LSE Human Rights News
Latest News
LSE Teaching Excellence in Education Award
Dr Ayça Çubukçu and Dr Claire Moon were awarded LSE's Excellence in Education Award. The Excellence in Education Awards are made, on the recommendations of Heads of Department and Divisions, to staff who have demonstrated outstanding teaching contribution and educational leadership in their departments.
Dr Ayça Çubukçu
Dr Ayça Çubukçu has been invited to join the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR)in New York City as Board Member.
Dr Hakan Sandal-Wilson works with Diyarbakır-based Cultural Studies for Peace Association (bakad)
Dr Hakan Sandal-Wilson conducted an interview with the Diyarbakır-based Cultural Studies for Peace Association (bakad), which has been documenting experiences of social inequality with a view to shedding light on the structural and cultural backdrop of these inequalities. The interview is about peace research, and Kurdish LGBTI+ experiences and peace and conflict.
‘Utopias and Rights in Feminist and Queer Archives’ Research Cluster
The ‘Utopias and Rights in Feminist and Queer Archives’ research cluster at LSE Human Rights aims to bring together researchers of all levels who are interested in exploring archives of gender and sexuality to revive and critically engage with feminist and queer rights struggles, their social and political visions of the future, and utopias. This interdisciplinary research cluster features reading groups, talks by researchers, workshops for creative methods in archival practices, and hands-on archival visits. By organising and documenting archival visits, events, and research talks, the cluster aims to create a resource for current and future researchers undertaking and reflecting on archival research, while at the same time drawing links to contemporary struggles around gender and sexuality.
The ‘Utopias and Rights in Feminist and Queer Archives’ research cluster also seeks to work collaboratively to think about how to move beyond conventional engagements with feminist and queer archives. It reflects on what conventionally constitutes feminist and queer archives, through a political and decolonial lens, in order to take a fresh look at the histories of rights struggles or paths that may or may not be intelligible or accessible through conventional engagements with archives.
If you are interested in getting involved, or want to sign up to our mailing list, please get in touch with the cluster convenor, Dr Hakan Sandal-Wilson, at h.h.sandal-wilson@lse.ac.uk. You can find the term card here.
MSc Human Rights Alumna Joanna Natasegara nominated in the Best Documentary Category at the 92nd Academy Awards
Joanna Natasegara produced the 2019 Film 'The Edge of Democracy' which explores recent politics in Brazil.
Dr Margot Salomon wins European Society of International Law Book Prize 2019
We are delighted to announce that Margot Salomon, LSE Human Rights Member (Law), has just won the prestigious 2019 Book Prize awarded by the European Society of International Law. The ESIL Book Prize is awarded each year at the ESIL Annual Conference for an outstanding published work in the field of international law. The jury was unanimous in awarding The Misery of International Law: Confrontations with Injustice in the Global Economy (OUP 2018) to Margot and her co-authors, John Linarelli (Durham) and Sornarajah (Singapore).
Professor Francesca Klug: Human rights, it is right for all humans
In this podcast with The Real Agenda Network, Professor Francesca Klug talks about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, why Universal is the key word & how all humans have certain entitlements solely because we are humans, not just citizens. The UDHR provides a basis for good government and a guideline to conduct our lives by. It is time we took it seriously in order to reduce extreme inequality & build a better society. Listen to the podcast here
Dr Monika Krause awarded 2019 Lewis A. Coser Memorial Award for Theoretical Agenda-Setting
The annually organised Lewis A. Coser Award for Theoretical Agenda-Setting recognises a mid-career sociologist whose work holds great promise for setting the agenda in the field of sociology. While the award winner need not be a theorist, his or her work must exemplify the sociological ideals Coser represented. Eligible candidates must be sociologists or do work that is of crucial importance to sociology.
Dr Ayça Çubukçu has received a Senior Fellowship from Princeton University
Ayça Çubukçu received a Senior Fellowship from Princeton University’s Fung Global Fellows Program at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. She will take up her research appointment in Lent and Summer terms of 2020 in Princeton.
