| In this issue: New cooperation with Dutch NHRI, research, teaching and training
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| Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM)
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| SIM Newsletter Spring 2022, Issue 29
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| Cooperation SIM - Utrecht Law School - Dutch NHRI
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On 16 of May, the existing cooperation agreement between SIM - Utrecht Law School and the College voor de Rechten van de Mens (the Dutch national human rights institution) was renewed in a festive ceremony. The new agreement was signed on behalf of the university by professor Ivo Giesen, head of Utrecht Law School, and on behalf of the College by its chair, Jacobine Geel. It was immediately put into practice by way of the annual get-together of the two institutions, in which staff from both sides debated about the rule of law, climate and migration, with pitches by amongst others Antoine Buyse, Janneke Gerards and Evelien Brouwer. Several former SIM staff and students now work at the College. We look forward to continuing the great bonds and linkages established with the College in the coming years!
Antoine Buyse, SIM director
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Meet the Professor
On 23 March, Utrecht University organised its annual Meet the Professor event. Antoine Buyse was one of the participating professors, visiting an Utrecht elementary school by bicycle in full formal gown. He discussed freedom and human rights in a class of eager 10- and 11-year olds full of questions.
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Advice on Kosovo Council of Europe Membership
Since April 2022, Kushtrim Istrefi is advising the Kosovo Ministry of Foreign Affairs on accession of Kosovo to the Council of Europe. Kosovo is already a member of the Council of Europe partial agreements, the Venice Commission and Development Bank. On 12 May 2022, Kosovo applied for full membership in the Council of Europe.
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Human Rights Education in El Savador
On 21 January, Felisa Tibbitts, at the invitation of UNESCO’s regional Latin American office, conferred with half a dozen ministry staff of the El Salvadorian Ministry of Education to discuss strategies for infusing human rights in history education in environments with a violent past, including post-totalitarian, transitional justice environments. Her examples drew from experiences in Peru and Guatemala, South Africa and Rwanda.
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Operatie Breinbreker
On 30 April, Antoine Buyse participated in the science show Operatie Breinbreker [rack your brain] in Utrecht's TivoliVredenburg music hall. The event is an initiative of Utrecht University to enthuse children from 8 to 12 years old for research and discovery. A group of five researchers, including an art historian, a vet, a climate specialist, a medical researcher and Antoine as the legal scholar showed over 850 enthusiastic children which questions researchers rack their brains about. Antoine's part can be watched on youtube (in Dutch).
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| Champion of the Frits Kalshoven Competition 2022
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Between 9-11 March 2022, Khanyi Mabeni, Giacomo Romis and Anandi Sweere – students of the LLM Public International Law (Conflict and Security) – took part in the Frits Kalshoven competition for International Humanitarian Law (IHL). The Frits Kalshoven competition is an annual event, jointly organized by The Netherlands Red Cross and Belgian Red Cross-Flanders. The team was coached in preparation for the competition by Katharine Fortin and Lucas Roorda.
This year, eight teams from universities in The Netherlands and Belgium took part. The team from Utrecht University won both parts of the competition: the role play competition and the moot court competition. The Utrecht team competed against Groningen University in the finals of the moot court competition, which were held in the Peace Palace in The Hague and were judged by a jury that included Liesbeth Lijnzaad, Alphons Orie, Christan de Cock.
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Bulgaria Strengthening Human Rights Legal Education
The Bulgarian Ministry of Justice is strengthening its human rights legal education and organized a conference on this topic 28-29 April. Felisa Tibbitts joined other international speakers, such as Prof. dr. Manfred Nowak, Secretary-General of the Global Campus on Human Rights, in sharing experiences from abroad. Her presentation focused on the rights-based approach to higher education and clinical legal education. As a result of this engagement, several members of the Ministry of Justice will be attending SIM’s summer school course Introduction to International Human Rights Law.
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The Rise of Anti-Gender Movements Webinar
On 12 April 2022 and as part of the Proud and Safe project, coordinated by Lorena Sosa, four experts came together from different geographical and institutional contexts to take part in a discussion on the rise of anti-gender movements and their impact on the protection of women. The discussion encompasses several perspectives from the Council of Europe, civil society, the EU framework, the Americas and finally, the United Nations. More information can be found here.
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Utrecht Young Academy
In February 2022, Katharine Fortin was announced to have been selected as one of the new members of the Utrecht Young Academy. This year, potential candidates could be nominated by deans, education vice-deans, directors of strategic programmes, PhD-councils, and former and current members of the Jonge Akademie – KNAW. The Utrecht Young Academy (UYA) is a select group of enthusiastic and ambitious young academics at Utrecht University. Operating as an independent organisation within the university, the UYA aims to exchange critical perspectives on academia, policy, and society in Utrecht and beyond. During her five year term as a member of the UYA, Katharine hopes to work on issues relating to open science, academic freedom and interdisciplinarity.
