by globalised economic activities.

Daniel Leader discusses the emerging jurisprudence from the UK Supreme Court surrounding the issue of parent company liability. In April 2019, the Supreme Court gave a landmark judgment in Vedanta Resources Plc v Lungowe and Ors. [2019] UKSC 20. The appeal analysed the controversial question of whether a parent company can be liable in the English courts for the operations of its foreign subsidiaries. The Supreme Court significantly extended the potential scope of parent company liability. The unanimous ruling of the Supreme Court has been cited as “the most important judicial decision in the field of business and human rights since the jurisdictional ruling of the US Supreme Court in Kiobel in 2013.”

Dr. Miriam Saage-Maaß is Vice Legal Director at the European Centre For Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), where she coordinates the Business and Human Rights program. She has worked on various cases against corporations relating to exploitation of workers in Bangladesh and Pakistan, especially against KiK Textilien regarding liability in the Baldia Factory Fire, and against companies trading in cotton picked through forced child labour in Uzbekistan. In 2016, the Association of Democratic Lawyers in Germany awarded Saage-Maaß and ECCHR's General Secretary the Hans Litten Prize in acknowledgment of their role in the strategic approach of ECCHR's work.

Daniel Leader is a barrister and partner at Leigh Day and specialises in international claims, group actions, environmental and human rights law. Over the past 25 years, Leigh Day has been involved in groundbreaking cases against parent companies on behalf of victims from the developing world who have sought redress for human rights abuses committed by British companies. The firm has represented claimants from Nigeria, Mozambique, South Africa, Kenya, Colombia, Peru, Bangladesh, Iraq and the Ivory Coast. Many of Leigh Day cases have reached the higher courts and set new precedents in English law for cross-jurisdictional litigation. In 2001 Dan was awarded the Bar Council's Sydney Elland Goldsmith award for his contribution to pro bono work in Africa.

For an update on the Lafarge case taken by ECCHR and Sherpa: https://www.ecchr.eu/en/case/lafarge-in-syria-accusations-of-complicity-in-grave-human-rights-violations/

Professor Lorna Woods and Will Perrin, with support from Carnegie UK Trust, have been working on a public policy proposal to introduce regulation designed to protect social media users from harm, drawing on existing duty of care models such as those in health and safety law. In this episode, Lorna joins Dr Daragh Murray to discuss this proposal, which argues that social media platforms, viewed as public spaces, should be subject to a duty of care to their users, and also to discuss how regulation intersects with competing tensions of free speech and innovation.

Lorna Woods is a professor of Internet Law and a member of the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex; she is also an EU national expert on regulation in the TMT sector, and was a solicitor in private practice specialising in telecoms, media and technology law. 

Read more about Lorna and Will’s proposal for harm reduction in social media here: https://www.carnegieuktrust.org.uk/project/harm-reduction-in-social-media/

For their work on this proposal, Lorna and Will were recently shortlisted for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Project of the Year at the Times Higher Education Awards: https://www.essex.ac.uk/news/2019/09/05/research-on-how-to-protect-internet-users-makes-the-awards-shortlist

From drone warfare to 'autonomous' weapons like the SGR-A1, technology has drastically altered the nature of modern conflict. In this episode, Dr Emily Jones joins Daragh Murray in a discussion about how posthuman and feminist theoretical approaches can be used to better understand the debate around autonomous weapons systems and other military technologies. Emily explains the different types of autonomous weapons systems and the role of humans in deploying these systems, as well as exploring the differences between human-in-the-loop, on-the-loop and out-of-the-loop technologies. Discussion also covers what the development of such technologies might mean for Global North/South power dynamics and the role they might play in states developing digital surveillance infrastructure.

Dr Emily Jones is a feminist international legal theorist working from a critical posthuman perspective. Her current work focuses on military technologies, including autonomous weapons systems and human enhancement technologies; feminist and queer methodologies; gender and conflict; the granting of legal personality to the environment; and the interplay between property, work, technology and the law.

Emily has held visiting positions at multiple institutions including at the University of Melbourne, Sciences Po Paris, SOAS University of London and Utrecht University. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

This episode of RightsCast features a panel discussion with senior members of Amnesty International’s Crisis Response Team, who explore a range of issues central to their work, including how to conduct investigations on the ground, how to use remote and open source tools to conduct or support investigations, and how to translate those investigations into effective human rights advocacy.

