Essex Human Rights Centre

Newsletter February 2015

Dear all,

We are delighted to present the first issue of the Essex Human Rights Centre’s Newsletter. Twice a year, we hope to offer you a window to the wide-ranging activities being undertaken by the Centre and its staff, members, fellows, visitors and students. In this issue, we look at some of our activities since mid-2014, from the successful Summer School through to a number of grants we have recently been awarded! Hope you enjoy this issue!

HRC Team

Inaugural Summer School hailed as a great success!The Human Rights Centre’s inaugural Summer School on Human Rights Research Methods held from 29 June to 3 July 2014 at the University’s Colchester campus was an outstanding success. Over 50 human rights practitioners and researchers from around the world attended the School which focused on how using the right research methods can improve funding opportunities and bring about change to policy and practice. The teaching team included leading human rights scholars and practitioners. Harold Hongiu Koh, the 22nd Legal Adviser of the US Department of State and Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale Law School delivered the inaugural keynote lecture.

Speaking afterwards, Lorna McGregor, Director of the Human Rights Centre, said: “We introduced the Summer School in recognition of the scant attention paid to methodology in human rights research in both academia and practice; the high demand for places in the school showed that there was a strong appetite to acquire core skills in qualitative and quantitative research.”

Expanded Curriculum for 2015 Summer School

The 2015 Summer School will have an expanded curriculum: our Human Rights Research Methods course will run from 29 June to 3 July followed by a programme of thematic modules on transitional justice, drug policy and human rights, technology and human rights, and the rights of persons with disabilities on 6 and 7 July.

Participants gave excellent feedback

For further information on the 2015 Summer School, please visit www.essex.ac.uk/hrc/summerschool or email Ville Karhusaari, Research & Business Partnerships Manager, hrcsummerschool@essex.ac.uk.

HumanRights Centre

Lorna McGregor Appointed to Equality and Human Rights CommissionLorna McGregor, Director of the Human Rights Centre has been appointed to the Board of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The appointment, which was made by the Minister for Women and Equalities, Nicky Morgan, is for a four-year term, and was announced on 23 January 2015. Congratulations and best wishes to Lorna in her important work as a Commissioner!

2 February 2015 Newsletter

Essex Launches New Global Map of Human RightsIn October 2014, Professor Todd Landman of the Department of Government and member of the Human Rights Centre launched a new global map of human rights. The Human Rights Atlas, developed in 2011, has now been updated and transformed into a multilingual website under a project funded by the ESRC. The project was led by Professor Landman.

Essex to Lead on National Research Centre on Administrative JusticeProfessor Maurice Sunkin of the School of Law and member of the Human Rights Centre will lead a core team of 11 researchers from universities across the UK on a project based at Essex to establish the United Kingdom Administrative Justice Institute. This Nuffield funded initiative brings together academic researchers (from across disciplines), users of administrative justice and practitioners in order to develop research on issues of importance to users of the administrative justice system and other stakeholders.

Landmark Refugee ProjectProfessor Geoff Gilbert of the School of Law and Human Rights Centre and Anna Magdalena Rüsch (LLM 2012) have been awarded a grant from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to work on a landmark project on how the rule of law might be utilized to enable new solutions to refugee crises and which will contribute to greater protection and empowerment of persons of concern to the High Commissioner. Following field trips to North Africa and South America, the results of the project were presented in Geneva in December 2014.

Research Projects

Dr Clara Sandoval successful co-applicant in major ESRC grant

Dr Clara Sandoval is a co-investigator in a major ESRC grant (GBP 1,339,789) for a three-year project to explore the compliance records of nine cross-regional countries on decisions handed down by UN treaty bodies and regional human rights mechanisms. The principal investigator is Professor Rachel Murray at the Human Rights Implementation Centre at Bristol University. Other co-investigators include Professor Philip Leach, Director of the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre and Dr Alice Donald both at Middlesex University; Professor Frans Viljoen, Director of the Human Rights Centre at Pretoria University; and Christian De Vos from Open Society Foundation. Professor Rachel Murray stated: “I’m very excited to have the opportunity to work with this very strong team on an issue of crucial importance to human rights law.”

