Upcoming events
Sexual Orientation Discrimination and the European Court of Human Rights
17 April 2024 | 16:00 | School of Law and Social Justice Building
Speaker: Professor Paul Johnson OBE, University of Leeds.
Gay and lesbian people have long looked to the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) to challenge and address odious forms of discrimination against them. This workshop will focus on Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) - which prohibits discrimination in respect of the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms contained in the ECHR - which has been invoked in a wide range of complaints about sexual orientation discrimination in the Court since the early 1980s.
Although, over time, the Court has developed important protections for gay and lesbian people through its evolving case law, the workshop will explore how the Court's approach to applying and interpreting Article 14 ECHR in respect of sexual orientation discrimination has remained inconsistent. The workshop will examine why the Court’s approach to Article 14 ECHR is problematic for gay and lesbian people in terms of the protection of their human rights.
- Download the event poster Paul Johnson OBE Talk (PDF)
Register for the event
The Contribution of Constitutional Control to the Symphony of Law-Making Activity as an Element of Transitional Justice (Ukrainian case)
29 April 2024 | 16:00 | School of Law and Social Justice Building
Speaker: Dr Larysa Zhdankina, Visiting Academic, University of Glasgow, and Lecturer at the University of Strathclyde
Countries that have experienced periods of conflict and repression, or now are in a state of war, are constantly faced with large-scale or systematic violations of human rights. They are massive and numerous, bold and serious. While human rights law cannot always respond adequately, international law and transitional justice are trying to find an answer to such questions because its concept is based on the principles of establishing the truth, respecting human dignity, and reparation for victims.
Dr Larysa Zhdankina is a Visiting academic with the School of Law at The University of Glasgow and a lecturer at the University of Strathclyde as well as an Associate Professor at the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (Ukraine). Previously she was a Research Fellow of The Scottish Council on Global Affairs. Furthermore, she worked with the Insti-tute of Legislation of Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine and the Constitution Court of Ukraine. She is a Ukrainian-qualified attorney and a member of the Ukrainian National Bar Association.
- Download the abstract: Contribution of CC (PDF)
- Download the event poster ILHRU Guest Seminar (PDF)
Register for the event
Liverpool International Law Mooting Competition
29 April - 3 May 2024 | School of Law and Social Justice Building
The International Law and Human Rights Unit, part of Liverpool Law School, invites students from the University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores, Edge Hill University, and Liverpool Hope University, to participate in the inaugural Liverpool International Law Mooting Competition.
This is a unique opportunity for students to learn more about and gain experience in international law mooting, especially if you plan to participate in external mooting competitions in the future.
Registration
You will have two options when registering, either as a team or as an individual.
Team Registration - Please ensure you complete the questionnaire and include both names of the people in your team.
Individual Registration - Please note the competition organisers will try their best to find each person a partner for the competition.
More information can be found on the event page.
Password: LIVILMOOT24
Homeland Insecurity
29 May 2024 | 16:00 | TBC
Professor Conor Gearty, London School of Economics and Political Science, will deliver the lecture.
In the decades following the 9/11 attacks, complex webs of anti-terrorism laws have come into play across the world, promising to protect ordinary citizens from bombings, hijackings and other forms of mass violence. But are we really any safer? Has freedom been secured by active deployment of state power, or fatally undermined?
Register for the event
ESRAN UK Summer Workshop
7 June 2024 | School of Law and Social Justice Building
Find out more about the event on our designated webpage.
Registration details to follow.
Past event highlights
Human Rights in the Digital Age
20 March 2024 | School of Law and Social Justice Building
We were joined by Yaël Ronen, Professor of Law at the Academic Center for Science and Law at Hod Hasharon, and a research fellow at the Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She is the academic editor of the Israel Law Review, published by Cambridge University Press.
Marko Milanovic, Professor of Public International Law at the University of Reading School of Law, also delivered a lecture. He is co-general editor of the ongoing Tallinn Manual 3.0 project on the application of international law in cyberspace and Senior Fellow, NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence. He is also co-editor of EJIL: Talk!, the blog of the European Journal of International Law, as well as a member of the EJIL’s Editorial Board.
Democracy and Competition Law: Exploring Substantive and Procedural Links in a Time of Populism
11 March 2024 | School of Law and Social Justice Building
Speaker: Dr Maciej Bernatt, Associate Professor of Law, University of Warsaw.
If one considers the weaknesses of democracies as one of the biggest challenges for today’s democratic world, one of the key questions is whether and how competition law can help in safeguarding democratic legal order.
Business Entities Under The European Convention on Human Rights
29 January 2024 | School of Law and Social Justice Building
Speaker: Dr Alla Tymofeyeva, Senior Lecturer at the Department of International Law at the Faculty of Law, Charles University (Prague).
The workshop aimed to provide responses to the following questions:
- What types of business entitites are capable of lodging complaints with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)?
- What human rights from the catalogue of the rights envisaged in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) are applicable to business entities?
- What are the specifics of the execution of the ECtHR judgements regarding business entities?
Aggression against Ukraine and Austrian Neutrality
2 November 2023 | School of Law and Social Justice Building
Speaker: Professor Erika de Wet, University of Graz, Austria.
