Event overview
Sociology's Unit for Global Justice invites you to a seminar with Dr Kiran Grewal (Sociology, speaker) and Professor Sanjay Seth (Politics, respondent)
There have been many debates regarding the utility of human rights law in protecting and promoting the rights of marginalized or oppressed peoples around the world. While human rights advocates continue to lobby for more laws and better enforcement, for many critics human rights law is too invested in existing power structures to hold much emancipatory potential. In this paper I suggest we approach the question differently. As I will try to show through a number of case studies, while human rights law is important, this may be less for its content or intended effects. Rather, the manner in which this body of law is engaged with, by whom and in what circumstances, is a possibly more interesting and important and yet often ignored aspect of human rights in practice. In arguing this I both accept the criticism of the over-emphasis often placed on law in current human rights literature and practice and at the same time reject the view that human rights law is either completely irrelevant or automatically a tool of domination. Instead I argue for greater attention to be paid to the law as it exists outside of its institutional homes (courtrooms, legislatures, international bodies, legal circles). There is, I propose, another life of human rights law enacted in everyday settings by ordinary people that might offer some interesting and surprising insights.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 31 Oct 2017 | 5:00pm - 6:45pm |
Accessibility
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