The Atlas covers 194 countries and is based on data for the period 1981 to 2012, and can be used to map how human rights practices and commitments to legal frameworks are developing. It also provides snapshots from particular years, for specific countries, based on particular pieces of data.

Project to Examine the Dispute Resolution Role of NHRIsLorna McGregor, Director of the Human Rights Centre, Professor Rachel Murray of Bristol University and Dr Shirley Shipman of Oxford Brookes are leading a Nuffield Foundation funded project on the role of NHRIs in dispute resolution within Europe. Very little is currently known about the role NHRIs already play in dispute resolution; how effective and legitimate this role is; and how they deal with the due process requirements of international human rights law. This project will fill

this gap by researching the role that European NHRIs have already played and should play in dispute resolution. In addition to qualitative interviews, the project will undertake six case studies in Bulgaria, Croatia, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Poland and Spain. An expert meeting to discuss the project’s report and recommendations will be held in September prior to publication of a major report.

NHRI Project Advisory Board meeting, January 2015

3February 2015 Newsletter

Human Rights Clinic Accredited as a Module

The Human Rights Clinic, directed by Dr Daragh Murray is now an accredited postgraduate module, HU902 – Rights Skills for Human Rights Professionals.

The Clinic’s primary objective is to encourage students’ professional development through structured engagement in the practice of human rights. The Clinic module teaches the essentials of human rights work, while providing students with the opportunity to work in a professional human rights environment, and to actively engage with key human rights mechanisms. The Clinic also seeks to support the practice of human rights by working in partnership with non-governmental and academic partners on specific projects.

Important recent achievements include the success of the memorandum submitted by a Clinic team to the UN Human Rights Committee in relation to the drafting of a new General Comment on Article 9 of the ICCPR. The Clinic’s contribution is evident in paragraph 18 of General Comment 35. The Clinic also contributed to a report by the European Parliament on ’Indigenous Peoples, Extractive Industries, and Human Rights’, and submitted background reports to UNIDIR which contributed to their discussion on autonomous weapons.

Accreditation as a module is a significant milestone in the life of the Clinic. The Clinic is actively seeking funding to engage with organisations and institutions in the Global South, in order to participate in a collaborative process of capacity development and knowledge exchange.

The Clinic’s partners this year include Just Fair, the Open Society Justice Initiative, ECPAT International, Freedom from Torture, the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace & Justice, Al Haq, the Special Rapporteurs on Trafficking and Contemporary forms of Slavery, the International Centre for Human Rights and Drug Policy, and the Essex Business and Human Rights Unit.

For more information about the Clinic, please contact hrclinic@essex.ac.uk.

Palestine Team

ECPAT Trafficking Team

Dr Daragh Murray

Luciana Pol from CELS meeting with clinic students

Human Rights in Iran Unit

HRIU recently held a workshop on Iran. This follows a series of other workshops, and this year’s event focused on the Universal Periodic Review of Iran. In June 2014, HRIU published a series of research papers and factsheets covering a range of human rights related topics. Each study analyses a specific thematic issue and measures Iran’s compliance with its international human rights obligations, scrutinising the domestic legal practices in order to identify underlying structural problems. A number of these studies have been cited in the reports of the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran. Launching of the Legal Research Papers, June 2014

4 February 2015 Newsletter

Mini-Conference:Operationalisation of Human Rights

One of the main areas of focus for the Human Rights Centre is the operationalisation of human rights, an area in which academics based at Essex have long made ground-breaking contributions. In November, the Human Rights Centre organised a panel discussion that examined issues related to operationalisation from a variety of perspectives. The discussion kicked off with Professor Paul Hunt of the School of Law and the HRC, and pioneer of the structure-process-outcome framework, who spoke about concepts, tools and knowledge-brokers in giving practical effect to human rights. Andrea Hüber, Policy Director of Prison Reform International spoke about the challenges of implementing new standards and revising outdated standards, while Professor Sheldon Leader, Director of EBHR highlighted the challenges faced in the corporate world in embracing human rights standards. Dr Nazila Ghanea, Associate Professor, University of Oxford examined the opportunities and challenges faced in giving domestic effect to international human rights treaties. The discussion was chaired and moderated by Lorna McGregor, Director of the Human Rights Centre.