Dr Ayça Çubukçu joins the Advisory Board of MENA Rights Group
Ayça Çubukçu is now serving on the Advisory Board of the MENA Rights Group, a Geneva-based legal advocacy NGO working on the protection and promotion of human rights in the Middle East and North Africa region. More information about the group can be accessed here.
Andrea Shemberg chairs a discussion on human rights impact assessments of trade agreements
On 26 February, Andrea Shemberg, Visiting Fellow of the Laboratory for Advanced Research on the Global Economy, chaired a discussion at Chatham House in London on human rights impact assessments (HRIA) of trade agreements. The basis for the discussion was a report authored by Dr. Jennifer Zerk, Chatham House Associate Fellow in the International law Programme. This important report outlines the substantial challenges of carrying out HRIAs of whole trade agreements in a manner that yields useful data that can convincingly help policymakers design trade agreements that embed respect for human rights and protect the most vulnerable members of society. Read Shemberg's short blog post with reflections from the event here.
Dr Claire Moon - Politics, Deathwork and the Rights of the Dead
Claire Moon published a short article entitled ‘Politics, Deathwork and the Rights of the Dead’ in Humanity as part of a symposium arising out of a one-day workshop at Edinburgh University in May 2018 on ‘Politics in the Face of Death’.
The symposium speaks to the following: from migrants facing death at borders around the world, to the different chapters of the "War on Terror," to the politics of post-genocide, our era seems to be marked by the constant politicisation of death. Social and physical death are increasingly intertwined in various spectacles of horror. Clearly, not all deaths are treated equally. Trenchant questions remain over what kinds of death are deemed morally, political and legally significant; and what kinds of death are rendered visible or invisible, and with what implications for those who are still alive.
Claire’s contribution concentrated on the political contexts in which mass death have been addressed, the specific form of deathwork that has arised to address mass death, and the emergence of post-mortem rights. Her article can be found here: http://humanityjournal.org/blog/claire-moon/
Andrea Saldarriaga and Andrea Shemberg participate in The UN Forum on Business and Human Rights
On 26, 27 and 28 November 2018, almost 3,000 participants from government, business, civil society, UN bodies, trade unions, academia and the media, gathered in Geneva at the seventh edition of the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights to discuss trends, challenges and progress in advancing implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs).
Andrea Saldarriaga and Andrea Shemberg actively contributed to the Forum by organising and speaking in three sessions covering cutting-edge topics on the business and human rights agenda.
Dr Ayça Çubukçu - For the Love of Humanity
Dr Ayça Çubukçu's latest book 'For the Love of Humanity' builds on two years of transnational fieldwork within the decentralized network of antiwar activists who constituted the World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) in some twenty cities around the world. Ayça Çubukçu illuminates the tribunal up close, both as an ethnographer and a sympathetic participant. In the process, she situates debates among WTI activists—a group encompassing scholars, lawyers, students, translators, writers, teachers, and more—alongside key jurists, theorists, and critics of global democracy.
Dr Çubukçu’s interview with the New Books Network about her book, For the Love of Humanity, was featured in their anthropology, history, politics, law, and world affairs podcast series. The podcast can be accessed here. Dr Çubukçu also gave an interview about her book for the ezine of Middle Eastern politics and culture, Jadaliyya, which can be read here.
Dr Monika Krause presents recent research findings on NGOs
Dr Monika Krause presented her research on NGOs at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research, at the Bremen International School of Social Sciences and at Charles University in Prague. She also participated in a Panel discussion on "Helpless helpers" at the Frankfurt International Book Fair. With support from the Leverhulme Trust, she is focusing on her research on international mission agencies this year.
Professor Francesca Klug - Anniversary of Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Professor Francesca Klug, who is a Visiting Professor at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) as well as LSE Human Rights, presented a paper on the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at an all-day conference on 10 December at SHU’s Centre for International Justice. Other participants included Baroness Helena Kennedy QC and Professor Sital Dhillon.
