The two main organizers, Gentian Zyberi and Frans Viljoen, have invited scholars, legal practitioners, policymakers, and students to submit their abstracts for our international conference on the topic “The Domestic Impact of Global and Regional Human Rights Law.” The conference aims at exploring the multifaceted ways in which international human rights norms, at the global and regional level, are integrated, enforced, and reshaped within domestic legal systems across the globe.
Scope and Themes
Do United Nations (UN) and regional human rights treaties and related mechanisms make a difference at the domestic level and if so, to what extent? This issue has been addressed in various scholarly works, including recently in a 2024 edited volume on “The Impact of the United Nations Human Rights Treaties on the Domestic Level: Twenty Years On” (open access).
This scholarly work aims at facilitating a better understanding of the dynamics involved in the processes through which the UN human rights treaties and the treaty monitoring bodies, as well as the regional human rights systems, make a difference on the domestic level, or fail to do so. Without understanding to what extent what happens in Geneva (Switzerland), Strasbourg (France), Arusha (Tanzania) or Banjul (The Gambia), San Jose (Costa Rica) or Washington D.C. (United States of America), assists in bringing about change where it matters - to the people on the ground, worldwide - it is impossible to learn the lessons needed to ensure that the human rights protection system will meet the challenges of the 21st century.
From the over 130 abstracts submitted based on a call for papers, the organizers have selected a limited number of authors, centred around 7 panels, respectively on “UN human rights treaties and human rights standards”; “African system of human rights”; “Inter-American system of human rights”; “European system of human rights”; “Climate change and the environment”; “Transitional justice”; and “Human rights and domestic courts”. There will be two keynote lectures, respectively by Rachel Murray, on “The Domestic Impact of Global and Regional Human Rights Law”, on 14 April, and by Tomas Midttun Tobiassen, on “International Human Rights Law in the Norwegian Legal System” on 15 April.
Speakers and programme
- Access the full draft programme for the conference here.
- Find a list of the speakers here. The list includes bios and abstracts for all speakers.