A follow-up mini-conference on the theme of operationalisation of human rights was held on 11 February and focused on women’s human rights. The panel for this session comprised Christine Chinkin, Professor of International Law at LSE and Diane Elson, Emeritus Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Essex.

L-R, Professor Sheldon Leader, Professor Paul Hunt, Dr Nazila Ghanea, Andrea Huber and Lorna McGregor

Professor Sir Nigel Rodley, Chairperson of the Human Rights Centre & Chairperson of the UN Human Rights Committee joined the Mayor of Geneva, Sami Kanaan and the Chair of the World Coalition against the Death Penalty, Florence Bellivier as speakers at a reception organised on 10 October 2014 in Geneva by the CCPR Centre and the World Coalition against the Death Penalty to mark the 25th anniversary of the 2nd Optional Protocol to the ICCPR. Sir Nigel was also a panellist at the event organised the previous day by the EU Delegation and the Permanent Mission of Italy in collaboration with the Graduate Institute of Geneva on the theme, “Justice that Kills: The Death Penalty in the 21st Century.”

The first ever Tedx event of the University was held on 21 October and featured exciting lectures by several members of the Human Rights Centre. Among them were Professor Pamela Cox who made the case for a New Working Women’s Charter; Professor Paul Hunt who spoke on Equality: The Road Less Travelled; Professor Todd Landman who spoke about The Promise of Human Rights; Professor Noam Lubell who spoke on Robot Warriors: Technology and the Regulation of War; and Dr Natasha Ezrow who explained Authoritarian Breakdown: How Dictators Fall. All lectures are available on youtube.

Professor Pamela Cox at Tedx

Sir Nigel with Judge Haane Sophie Greve at the Panel

Sir Nigel speaking at the reception

5February 2015 Newsletter

From the Weekly Speaker Series...

Essex alumnus, Alex Moorehead, Human Rights Officer/Legal Adviser at OHCHR in the OPT and based in Ramallah gave a talk to students about his human rights field work experiences, and the challenges faced working in the OPT. He also talked about the transition from law and theory into practice in the field.

Minnesota Law School’s Vaughan G Papke Clinical Professor Stephen Meili spoke about the circumstances under which international treaties have helped or hurt asylum-seekers in the UK over the past two decades. His talk was based on an empirical study of over 2000 published decisions by UK asylum tribunals and appeals courts and 50 interviews with UK asylum lawyers.

Alex Moorehead

Professor Stephen Meili

Rupert Knox of the Americas Programme of Amnesty International delivered a talk on the ongoing violence between the Mexican State, drug cartels and local militia groups, with a focus on the recent alleged enforced disappearance of 43 students.

Rupert Knox

Using the issues of the death penalty for drug offences and the compulsory detention of people who use drugs as examples, Dr Rick Lines gave a talk to students on how methods for applying international human rights law can serve as a tool to scrutinise drug control issues. Dr Lines is the Executive Director of Harm Reduction International, Founder and Chair of ICHRDP and a Fellow of HRC.

Dr Rick Lines

Dr Rosa Freedman of Birmingham Law School gave a talk on strengthening the UN Special Procedures. Her talk was based on an ongoing project funded by the British Academy and examined the vital role played by UN Special Procedures in promoting and protecting human rights as well as the numerous challenges posed to the system of Special Procedures.