Dr Margot Salomon made Francqui European laureate
Congratulations to Dr Margot Salomon who has been granted the prestigious award of the Francqui Belgian (European) Chair 2018/19 by the Francqui Foundation, in collaboration with the University of Antwerp Law Department. To mark the appointment, which recognises scholars of established international reputation, Dr Salomon will give a series of lectures to the Belgian academic and post-graduate community, entitled 'Neon Gods of the Human Rights Legal Project'. Coverage of Dr Salomon’s inaugural lecture ‘On the Structure of Suffering: Political Economy, Human Rights and Silent Spaces’ and further details are available from a dedicated page at the University of Antwerp website.
Dr Ayça Çubukçu and Dr Monika Krause are new Directors of LSE Human Rights
Dr Ayça Çubukçu is Associate Professor in Human Rights in the Department of Sociology, where she has been teaching since 2012. Before joining LSE, Dr Çubukçu worked as a Lecturer on Social Studies at Harvard University. Dr Monika Krause is an alumna of the LSE, who joined the Department of Sociology in 2017 from Goldsmiths College. She is a sociologist of expertise who has been working on how humanitarian and human rights NGOs set priorities.
More news: Read the latest from the LSE Human Rights Newsletter 2019
LSE Human Rights moves to the Department of Sociology
Important and exciting changes are planned for the Centre for the Study of Human Rights, LSE. In Michaelmas Term 2017, the Centre will move to the Department of Sociology and be relaunched as LSE Human Rights. LSE Human Rights will be the key focal point at LSE for interdisciplinary human rights teaching, research, and public engagement. LSE Human Rights will benefit considerably from the strong support and commitment of the Department of Sociology and other departments at LSE, including the Department of Law. LSE Human Rights will relocate to a new dedicated cluster space within the Department of Sociology and will develop further its engagement with new academic colleagues working in human rights areas. The new organisational structure of LSE Human Rights will improve its academic capacity to better meet the challenges of human rights today. The Stan Cohen Library will be housed in Sociology in recognition of a key founder of the Centre and renowned sociologist, the late Stan Cohen, a former colleague in the Department.
Current Centre activities will continue in LSE Human Rights, and new activities are planned in several areas. These include the development of a new human rights Executive Masters programme, potentially a second Masters in Politics and Human Rights, and further high profile public engagement activities and research projects. LSE Human Rights will also offer two new short courses in 2018 in migration and in cybersecurity, and these will join the existing portfolio of six short courses on international human rights, war, women’s rights, children’s rights, advocacy and business. LSE Human Rights will remain committed to public engagement, including through its highly successful public events programme, the human rights blog, newsletter, social media, and other planned activities. The Scholars at Risk programme will continue to be managed by LSE Human Rights and will expand its fundraising capacity to assist more scholars in the future. Current Centre funding and research staff will remain in place under the umbrella of LSE Human Rights, overseen by and under the governance of the Department of Sociology. LSE Human Rights will have its own Strategy Committee, comprised of a subset of current Advisory Board members along with Department staff representatives and other interested collaborative partners internal to the LSE.
Commenting on the relaunch of LSE Human Rights incoming Director of the LSE, Dame Minouche Shafik said: "During this period of escalating attacks on human rights in many parts of the world and on many of the freedoms we take for granted, I am delighted to affirm LSE’s commitment to human rights, ones that are key to LSE’s mission of international education, research and public engagement. I warmly support the transition of LSE Human Rights into the Department of Sociology, a transition that will expand its interdisciplinary activities and increase further the profile of human rights across and outside the School. I look forward to working with LSE Human Rights colleagues and wish it every success for the future."
Dr Claire Moon was a Visiting Fellow at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) in Aguascalientes, México during February and March 2018. During her residency Dr Moon conducted research with her co-author, Dr Javier Treviño-Rangel (a sociologist at CIDE) on the social denial of atrocities perpetrated by security services and organised criminal gangs in the context of México’s war on drugs. In addition, she presented a paper at CIDE entitled ‘Last rights: forensic deathwork and the human rights of the dead’, and led a staff seminar on research ethics and risky fieldwork.
