Professor Abdullahi An-Na’im, a leading authority on the place of secularism in Islam and of human rights in cross-cultural perspectives, delivered the Faculty’s 2012 John Peters Humphrey Lecture in Human Rights on October 11, entitled “The Ends and Means of Human Rights: From State-Centric to People-Centered.” Read more about his lecture in Law Focus online, October 2012 or listen to it.
Calls for applications
McGill-Hebrew University Summer program: "Reimagining Economic and Social Rights" - July 28-August 2013, Jerusalem, Israel
DEADLINE TO APPLY: 18 March 2013, 15:00
The Centre invites applications for its joint intensive three-week summer program in human rights, which takes place each year in August. Five one-credit courses are taught, for a total of 75 hours of class. The teaching faculty will come primarily from the Faculties of Law at McGill and Hebrew University. Students from the two institutions will receive credit from their home universities for the successfully completed courses. For the course list, information about accommodation, costs, admission and more, please visit the Student Affairs Office's McGill University / Hebrew University of Jerusalem International Summer Program in Human Rights page.
Aisenstadt Student Research Fellowship 2013
The McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism (CHRLP) is pleased to open this call for applications for a Nussia & André Aisenstadt Student Research Fellow for the summer of 2013.
The Aisenstadt Fellows assist the CHRLP in its mandate. Fellows are involved in current Centre projects, such as the compilation and editing of a collection, Dialogues on Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, the development of clinical legal education programs, and research projects on dignity and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and human rights in Latin America. The Fellow will help to develop seminar series and conferences for the forthcoming academic year. A portion of the work is be administrative in nature.
DEADLINE: March 22, 2013.
Download the complete Call for Aisenstadt Student Fellows Applications 2013 [.doc].
O’Brien Fellows in Residence Program
The Centre invites applications to the O’Brien Fellows in Residence Program from a diverse pool of applicants such as journalists, activists, academics and practitioners in the field of human rights. Applicants should possess a deep understanding of their chosen subject area and a track record of professional accomplishment. Fellows should be able to work in English with proficiency. Knowledge of French is desirable. The program is administered on a rolling basis.
For information on the application process, deadlines and more, please download the complete Call for Applications: O'Brien Fellows in Residence [.docx]
(Please note that the O'Brien Fellows in Residence Program is separate from the O'Brien Fellowships in Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, which are destined to LLM and DCL students).
Welcome to our second O'Brien Fellow in Residence!
The Centre is pleased to announce the arrival of the second O'Brien Fellow in Residence, Justice Anthony Francis Tissa Fernando, Court of Appeal, Seychelles, who will be at McGill from January to late March 2013. Find out more...
SAVE THE DATE: Global Conference on Democracy, Human Rights and the Fragility of Freedom - March 2013
The Global Conference on Democracy, Human Rights and the Fragility of Freedom will be held at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, March 21-23, 2013. This will be the third Echenberg Family Conference on Human Rights. Before each of these conferences, a Young Leaders Forum is held; Alumni of each Young Leaders Forum become McGill Echenberg Human Rights Fellows and remain active in a vibrant community of human rights professionals around the world. This third conference will provide a unique networking opportunity for like-minded young leaders from around the world, allowing them to engage with each other and work with some of the Conference’s distinguished speakers.
The Young Leaders will address key issues around democratic citizenship, the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms, including the violent repression of democracy and economic and social rights, as well as the role of transnationalism, globalization and foreign policy in democracy. Young Leaders will have the opportunity to develop practical skills in human rights advocacy, including in the use of social media and community-building to effect change.
One of the main goals of the International Forum for Young Leaders is to share practical tools and experiences while engaging with these Conference themes.
The continuing relevance of human rights
Human rights evoke concern with the lives of individuals and the well-being of communities. Relevant to our understanding of history, the present, and inter-generational justice, human rights have been on institutional, legislative, constitutional, and international agendas, and have been embraced by diverse social movements in countries all over the world. Human rights concepts have been relied upon in efforts to promote peace, cooperation, and intercultural dialogue.
Plurality in a globally connected world
Human rights concepts are increasingly being applied in diverse social and cultural contexts, reflective of a legally plural world. This plurality prompts new thinking about the relationship between law and society. Connecting the study of human rights to legal pluralism brings to light the importance of multiple legal and normative orders, ethical inquiry, local knowledge, individual and systemic relationships, and social power within the institutions and communities of civil society.
An innovative legal and interdisciplinary approach
The Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism is a focal point for innovative legal and interdisciplinary research, dialogue, and outreach on human rights and legal pluralism. The Centre's mission is to provide students, professors and the larger community with a locus of intellectual and physical resources for engaging critically with how law impacts upon some of the most compelling social problems of our modern era.