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Brianne McGonigle Leyh
The Centre for Academic Teaching has appointed Brianne McGonigle Leyh as a Senior Fellow, starting in September 2022. Connected closely to her research, she will establish an Open Source Investigations Lab that will bring students, teachers/researchers, and societal partners together to work towards addressing key global challenges. An important aspect of the project will be promoting knowledge exchanges within and beyond the university. Additionally, per 1 September 2022, she will step down from the management team of the Centre for Global Challenges and take up a new role as director of Masters education in the Law School. She looks forward to the challenges ahead and working with all the great teachers in the Law School!
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New Chair EDI Committee
As of April this year Alexandra Timmer is the chairperson of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee of the UU’s Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance. In that capacity she is also member of the UU EDI Steering Committee. The EDI Committee aims to accelerate equality, diversity and inclusion at the University in teaching, research and institutional matters.
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Transitional Justice in the US
On 10 June, Brianne McGonigle Leyh took part in the 9th Annual Conference of the Historical Dialogues, Justice & Memory Network organized by the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam. The theme of the conference was ‘Beyond Nuremberg: The Global Search for Accountability’ and Brianne spoke on a panel dedicated to ‘Expanding the Global Search for Accountability to Aparadigmatic Cases’. She presented a book chapter related to transitional justice in the United States of America.
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EDC-HRE Conference
On 11-13 April, Felisa Tibbitts was General Rapporteur at Education for Democratic Citizenship Education and Human Rights Education (EDC-HRE) conference. The aim of the conference was to learn and share practices addressing both formal and non-formal education strategies for working with and supporting youth in active citizenship and engagement in human rights. She presented some initial reflections, including an ongoing potential and need for cross-sectoral cooperation in EDC-HRE, at the local, national and regional level and the prioritization of HRE for marginalized groups. For more information about the conference, click here.
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Rule of Law from Below in Leuven
On 17 and 18 May, Antoine Buyse and Brianne McGonigle Leyh visited the University of Leuven, Belgium, to present on 'The Rule of Law from Below Concept and Practice, Including by Universities' (based on earlier research within Montaigne-SIM and published in the Utrecht Law Review) to researchers at the Faculty of Law and Criminology. The also participated in the doctoral meetings of a Leuven PhD researchers, from whom they are on the external accompanying doctoral committee.
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Utrecht-Oslo ECHR Workshop
On 12 and 13 May, SIM, together with the Montaigne Centre from Utrecht University co-organised an international workshop with Oslo University in Norway. The workshop, entitled, 'How to research the European Court of Human Rights?', brought together ECHR scholars from across Europe to discuss the growing research toolkit to assess the Court and its work. SIM director Antoine Buyse and SIM fellow Janneke Gerards led the workshop together with Oslo professor Mads Andenæs, SIM fellows Elif Erken and Claire Loven also participated.
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ISA Conference 2022
From 28 March-2 April the annual conference of the International Studies Association (ISA) took place in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Brianne McGonigle Leyh took part in an online roundtable presenting her book chapter on the second edition of the Transitional Justice Research Handbook (Edward Elgar) which will be on international criminal justice within the framework of transitional justice. She also presented a paper in Nashville on strategic litigation and universal jurisdiction for serious international crimes, sponsored by the ISA’s human rights section. Finally, she chaired a panel on policing organized by the Transformative Policing research group of Contesting Governance.
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Symposium Book Launch
On 9 June, Julie Fraser and Vivek Bhatt participated in a symposium at Edinburgh Law School on the book: Kasey McCall-Smith, Andrea Birdsall, and Elisenda Casanas Adam (eds) Human Rights in Times of Transition: Liberal Democracies and Challenges of National Security EE 2020). This book is part of the series edited by The Association of Human Rights Institutes series. Bhatt’s chapter is entitled: "Constructing a right to counterterrorism: Law, politics and the Security Council.” Fraser’s comments on the book related to the continuing contestation of human rights, the changing role of the State, and the double standards in rights protections.
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Book Launch Armed Groups
On Monday 13th June, Katharine Fortin took part in an American Society of International Law book panel on Ezequiel Heffes’ new book Detention by Non-State Armed Groups under International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2022). The book explores the legal regulation of non-State armed groups' (NSAGs) detention activities and examines these actors' motivations when depriving individuals of their liberty. Based on case studies of selected groups from Colombia, Syria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and doctrinal analysis, Dr. Heffes also proposes minimum humanitarian principles applicable to detentions by NSAGs.
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Global Education in Europe
Felisa Tibbitts was a keynote speaker for the Council of Europe’s North-South Centre Congress on Global Education, which took place 31 May – 1 June. She addressed the role of teachers in shaping and implementing global education that is innovative in its methodologies and transformative aims. She shared her research that shows a general lack of global education in teacher preparation internationally but increasing potential in the area of education for sustainable development.
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Reparations Conference
From 21 – 23 March, Brianne McGonigle Leyh took part in a conference organized by Dr. Lorena De Vita (Humanities) on the unprecedented talks that took place in March 1952 between representatives of the state of Israel, the Jewish Claims Conference, and the Federal Republic of Germany in Wassenaar. These talks led to an agreement on reparations (Wiedergutmachung / Shilumim) for German-Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. Brianne McGonigle Leyh spoke on the topic of transformation and intersectionality in the field of reparations for serious international crimes.
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Critical Pedagogy in Asian Universities
Felisa Tibbitts contributed to a webinar on 31 March organized by the Institute of Human Rights and Peace Studies, Mahidol University (Thailand) to explore the use of critical pedagogy in higher education. Panelists discussed effective strategies for encouraging critical reflection and action-taking by students, including in societies non-democratic and divided. Felisa shared her own practices in the U.S. and partners in transitional justice environments, emphasizing the potential for universities to contribute to the public good, even in complex and even threatening human rights environments.
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Public International Law and Human Rights Legal Clinic
What can be done about Poland’s “LGBT-free zones” in the European Union and the Council of Europe? This question was at the centre of last Tuesday’s panel event by Utrecht University’s Public International Law and Human Rights Legal Clinic. LGBT rights specialists from Human Rights Watch, the office of the Polish Commissioner for Human Rights and the Council of Europe shared their insights. The event concluded an 8-month research project for Human Rights Watch on the “LGBT-free zones” and the panel’s remarks added to the policy recommendations made by the researchers. A recording will be available on the UGlobe and legal clinic websites shortly.
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Interview on Climate Rights of Children
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is presently conducting an online consultation among children and young people (17 and under) to share their views and experiences on the environment and climate change. The aim is to find out how children’s rights are impacted by the environmental crisis and what governments must do to uphold these rights. Julie Fraser is interviewed by the Utrecht University on the matter. Read the interview here.
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Blog Symposium
In June 2022, the Armed Groups and International Law blog (co-edited by Katharine Fortin) hosted a blog symposium on René Provost's new book Rebel Courts: The Administration of Justice by Armed Insurgents (OUP, 2021). The blog symposium provided a platform for scholars from different disciplines to comment on various aspects of Provost’s book: Schabas William, Hannes Jöbstl, Megan Stewart, Alessandra Spadaro, Jelena Pejic, Tom Ginsburg, Mark Drumbl and Marta Furlan.
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| SIM Teaching, Training and PhDs
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| Welcoming a New SIM Colleague!
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| Tina Stavrinaki is an Assistant Professor of Human Rights and International Law and a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), entrusted with drafting the General Recommendation on racial discrimination and the right to health. Her research covers a wide range of human rights, including the individual complaints procedures before the UN treaty bodies and the right to a healthy environment. As a human rights associate with the National Human Rights Institution and the UNHCR in Greece, she co-founded and coordinated the Racist Violence Recording Network, a widely recognized best practice on recording hate crimes, supporting victims and building synergies between civil society, human rights institutions, and national authorities. She will be joining SIM starting the new academic year!
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PhD Defence - Setting Limits to Judicial Discretion in Interpreting Crimes. The Role of the Legality Principle at the International Criminal Court
On 14 June 2022, Ligeia Quackelbeen will publicly defend her PhD at Ghent University. Ligeia is supervised by Brianne McGonigle Leyh and Yves Haeck. Her dissertation is entitled ‘Setting Limits to Judicial Discretion in Interpreting Crimes. The Role of the Legality Principle at the International Criminal Court’.
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Structural Inequality Workshop
On May 12-13, Lorena Sosa, Alexandra Timmer and Kathrin Thiele had the pleasure to organize the workshop "Structural inequality and the complexity of power: understanding why transformative legal concepts hit a glass ceiling" at the Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law in Spain. The workshop offered us the opportunity to engage with a selected group of participants in discussions about the different dynamics that interfere with the transformative potential of notions such as equality, diversity, inclusion, intersectionality and anti-stereotyping. Participants from different disciplinary and geographical/geopolitical angles and in different stages in their carriers submitted reflection pieces on the topic and presented short statements in a round table dynamic.
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Inclusive Education Workshop
Professor emeritus Jenny Goldschmidt contributed to the special workshop at the Open University preceding the meeting where the Chair of the Board of the Open University undersigned the UN Convention for the Rights of People with Disabilities. She elaborated on the practical implications of inclusive education with emphasis on the opinions of the Dutch Human Rights Institute on reasonable accommodation.
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ECHR for Judges
On 4 March, Antoine Buyse taught another course on the Fundamentals of the European Convention of Human Rights at SSR, the Dutch training and study centre for the judiciary. The course took place online from a multimedia teaching room at SSR premises in Utrecht.
