2024 Goldsmiths Law Annual Human Rights Symposium and Lecture with Professor Conor Gearty

2024 Goldsmiths Law Annual Human Rights Symposium & Lecture with Prof Conor Gearty, 17 May 2024

This hybrid symposium aims to gather academic experts to explore contemporary challenges to social and economic or labour rights. It will be followed by a keynote lecture on ‘Social Rights and Civil Liberties: A False Divide’ by the distinguished scholar, Professor Conor Gearty.

Socioeconomic rights have gained a degree of prominence in recent decades. There has been a rise in their constitutional entrenchment and in the recognition of their justiciable nature, prompted to an extent by the adoption of an individual complaints mechanism for the rights in the ICESCR in 2008.

While these developments provide some cause for optimism, there is still much cause for concern. The economic crisis of 2008 and the introduction of austerity measures, the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent cost-of-living crisis, as well as international conflict, terrorism and the new waves of authoritarianism, have led to a retrogression in the enjoyment of socioeconomic rights.

At this symposium, academic experts will identify and analyse key challenges to our fundamental socioeconomic rights and explore the current state of these rights. They will also explore opportunities for further action and how international or domestic human rights law can effectively respond to those challenges.

The symposium will be followed by a keynote lecture on ‘Social Rights and Civil Liberties: A False Divide’ by the distinguished scholar, Professor Conor Gearty.

Keynote speaker

Prof Conor Gearty (LSE)

Distinguished speakers

Dr Koldo Casla (University of Essex)

Dr Meghan Campbell (University of Birmingham)

Dr Luke Graham (University of Manchester)

Clare James (University of Sheffield)

Dr Maria Tzanakopoulou (Birkbeck, University of London)

Dr Ricardo Matias Buendia Esteban (University of Manchester)

Dr Ioannis Katsaroumpas (University of Sussex)

Details

Open to: All

Date: 17 May 2024, Friday

Venue: Room 102, Deptford Town Hall, Goldsmiths, University of London, London SE14 6NW or online

Time: 10:30 am - 17.15 pm BST. Please note that you can attend the Symposium only partially (you can attend panels or presentations that are of interest to you) or only the Annual Lecture with Prof Conor Gearty from 16:00 - 17:00 pm BST.

The timings & themes of the Symposium panels and presentations are as follows:

11:00 - 11:15 - Introductions and Welcome by Dr Dimitris Kivotidis and Dr Aristi Volou

11.15 - 13:00 Panel 1: Social Rights

11:15 - 11:35 Dr Koldo Casla (University of Essex) - Property, Social Function and Social Rights: No Public Access?

11:35 - 11:55 Dr Meghan Campbell (University of Birmingham) - Justifying Social Inequalities

11:55 - 12:15 Dr Luke Graham (University of Manchester) - Charity as a Challenge to Social and Economic Rights

12:15 - 12:35 Clare James (University of Sheffield) - Hunger in the UK: The Right to Food and Cash-First Approaches

12:35 - 13:00 Q&A & Discussion

14:00 - 15:30 Panel 2: Economic and Labour Rights

14:00 - 14:20 Dr Maria Tzanakopoulou (Birkbeck, University of London) - Deliveroo: The Inadequacy of Legal Battles

14:20 - 14:40 Dr Ricardo Matias Buendia Esteban (University of Manchester) - How the Minimum Service Levels Act Finds Inspiration in Dictatorial Chile

14:40 - 15:00 Dr Ioannis Katsaroumpas (University of Sussex) - From Tragedy to Hybris? The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 and Strategies of Contestation

15:00 - 15:30 Q&A & Discussion

Annual Human Rights Lecture with Prof Conor Gearty (LSE): 16:00 - 17:00 pm BST -

17:00 - 17:15 - Closing Remarks by the Head of Law Department, Prof Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos

*For any enquires please contact Dr Aristi Volou and Dr Dimitrios Kivotidis

Need to hyperlink

Host or Publisher Department of Law, Goldsmiths