EXECUTIVE SHORT COURSES IN HUMAN RIGHTS
Registration is currently open:
Law, War and Human Rights (15 - 16 February 2018)
This programme examines the laws of war and international criminal law from the perspective of international human rights law. It confronts the crucial questions: are human rights law, the laws of war and international criminal law three distinct disciplines? Have they now become so entwined that it is not possible fully to understand one without some knowledge of the other?At the course's conclusion, participants will have a real grasp of how human rights law now informs all aspects of conflict and its aftermath, including terrorism and international crimes.
Congratulations to Dr Claire Moon who has won an Excellence in Education Award for the second year running in the Student-Led Teaching Excellence awards.
Designed to support the School’s aspiration of creating ‘a culture where excellence in teaching is valued and rewarded on a level with excellence in research’ (LSE Strategy 2020), the Excellence in Education Awards are made, on the recommendations of Heads of Department, to staff who have demonstrated outstanding teaching contribution and educational leadership in their departments.
Francesca Klug OBE, Visiting Professor, will give the Hans Albrecht Foundation - Annual lecture at the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, on 2 November 2017. Full details here.
Ali Kadri is a Senior Fellow at the National University of Singapore and formerly Head of the Economic Analysis Section at the United Nations regional office for Western Asia. Ali’s scholarship has focused on de-development and the issue of accumulation through destruction, the production of waste and militarism. Recent books include The Unmaking of Arab Socialism (2016) where he shows that the destructive tendencies of imperialism in the Arab world and Africa are neither accidental nor historically contingent, but systemic and necessarily rooted in the global crisis of overproduction. His most recent work is The Cordon Sanitaire: a Single Law Governing Development in East Asia and the Arab World (2017).
'Dare to refuse the origin myths that claim who you are'
We all have origin stories and identity myths, our tribal narratives that give us a sense of security and belonging. But sometimes our small-group identities can keep us from connecting with humanity as a whole -- and even keep us from seeing others as human. In a powerful talk about how we understand who we are, Chetan Bhatt challenges us to think creatively about each other and our future. As he puts it: it's time to change the question from "Where are you from?" to "Where are you going?"Professor Chetan Bhatt's TED Talk is now available at Ted.com
On 1 August Dr Margot Salomon launched her new research project on 'Legal rights and the political economy of debt and austerity in Europe’, as experienced Marie Curie fellow. Following on from her recent work on the
austerity crisis and the legal duties of international institutions, this next
phase will draw on the state-of-the-art from across a range of critical fields to study how law’s progressive potential is circumscribed by the intellectual and practical justifications of dominant economic narratives.
Dr Salomon will carry out this work at the Robert Schuman Centre for advanced Studies, the interdisciplinary research centre at the European University Institute (Florence). This EU funded project will run during the academic year 2017-18.
Each year The Stan Cohen Prize is awarded for the best LSE MSc Human Rights dissertation. In the most recent cohort three MSc students shared the prize.
Many congratulations to the three prize winners!
Imogen Phillips
Nada Raslan: "Humanizing Warfare: measuring the post-conflict effects of militarized interventions in civil conflicts"
Paulina Tandiono: "Legal Conundrum in the Plight of Pacific Island Countries: climate change, displacement and human rights"
On 19 May 2017 Dr Nicolas Bueno, LAB Visiting Fellow, presented his paper "From Responsibility to Liability: The Swiss Popular Initiative on Responsible Business." at the international conference on Accountability and International Business Operations organized by Utrecht University
In March, Professor Chetan Bhatt attended the 34th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. He spoke about the rise of the far and religious right at a United Nations side event on ‘The Global Avalanche of Hate’. This UN side event coincided with the launch of an important report on global extremism and fundamentalism by Prof. Karima Bennoune, the UN
Special Rapporteur in the Field of Cultural Rights.New research awards
Dr Bronwen Manby, Visiting Senior Fellow, has been awarded funding from the LSE Middle East Centre through the LSE Academic Collaboration with Arab Universities Programme. The research project "Preventing Statelessness among Migrants in North Africa and their Children: Role of Host and Sending States in Providing Birth Registration and Identity Documents" will investigate the identification needs of Sub-Saharan African and other migrants in North Africa, particularly focusing on children born outside the country of nationality of their parents. The objective is to establish evidence-based recommendations of the best practical methods to ensure universal birth registration, even of children whose parents are in irregular migration status, and the restoration of official identification documents for adults whose papers have been lost or destroyed (for example by smugglers). Our broader objective is, by promoting the recognition and respect of the rights of children and adults to documents that officially confirm their identity and nationality, to contribute to the reduction of statelessness.
