Human Rights in Ireland

As part of its continuing development, the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University intends to appoint a Professor in Law. The appointment, for a fixed term of ten years, will commence on 1 September 2012. This is a new appointment and is an indication of a firm commitment by the university to the development of law at DCU.

Applications are welcome from candidates with a demonstrated track record of publications in high impact academic journals and who are committed to the development of teaching and research in law. The successful candidates will be expected to play a major role in providing leadership and strategic direction to law in DCU. They will make a substantial contribution to the development and delivery of the School’s existing taught programmes, in particular the BCL(Law and Society) and also in the planning and delivery of future developments in law. They should have a track record in leading research teams and a commitment to the generation of external research funding for the school. Read Full Post »

The Public Interest Law Alliance (PILA) is holding a practitioner seminar, “The Role of Non-Governmental Organisations in Public Interest Litigation” on Thursday 9 February from 4-5.45pm at the Distillery Building, Dublin 1. The speakers are Caoilfhionn Gallagher (Barrister at London’s Doughty Street Chambers), Liam Herrick (Executive Director of IPRT) and TJ McIntyre (Lecturer at UCD); and the Chairperson is Prof Colin Harvey (Head of Law School,  Queen’s University Belfast).

The seminar is free and open to all those interested in the topic. CPD Points are available for legal practitioners. RSVP to events@pila.ieand find out more at www.pila.ie.

The Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights (CCHJR) at University College Cork is pleased to announce that the 6^th Annual Postgraduate Conference will take place on Thursday, 26^th April 2012. The conference is aimed at postgraduate researchers working in the areas of criminal law, criminal justice and human rights. The call for papers closes on 20 February 2012.

The theme for this year’s event is “Transformation and Reform: Structures and Mechanisms for Rights-Based Protections”. The aim is to examine the implications for individuals and rights-based protections that arise from recent proposals for major reforms at the national, European and international level, including proposals for changes to the Irish legal profession and potential constitutional amendments, reforms of the treaties and structures of the European Union, and the UN Treaty Body Reform process. This theme is intended to encourage debate and reflection on the challenging question of ensuring the protection of fundamental rights during periods of change and crisis. Read Full Post »

We are delighted to welcome this guess post from Yvonne McDermott, Lecturer in Law at Bangor Law School. Yvonne’’s research interests are international criminal law, international criminal procedure, human rights, and refugee law

First, I would like to thank David Keane for inviting me to post on this important case and the two landmark convictions that were handed down last week. When extending the invite, Dave asked me what I thought of the double jeopardy elements of the case, largely, I suspect, because I wrote about the permissible exceptions to the rule under international human rights and comparative criminal law in my chapter to our forthcoming edited book, The Challenge of Human Rights: Past, Present and Future (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2012).

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Ireland lost two great citizens yesterday: Mary Raftery and John McCarthy. Both fought bravely to expose injustice in Irish society, through journalism and through activism. Their work has given voice to many who have long been ignored by society – people who were institutionalised, and whose freedom and dignity were denied by the treatment they received.

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On January 19 next Martin Scheinin, former UN Special Rapporteur for the Protection of Human Rights in the Pursuit of Counter-Terrorism and Professor of International Law at the European University Institute will give a lecture entitled “UN Security Council Terrorist Listing and Judicial Review: The Current State of Play”. The lecture, hosted by the Centre of European Law at King’s College London, will be chaired by David Anderson Q.C. of Brick Court Chambers. Anderson is the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation and Visiting Professor at King’s College London. The event promises to explore some of the difficult issues surrounding asset-freezing at UN and EU level. The lecture will be hosted at Parliament Chamber at Inner Temple. It is open to the public but registration is required. To register, see the CEL website.

The DCU Socio-Legal Studies Review is accepting submissions for its inaugural volume. The review is a peer-reviewed law journal, which focuses on socio-legal scholarly work, both national and international. This is the only such review in Ireland, and represents a unique platform for work by scholars and practitioners in this area.

Socio-Legal studies encompass the study of law in society. This includes empirical and theoretical research both at the national and international level, focusing on the social, cultural and economic context in which laws are made and enforced. For more information on socio-legal research see the homepage of the Socio-Legal Research Centre. Submissions are welcome on a broad range of legal issues, which evaluate the impact of legal rules on the society in which they operate and consider the influence of society on the Read Full Post »

Following tonight’s successful performance of Whoop it up for Liberty! in Druid Theatre, Galway we would like to share the texts from which extracts were chosen and included in the performance. This link will bring you to a google document which contains the original, full extracts, which have been modified for use in tonight’s performance. It also links the documents to their original source, if available online, and, where relevant, contains links to the images which we feel connect with the pieces chosen for the performance. Thanks again to everyone for supporting this project – we hope we have made a contribution to the open democratic arts, and to exploring further some aspects of Ireland’s human rights history. The performance has been recorded, and we hope to share some clips from the recording with you in the near future.

The Kent Critical Law Society at the University of Kent, Canterbury is pleased to announce its first annual conference which will take place on the 10th and 11th March 2012. This conference is aimed at all those who have an interest in critical perspectives on current legal issues.

This year’s conference is entitled ‘Equality- Are We There Yet?’ and will include a broad range of panels. The aim is to explore critically whether or not current and proposed legislation and legal systems achieve equality. Equality is a difficult concept to measure so we are sure that this conference will spark debate on the complex issue of achieving equality.

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