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Guest Lecture on the Right to Health and Environment
Julie Fraser has presented a number of guest lectures in June for students at Utrecht Medical Centre examining the human right to health as well as the emerging international right to a healthy environment. Julie spoke with students about the human rights implications of the COVID19 pandemic, as well as human rights within the context of environmental health and climate change.
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Guest Lecture on Ukraine Conflict
On 19th May, Katharine Fortin was invited to give guest lecture on the conflict in Ukraine for the International Crimes Bench of the Hague District Court. Speaking to an audience of judges and assistant judges, she spoke about the application of international humanitarian law to the armed conflict in Ukraine and discussed some of the emerging legal issues that this armed conflict is throwing into the spotlight.
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APMA Programme
24 March, Antoine Buyse, together with his Slovenian colleague professor Petra Roter, taught an online session on European protection of human rights to a group of students in the Bangkok-based APMA, the Asia Pacific MA in Human Rights and Democratisation. Buyse and Roter are lecturers in the European peer of APMA, called EMA. Both programmes are part of the EU-financed network of human rights masters, united in the Global Campus of Human Rights.
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Guest Lecture Summer School
On Wednesday 1st June, Katharine Fortin gave a guest lecture on ‘war crimes’ for the 15th Annual Summer Law Programme on International Criminal Law and International Legal & Comparative Approaches to Counter-Terrorism organized by the War Crimes Research Office of American University’s Washington College of Law and the T.M.C. Asser Instituut. Selected students from top US law colleges and universities participated online for this four week course which explores the latest developments in international criminal law and counter-terrorism.
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Visiting Scholar
Between February and June 2022, Katharine Fortin has been a visiting scholar at Queen’s University Belfast Law School. During her visit to Belfast in May, she took part in a roundtable on non-state actors and reparations. The purpose of the event was to highlight and discuss the special issue edited by Professor Kieran McEvoy, Dr Luke Moffett and Dr Cheryl Lawther in the Journal of Human Rights Practice. Dr Fortin’s own contribution to that special issue is entitled ‘The Procedural Right to a Remedy When the State has Left the Building? A Reflection on Armed Groups, Courts and Domestic Law’ and is available open access. She also gave a seminar on her ongoing NOW project ‘Dangerous Liaisons: civilian agency, armed groups and international law’.
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MOOC Reaches 40K
This Spring, the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Human Rights for Open Societies, reached the milestone of more than forty thousand participants globally. Since its inception in 2016, this free ECHR-focused course on the Coursera platform has run multiple times and is geared towards both students and professionals. Created by Antoine Buyse, Janneke Gerards and Paulien de Morree and currently co-taught with Claire Loven, the course is very highly evaluated. As one of the participants said "The course is excellent. The way of learning the subject seems to me I am reading an adventures story." It will run again starting 7 September.
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5 July 2022 - Human Rights in Higher Education Panel
A panel discussion with key human rights actors engaged in promoting human rights learning and action within the Dutch university system. Presentations will address current and prospective efforts to enhance universities as sites for human rights. This panel discussion is co-sponsored by the Netherland Institute of Human Rights (SIM) and the Dutch Soroptimists in celebration of the renewal of the Chair in Human Rights Education at Utrecht University, held by Felisa Tibbitts and endowed by the Soroptimists. This panel will also be a part of the SIM Summer School! Register here.
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27 June 2022 - Gender in International Criminal Law and Its Practice
SIM staff organized this discussion ICC's practice in prosecuting sexual and gender-based crimes, the challenges and opportunities it presents, and gender equality within the working culture of the ICC. The panel will be moderated by Julie Fraser. Register by sending an email to secretariaatIERSBR@uu.nl. More information click here.
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| 4 July 2022 - Conference on European Consensus
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| Kushtrim Istrefi is co-organising a conference on European Consensus in the premises of the European Court of Human Rights.
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| Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights
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| March 2022, Vol. 40. No. 1
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| June 2022, Vol. 40. No. 2
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| Naema Tahir, Breaking Eurocentric Frames on Arranged Marriage – Uncovering the Dynamics of a Marital Institution
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| In this book, the author argues that the arranged marriage system is often misrepresented in academic literature as it is generally analysed through a Eurocentric lens that perceives the arranged marriage system as a lesser marital tradition in comparison to the free-choice marriage system. The author invites readers to break this frame and to study the arranged marriage and its dynamics with fresh eyes. ISBN 9789462362871 | eISBN 9789051898620
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| Add info@mailings.uu.nl to your safe senders or address book to ensure that you receive newsletters from Utrecht University in the inbox. At http://veiligeafzender.nl/ you can read how to add an e-mail address as a safe sender in applications such as Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail.
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| For more info and other events: Follow us!
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