Dr Rosa Freedman

John Morrison, Executive Director of the Institute for Human Rights and Business, a global think-tank, gave a talk that compared American and Chinese approaches to the business and human rights agenda. The lecture examined USA’s and China’s conduct both at home and in third countries such as Myanmar or countries in East Africa.

John Morrison

Professor Pamela Cox at Tedx

Mohammad Hossein Nayyeri

Just days after the conclusion of the Universal Periodic Review of Iran by the UN Human Rights Council, Mohammad Hossein Nayyeri, member of the Iranian Bar Association and Legal Adviser for the Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre joined the speaker series for a talk on the progress made by Iran since its first UPR in 2010, and on the contribution made by Iranian human rights defenders to the recent UPR process.

6 February 2015 Newsletter

International Centre on Human Rights & Drug Policy

IHRDP is leading a research project to study the intersections between international human rights and drug control obligations. The project will produce the first draft normative guidelines on drug control and human rights.

Handover session in New Delhi

Essex Business & Human Rights Project

EBHR held a conference in London at the offices of Amnesty International UK in July. This was an occasion for practitioners, academics, and students to meet and exchange ideas on two themes: the social and environmental

IHRDP Research Associates recently undertook a significant project to examine the UN Special Procedures’ role in advancing human rights in drug control laws, policies and practice. The preliminary findings of the project were presented to a number of UN Special Procedures mandate holders.

In October, IHRDP co-hosted an expert panel event on drug control treaties in Washington, D.C. to examine the key legal questions posed by progressive drug reform proposals. IHRDP Co-Director Damon Barrett led a panel to introduce the human rights legal dimensions of the drug control regime.

IHRDP Co-Director, Julie Hannah was invited to attend the handover session in New Delhi for the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health in October. At the session, she presented recent IHRDP research on the UN Special Procedures and drug control.

IHRDP and the Essex Human Rights Clinic have partnered on a new project to assess and analyse the work of the UN Human Rights Committee towards drug control issues. Another project co-partnered with the Open Society Justice Initiative will include work on pre-trial detention for drug offences and the impact on women in Latin America.

implications of the evolution of parent company liability arising from recent developments in English law; and the legal issues surrounding withdrawal of multinational companies from sites in host countries in which social or environmental damage has occurred.

Members of the EBHR Project have participated in two meetings in Oxford on central themes in Business and Human Rights: one on the emerging debate concerning a possible international treaty framing obligations of states concerning human rights standards for business, and the other on the role of business in human rights violations in Argentina’s pre-democratic order. EBHR has been invited to join Notre Dame Law School

and the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre in sponsoring an on-going Roundtable concerned with a potential treaty on business and human rights.

EBHR has established four streams of research, to which students are invited to contribute and which are designed to help EBHR construct a stronger conceptual framework for its practical work.Professor Sheldon Leader, Director of EBHR

Scott Sheeran of the School of Law and Human Rights Centre is on a Sabbatical from the start of January to serve as senior legal counsel in the New Zealand delegation to the United Nations in New York, as New Zealand starts its two-year term on the Security Council. Scott had established and served as the co-director of the Human Rights in Iran Unit since

2012. His assignment at the Security Council demonstrates the close links between the Human Rights Centre and the world of practice. We wish him success in his important work at the Security Council.

7February 2015 Newsletter

Essex Transitional Justice Network

Dr Clara Sandoval of ETJN received a grant from the British Council in September for a research workshop on land destitution and structural inequalities in transitions in Bogota, Colombia, which will take place in February 2015 at Javeriana University, Bogota. She secured the grant in collaboration with Professor Aoife Nolan of Nottingham University, Professor Rory O’Connell of the University of Ulster and colleagues from the Javeriana University and DeJusticia, Bogota.

Dr Clara Sandoval

ETJN members have been busy presenting their research at various domestic and international conferences and in the media. Professor Sanja Bahun of the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies and Co-Convenor of ETJN spoke on the BBC Radio 4 programme Thinking Aloud on transitional justice and the arts, www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04md56c.

