V o lu m e 4 , I s su e 3
BULLETIN
Irish Centre for Human Rights
J u ne 2 0 0 4
Irish Centre for
Human Rights
Coming Events:
Conference
15-16 July 2004
‘Accountability for
Atrocity:
Conference on International
Accountability and Justice’
In partnership with the
UN University, Tokyo
Irish Centre for Human Rights:
www.nuigalway.ie/
human_rights
E m a i l :
humanrights@nuigalway.ie
Summer Schools 2004
Minority Rights:
Special Focus on
Minorities in Asia
12-19 June 2004
International Criminal
Court
10-14 July 2004
See page 4 for more details
CELEBRATING BLOOMSDAY:
IRISH CENTRE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS HOSTS
‘ULYSSES AND HUMAN RIGHTS’
To mark the centenary of Bloomsday,
the Irish Centre for Human Rights, in
conjunction with the English Department at
NUI, