Please note, this event has been POSTPONED due to circumstances outside our control. It will not take place on Thursday, October 24. We apologize for the inconvenience, and we hope you can join us when we announce the rescheduled date in the future. Thank you.
Course 5B of the People’s Academy of International Law: Individual and Collective Human Rights and Challenges to their Realization.
Faculty for Course 5B:
- Chief Charles Taku, Renowned international legal practitioner before international courts and tribunals; life member, Governing Council of African Bar Association
- Roberto Zamora, filed successful lawsuit in Costa Rica for illegality of Iraq war
- Martha Schmidt, Co-chair of Human Rights Framework Project of the National Lawyers Guild
The program will be moderated by Marjorie Cohn, Dean of the People’s Academy of International Law.
This course will enhance knowledge of international individual and collective human rights as developed through the United Nations system, examine the absence of effective remedies to redress and prevent violations of rights, and discuss practices used by litigators and legal activists to engage with the existing system and open up new possibilities for realization of rights. We will cover individual civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights guaranteed by core UN human rights treaties, such as the right to be free from discrimination. Collective rights, essential to survival and meaningful realization of individual rights, to peace, to self-determination, to development and to a healthy environment, will be addressed, along with the interdependence of individual and collective rights. Faculty will explain the duties of states to respect, protect and fulfill human rights and remedy violations and specific problems of enforcement of rights. Particular attention will be given to state suppression of expressive rights and the rights of association and assembly, protecting rights of refugees and asylum seekers under international law, and the extra-territorial use of domestic law in contravention of international law. We’ll discuss what rights can never be derogated, the duties of states erga omnes and universal jurisdiction. There will be an opportunity for discussion of needed changes to strengthen and ensure implementation and enforcement of all human rights.
The People’s Academy of International Law, which is sponsored by the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, seeks to help progressive and anti-imperialist lawyers and human rights defenders globally to marshal the tools of international law to support people’s struggles. Watch past sessions at the People’s Academy website.
Register to be taught by recognized experts in international law, from UN Special Rapporteurs to legal academics to people’s lawyers with decades of experience using international law and legal mechanisms to protect human rights. This course has an anti-imperialist, people and earth-centered view of international law, designed to support practitioners and movements. Course materials and education will be in English, French, Spanish and potentially other languages.
Register and learn more: https://peoplesacademy.n
