Author: Harriet Cornell

Global Justice Academy Development Officer, Carnegie Postdoctoral Fellow in History, University of Edinburgh

What obligations, if any, does a state in Europe have towards boat people attempting dangerous sea crossings?

Conflict, EU, Europe, Human rights, Immigration, Inequalities, Innovative Initiative Fund, Middle East

This was the question Professor David Miller from Oxford University addressed on 4 February 2016 in a well-attended lecture hosted by Edinburgh University’s Global Justice Academy and Just World Institute.

In this blog report from the lecture, Yukinori Iwaki reflects on the day’s discussion and points raised. Yukinori Iwaki is a PhD student in Politics and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh. Click here to read more about his research.

D.Miller in Edinburgh_01 Professor Miller began his talk by noting the 2014 UK government decision not to support Triton, a search-and-rescue operation proposed by the EU that could have potentially saved the lives of sea-crossing migrants, or “boat people”. The main reasoning behind this decision was the claim that search-and-rescue encourages people to attempt dangerous sea crossings in the greater expectation of being rescued, and therefore, in the long term, will bring about more deaths.  This seems to be a consequentialist argument that considers effects of alternative ways of using resources in order to minimise the loss of lives overall.  Meanwhile, critics argue that European states have stringent obligations to protect rights of migrants.  But is it true that the critics’ argument occupies the moral high ground while the UK government’s argument is morally defective?  The answer Professor Miller gave us was: ‘Not necessarily’.

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Centre for South Asian Studies Relaunches – February 2016

Asia, Edinburgh, Innovative Initiative Fund, Local-Global Connections

The Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Edinburgh has been a key node of research on South Asia within the British academic landscape since 1988. Its success in the near three decades is largely due to the outstanding leadership provided by Professors Roger Jeffery and Patricia Jeffery in setting the Centre and steer it to be a leading centre for the study of South Asia in Scotland and within the UK.

While the Centre has benefitted from the stewardship of the Jeffery’s and other colleagues, such as Professor Crispin Bates and Jonathan Spencer, August 2015 marked a generational shift, with  Drs Wilfried Swenden (SSPS) and Kanchana N Ruwanpura (Human Geography) taking over the helm.  They are advised by a Steering Committee that draws in South Asia experts from across the School of Social and Political Science and all constituent Colleges in the University. To celebrate nearly three decades of South Asia research within the University of Edinburgh, the centre organised a ‘relaunch’ on 4 February 2016, which brought four distinguished academic guests to the University.

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Counter-Terrorism, Radicalisation, and the University: Debating the Prevent Strategy

Edinburgh, Global Justice Academy, Human rights, Law and Legal, Student Ambassadors, Terrorism, UK, Victimisation

On Friday 15 January 2016, the Global Justice Academy and the Centre for Security Research at The University of Edinburgh hosted a panel discussion on the Prevent Strategy obligations that have been placed on higher education institutions. GJA Student Ambassador, Rebecca Smyth, went along to the debate and outlines the debated arguments as well as her thoughts on this contentious issue in this guest post.

A thing of nothing or something more sinister?  Under section 26 of the 2015 Counter-Terrorism and Security Act universities must “have due regard to the need to prevent people being drawn into terrorism.”  The origins of this ‘Prevent’ duty, and its potential implications for staff and students, were considered at a panel discussion organised by the Global Justice Academy and Centre for Security Research last Friday.  Chaired by Akwugo Emejulu, the panel comprised Gavin Douglas, Deputy Secretary of Student Experience here at the University of Edinburgh; Richard Jones of the School of Law; Genevieve Lennon of the University of Strathclyde Law School; Urte Macikene, EUSA Vice President of Services; and Andrew Neal of the Politics and International Relations department.

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Myths and Realities – What is the Women, Peace and Security Agenda?

Human rights, Peace, Political Settlements, Student Ambassadors, Women

Rosie Ireland is a GJA Student Ambassador for 2015-16, and is reading for an LLM in Human Rights. Rosie co-authored our first student report on international law and peace negotiations with her colleague, Siobhan Cuming. In this report, Rosie reflects on the 2015 Crystal Macmillan Lecture, which was delivered by Madeleine Rees. 

Last semester on the 26 November, the distinguished international lawyer and human rights advocate Madeline Rees, Secretary General of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, delivered the second Chrystal Macmillan Lecture of 2015. The report provides a brief summary and covers some of the key points made during the lecture.

Law has developed since 1948 to address conflicts, promote peace and end war. Addressing the root causes of conflict – such as inequalities between people and nations – is essential to the prevention of future conflict.

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The Accountability and Remedy Project: Corporate Liability for Human Rights Undergoes Some Research & Development

Human rights, Student Ambassadors, UN

Helen Kemp is a GJA Student Ambassador for the 2015-16 academic year. Helen is reading for her Law LLB at Edinburgh Law School. She is a fourth-year student and is writing her dissertation on the role of human rights in international environmental law.