Haneen Naamneh has been awarded a 2017–18 Fellowship for Palestinian Scholars Conducting Field-Based Research on Palestine, granted by The Palestinian American Research Center (PARC).Dr Claire Moon, Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Senior Research Associate in the Centre for the Study of Human Rights, has been awarded a prestigious Wellcome Trust Investigator Award in Humanities and Social Science for £385,000. The project is entitled ‘Human rights, human remains: forensic humanitarianism and the politics of the grave’ and she’ll be working on it for the next four years.
The project addresses the power of forensic science to turn the dead body into to a witness to atrocity. It’s about the experts who make the dead speak. It’s about the families of the dead. And it’s about the dead, and what we owe them. It comprises a history of the ‘forensic turn’ in humanitarianism; an investigation of challenges and innovations in the field in the context of Mexico’s war against organised crime; and an exploration of whether, as a consequence of the forensic turn, it can be argued that the dead have human rights.
On 23 March, the Laboratory for Advanced Research on the Global Economy at the Centre for the Study of Human Rights in collaboration with the Law and Financial Markets Project and the Transnational Law Project hosted an evening discussion on Financial Institutions and Human Rights. The event attracted over 40 participants from banks, banking associations, law firms, students, academics and civil society. Andrea Saldarriaga moderated the discussion centered on the Dutch Banking Sector Agreement on human rights. Representatives from the Dutch Banking Association, ING Bank in the Netherlands and Standard Chartered Bank in the UK offered their insights on the agreement and whether such an initiative might make sense in the UK context. A lively debate followed, which was initiated by Dr. Philipp Paech, Andrea Shemberg and Dr. Jan Kleinheisterkamp.
Stefanie Grant, Visiting Senior Fellow, has co-authored a paper 'IOM and the UN: Unfinished Business'. The paper examines the place of UN human rights obligations regarding migrants and the IOM Member states' position that it should remain a 'non-normative' agency even after its inclusion in the UN system. The abstract can be viewed here.
The Investment & Human Rights Project (IHR Project)at the Laboratory for Advanced Research on the Global Economy closed its doors on 1 November 2016 after three successful years - and a year longer than its original mandate. During its operation, the IHR Project delivered an impressive list of concrete results, including developing the innovative Investment & Human Rights Learning Hub – which will continue – and carrying out capacity building on the State Duty to Protect in investment policymaking at high-level workshops in Colombia and Indonesia. The IHR Project also became a focal point for civil society, governments, international institutions and others seeking to make sense of the entry points for human rights in investment, and the Project was an active contributor to international policy debates on the subject. It contributed to the work of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights on issues related to investment contracts and the reform of IIAs; produced an on-line Guide for how States can integrate the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights into their investment policymaking and worked with governments to support this integration; hosted policy discussions on investment and human rights in international fora including UNCTAD and the OECD and contributed to the discussion on the reform of the investment treaty regime and the negotiation of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), including at a meeting with the European Commission.
The IHR Project co-leads Andrea Shemberg and Andrea Saldarriaga will remain involved with the Laboratory for Advanced Research on the Global Economy and the ongoing management of the Learning Hub as a key resource for States, companies, lawyers, academics and civil society as Visiting Fellows at LSE Human Rights.
Religious intolerance and its impact on Democracy
Professor Chetan Bhatt chaired the recent LSE International Inequalities Institute/STICERD Amartya Sen Lecture 2017. The speaker, Asma Jilani Jahangir is a Pakistani human rights lawyer and activist who co-founded and chaired the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
The Utrecht Declaration on Academic Freedom was adopted by the Assembly of the Association of Human Rights Institutes on 3 September. The Centre for the Study of Human Rights is a longstanding AHRI member and Dr Margot Salomon is vice Chair of its Executive Committee.