Since 1955 the international law construct of neutrality is anchored in the Austrian constitution. This lecture assessed the legal implications of this neutral status in the wake of the EU response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. This included an assessment of the core elements of neutrality, examples of potential violations of neutrality, and more broadly the distinction between military support and conflict participation.
The Disinformation Conundrum: Current ECtHR Jurisprudence and Challenges Ahead
26 October 2023 | School of Law and Social Justice Building
Information disorder in the current online environment has been identified as a growing and significant threat to democracies. The Grand Chamber of the ECtHR has in recent years updated its jurisprudence on the obligations of private broadcasters, the duties of online media platforms in relation to user-generated content and, most recently, the duties of public figures to monitor harmful speech on their social media accounts. Other cases of interest are pending before the Court, raising questions related to third-party interference with the integrity of elections (UK case) and sanctions for dissemination of 'fake news' online (Russian case arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic). The seminar with Judge Pavli explored where ECHR case law stands on misinformation, pending EU-level regulation, and the challenges ahead for legislative and judicial intervention in this field.
The European Court of Human Rights Argumentation Strategies – Moving Away from Balancing Revie
17 October 2023 | School of Law and Social Justice Building
The second annual lecture from the International Law and Human Rights Unit.
We were joined by Professor Janneke Gerards, Professor of Fundamental Rights Law at the Montaigne Centre for Rule of Law and Administration of Justice of Utrecht University (the Netherlands) and Dean of the Legal Research Master. She has published extensively on European fundamental rights, equal treatment law, judicial review and new technologies – most recently, the second edition of her handbook General Principles of the European Convention on Human Rights was published with Cambridge University Press.
Watch the recording
We apologise for the lack of audio on this recording. This is due to a technical error.
"My Fourth Time We Drowned": In Conversation with Sally Hayden
5 October 2023 | Central Teaching Laboratories - FLEX, University of Liverpool
Organised by the International Law and Human Rights Unit in collaboration with the Institute of Irish Studies.
Award-winning journalist and author Sally Hayden in conversation with Dr Seán Columb (School of Law and Social Justice) discussed some of the key findings from her groundbreaking book ‘My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route’, investigating human rights abuses committed against people seeking refuge, via the Central Mediterranean route, in Europe.
EU Accession to the ECHR: "If at first you don't succeed..."
14 - 15 July 2023 | School of Law and Social Justice, University of Liverpool
EU Law at Liverpool & International Law and Human Rights Unit
As the latest negotiations on EU accession to the ECHR inch closer to a successful conclusion, this conference explored the proposed accession agreement as well as the future opportunities and challenges facing both the EU and the ECHR legal orders.
Our first panel analysed the framework for accession. Will the new accession agreement do enough to satisfy the CJEU that the autonomy and special characteristics of EU law are respected? What particular problems are likely to arise for the EU institutions, e.g. when it comes to determining the allocation of responsibility also with the Member States? And what might accession mean for the ECHR itself, particularly during a period of significant geopolitical change across Europe – from Brexit to the war in Ukraine?
Our second panel considered certain cross-cutting themes in EU and ECHR law – not only the future of the existing Bosphorous doctrine on liability for EU acts that infringe the Convention, or the particular difficulties involved in ensuring the proper scrutiny of territorially and institutionally fragmented executive power; but also major doctrinal practices where the two systems adopt approaches that deserve to be compared and contrasted, e.g. when it comes to defining and assessing the “margin of appreciation”, or the application of European fundamental rights standards to autonomous private action.
Our final panel offered more detailed case-studies of how EU law and ECHR law might converge or diverge in their treatment of major socio-economic challenges, as well as the potential to engage in processes of mutual learning that enrich the legal heritage of European fundamental rights, e.g. in fields such as data protection, or migration, plus the “rule of law” crisis in states such as Poland and Hungary.
ILHRU Postgraduate Conference 2023 - Distortion, Distillation, Disorder: International Law and Critique Twenty Years After the Invasion of Iraq
27 - 28 March 2023 | University of Liverpool
The International Law and Human Rights Unit hosted invites postgraduate research students at its 4th Annual Postgraduate Conference in International Law and Human Rights. This year, the conference theme was “Distortion, Distillation, Disorder: International Law and Critique Twenty Years After the Invasion of Iraq”.
Russia and the Council of Europe: A Troubled Membership and Its Legacy
24 February 2023 | 11:00 - 13:00 | Hybrid Workshop
This workshop gave an overview of the difficult relations between Russia and the Council of Europe.
Speakers: Dr Ed Bates, Associate Professor in Law, University of Leicester; Professor Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou, Associate Dean (Research) for the School of Law and Social Justice, University of Liverpool; Dr Andrew Forde, Visiting Fellow at the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the University of Galway; Dr Isabella Risini, Senior Research Associate at Ruhr-University, Germany.
Watch the recording
A Feminist Review of the Human Rights Act
This workshop was free courtesy of funding from the British Academy and co-hosted by Professor Nicola Barker (University of Liverpool) and Feminist Legal Studies.
To view the recordings of this event, please follow the link below.
A Feminist Review of the Human Rights Act - Recordings
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