Convincing multinational corporations to protect the rights of people involved in, or affected by, the flourishing of their business is hardly a simple task. Endless frameworks and guidelines may be available to help States induce companies to comply with human rights law, but the quality of life of factory workers in a faraway nation has not usually shown to outweigh the short-term profit brought about by their exploitation.

The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP) resulted from a decades-long effort to set standards for states to address human rights violations resulting from global business activities. » Read more

Human Rights and Making Change: Looking Backwards and Moving Forwards from the Northern Ireland High Court Decision on Abortion

Abortion, Devolution, Gender, Health, Human rights, Human Rights Act, Law and Legal, UK, Women

This post first appeared on the Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights blog from the Faculty of Law at University College Cork.

Dr Catherine O’Rourke is Senior Lecturer in Human Rights and International Law at Ulster University Transitional Justice Institute. She is currently also co-coordinator of the Gender Stream of the DFID-funded Political Settlements Research Programme, where she is investigating how international law norms for gender equality influence domestic power-brokering.

In the aftermath of last week’s High Court judgment declaring Northern Ireland’s prohibition of abortion to be incompatible with UK human rights legislation in specific instances, there has been much valuable consideration of the judgment’s legal and political implications, for this jurisdiction and others.  In this contribution, I reflect on what the litigation and judgment say about human rights advocacy in Northern Ireland.

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Northern Irish Abortion Law Incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights

Abortion, Devolution, Gender, Health, Human rights, Human Rights Act, Law and Legal, UK, Women

This post first appeared on the European Futures Blog.

In this extended article, Jane Rooney analyses the recent Northern Ireland High Court decision that current abortion law is not compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. She suggests that the judgement could have gone further in testing the compatibility of the legislation with the ECHR, and that possible appeals are unlikely to take the politics of Northern Ireland as closely into account.

On 30 November 2015 in the case of The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission’s Application [2015] NIQB 96, the High Court of Northern Ireland found that Northern Irish law regulating abortion was incompatible with Article 8 (right to private life) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This was an historical judgement made possible through the conjoined efforts of many, including women directly affected by the legislation, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International.

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What Can Scotland Do?

Conflict, Human rights, Immigration, Refugees, Scotland, Student Ambassadors

Rebecca Smyth is a Global Justice Academy Student Ambassador for 2015-16. In this post, Rebecca reflects on the third in our series of Rapid Response Roundtables on the current refugee crisis. Rebecca also report from the second roundtable, ‘Is the Global Refugee Regime Fit for Purpose?’.

Chaired by Dr Patrycja Stys of the Centre of African Studies, this event was the last of three organised by the Global Justice Academy in relation to the current refugee crisis.

It began with a screening of LIVED’s Learning to Swim, a short documentary that aims to share something of the everyday lives of displaced young Syrians in the Zaatari Refugee Camp, the village of Zaatari, and Amman in Jordan. It’s a very special piece. Through seemingly disjointed snippets of interviews and footage, it gives a sense of the inner lives and daily routines of children and young people caught up in the Syrian conflict. We meet a girl who loves football, kites and fried food, and whose favourite place is Homs, a place of roses and affectionate people.

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Is the International Refugee Regime Fit for Purpose?

Conflict, Refugees, Response, Student Ambassadors

Rebecca Smyth is a Global Justice Academy Student Ambassador for 2015-16. In this post, Rebecca reflects on the second in our series of Rapid Response Roundtables on the current refugee crisis. Rebecca will also report from the final roundtable, ‘What Can Scotland Do?’.

This panel discussion was a follow-on event from the first panel discussion held at the beginning of October on the roots of the current Syrian crisis. The panel was comprised of Professor Christina Boswell and Dr Lucy Lowe from the School of Social and Political Science; campaigner Amal Azzudin of the Mental Health Foundation; and Jamie Kerr, Partner at Thorntons Solicitors specialising in Immigration Law. It was chaired by Dr Mathias Thaler.

“The international refugee regime is spectacularly not fit for purpose”

Drawing upon her academic research and own experience working with the UNHCR in the mid-1990s, Professor Boswell demonstrated the ways in which the origins of the current global refugee regime have combined with EU policy to create an unsustainable system for dealing with the current refugee crisis.

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The Refugee Crisis: Where to Begin?

Atrocities, Human rights, Immigration, Refugees, Syria

In the wake of the recent attacks in Paris and Beirut, anti-refugee rhetoric has continued to grow in the British press and on social media. In this post, GJA Managment Group member, Dr Kasey McCall-Smith, reflects on her recent visit to a refugee camp in Serbia. Dr McCall-Smith is a Lecturer in Public International Law at Edinburgh, and Programme Convenor for the GJA’s LLM in Human Rights.

Many weeks ago, I had the privilege to visit a refugee camp in Belgrade, Serbia. The experience was double-edged because it was harrowing to speak to and move in and among individuals who were fleeing from horrors that I could never personally imagine. At the same time, there was courage among these people who were travelling thousands of miles, away from their homeland, towards an idea. That idea is something that is often hard to define but what I will simply refer to as hope.

In the Syrian man, who had been on the site for two weeks with his twin one-year old daughters and his wife, there was hope for a landing place where he could raise his daughters without fear.

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