Brian Castner is a Senior Crisis Advisor with the Crisis Response Team, specialising in arms and military operations. He is a former Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) officer in the United States Air Force, where he served in Iraq, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. After his military experience, Castner became a journalist, and he has twice received grants from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Scott Edwards is a Senior Adviser for Tactical Research and Analysis. His work focuses on the development of early warning mechanisms for humanitarian crises, as well as the practical use of new methods and technologies for human rights compliance monitoring and evidence collection, especially as it relates to international justice and accountability. He is currently a Professorial Lecturer at George Washington University’s Elliot School of International Affairs.

Micah Farfour is a Special Adviser in Remote Sensing for the Crisis Response Team. Having received her Master’s in GIS, Farfour developed skills to align open source information with the analysis of remotely sensed imagery to produce visual evidence of human rights abuses all over the world from her home in Colorado.

Richard Pearshouse joined the Crisis Response Team in September 2018 as Senior Crisis Advisor (Crisis and the Environment), where he leads work on the intersection of environmental degradation, conflict and crises. Most recently acting as associate director of the environment program at Human Rights Watch, where he worked for 10 years, Richard has undertaken high-level advocacy on environmental issues with national governments, the UN, and multilateral and bilateral aid donors.

Donatella Rovera is Amnesty International's Senior Crisis Researcher. Her role involves investigating human rights violations in crisis situations. Working at Amnesty International for 20 years, Rovera has travelled to some of the world's most dangerous conflict zones to investigate war crimes and other gross human rights abuses. Recent field missions include Nigeria, Iraq, Yemen, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Somalia, Syria, Libya, Ivory Coast, and Sudan.

In December 2018, emergency austerity measures and the rising cost of living in Sudan sparked demonstrations demanding economic reform, which quickly broadened into demands for long-standing President Omar al-Bashir to step down.

On 6th April, protestors began a sit-in outside of the military headquarters in Khartoum. Five days later, the military announced that al-Bashir had been ousted, and a transitional government was formed in his place. However, demonstrations continued, and pro-democracy protestors repeated their calls for a civilian-led government. Military forces reacted brutally, massacring protestors at the Khartoum sit-in in June.

In this episode, Mitch Paquette is joined by Malaz Wagialla, Omar Ashmaik and Wini Omer, who are all postgraduate students in the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex. Malaz, Omar and Wini talk us through how the revolution unfolded and set out their hopes for the future in Sudan.

In this episode of RightsCast, Dr Carla Ferstman is joined in conversation by Richard Ratcliffe, who has been campaigning tirelessly since 2016 for the release of his wife, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, from prison in Iran. This discussion was held in advance of a performance of Nazanin’s Story, a play which continually evolves as her case develops.

Dr Carla Ferstman is a senior lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Essex. She has worked with Richard since Nazanin was arrested, and recently worked with a team of students at the Human Rights Centre Clinic to prepare a report on behalf of family members of dual and foreign nationals detained in Iran, as part of Iran's upcoming Universal Periodic Review before the Human Rights Council.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and countless other UN bodies have called for Nazanin’s immediate release. In March 2019, the UK Government formally agreed to grant Nazanin's claim of diplomatic protection, meaning that the Government recognised that the breach of Nazanin's rights constituted a breach of its own rights, paving the way for it to escalate efforts to secure Nazanin's release. Sadly, she is still detained.

The joint submission concerning arbitrarily detained foreign and dual Iranian nationals is available online here: http://en.cshr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2019/04/CHSR-IHRDC-UPR-submission-detention-of-foreign-and-dual-nationals.pdf

When protests against Hong Kong's proposed extradition bill were met with the police's heavy hand, Amnesty International responded, showing evidence of repression and violence to support its call for a full, independent inquiry into police action. In this episode of RightsCast, we are joined by Sam Dubberley from Amnesty International’s Crisis Response Team, as he explains how they worked remotely and on the ground to monitor the situation as it emerged, collecting evidence of excessive and unnecessary force being used against protesters by the police.

Sam Dubberley is the manager of the Digital Verification Corps (DVC) in the Crisis Response Team at Amnesty International and a research consultant for the Human Rights and Big Data Project at the University of Essex. He serves on the advisory board of First Draft and the Syrian Archive, and is the co-editor, with Daragh Murray and Alexa Koenig, of the forthcoming book Digital Witness: Using Open Source Information for Human Rights Investigation, Documentation, and Accountability.

Amnesty’s timeline of the Hong Kong protests: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/10/timeline-of-the-2019-hong-kong-protests/

Hong Kong Protests Explained: How Police Are Escalating Tensions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tntrRIG_gl0