Professor Sanja Bahun

Professor Sabine Michalowski, current Director of ETJN was invited to participate and speak at conferences in Tunis and at Cornell University on economic and social dimensions of transitional justice, at a closed-door workshop organised by the UN Special Rapporteur on Truth, Justice, Reparations and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence, in Nuremberg, Germany, on the international legal framework for guarantees of non-recurrence, and at a workshop at Oxford University on the ETJN’s work on transitional justice and corporate accountability.

Professor Sabine Michalowski

Alumni News

Levan Asatiani (MA 2012/13) and Raha Bahreini (LLM 2012/13) have both recently joined the ranks of Amnesty International’s International Secretariat. Levan works as a Campaigner on Ukraine and South Caucasus. Raha became AI’s researcher on Iran in May 2014.

Having just completed his MA, Nick Rodrigo is headed to South Africa where in Johannesburg he will start a job as researcher at the Afro-Middle East Centre.

Hans Fridlund has taken up the position of Project Assistant at the European Centre for Minority Issues in Kosovo. He completed his MA in September.

Special Rapporteur joins HRC gender integrity panel

Dr Ahmed Shaheed of the School of Law and the Human Rights Centre, and UN Special Rapporteur on Iran was invited to be a panellist in September 2014 at the UN Human Rights Council’s annual discussion on the integration of a gender perspective in the work of the Council. He was asked to share his thoughts on the concrete steps that can be taken by UN Special Procedures to ensure that their work contributes to women’s human rights and gender equality.

Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ

Event on Disability RightsTalk on FGM by Dr Hill & FORWARD

Human Rights Society Activities

Whole Life TariffIn October, the Human Rights Society convened a panel on whole life tariffs and further issues regarding prisoners’ rights such as the legal aid cuts, and the attitudes of populist media towards prisoners. Among the panellists were Simon Creighton of Bhatt Murphy solicitors who spoke on the impact of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights on State practice in relation to prisoners’ rights; Nicola Padfield, a lecturer at Cambridge and an expert on prisoners’ rights, who spoke on sentencing law and the fundamental flaws with whole life sentencing in general and Deborah Russo of the charity Prisoners’ Advice Service (PAS) who presented on its work with prisoners and the impact of some of the recent changes to prison rules. Charlie Goodlake, VP of the Human Rights Society chaired the event. Panel on Whole Life Tariff

Careers Talk held in November 2014

Human Rights Week 2014

The Human Rights Society hosted a series of events from 1-5 December 2014, including the Chalking of the Steps with the UDHR, talks on FGM by the charity FORWARD and Dr Ryan Hill of the University of Bedfordshire; and on current developments in regard to the rights of persons with disabilities with Professor Wayne Martin, Director of the Essex Autonomy Project, Professor Sabine Michalowski, Director of Essex Transitional Justice Network and Ricky Blair, MA Student. A Poetry Reading Event

Panel Discussion on Human Rights

highlight was a panel discussion on the future of human rights chaired by Professor Sir Nigel Rodley, Chair of the Human Rights Centre, and featuring Heather Blake, former UK Director for Reporters without Borders and Paul Dillane, Executive Director of UK Lesbian & Gay Immigration Group. Other events included an evening of the arts in the Hexagon gallery, with a poetry reading by the human rights poet Laila Sumpton and theatre pieces with discussion on creative advocacy afterwards, featuring the

arts company, Ice & Fire. The week ended with a screening of the film, “Even the Rain”.

Careers TalkIn November, the Human Rights Society co-hosted a Career’s Talk with the Centre, featuring speakers who have a wealth of experience in working in the human rights field. Speakers shared their experience of working within NGOs, government, academia, and representing cases before international and domestic courts. Speakers included Iain Byrne, acting Head of the ESCR team at Amnesty International and Professor Bill Bowring who is a practising barrister, who also teaches at Birkbeck College.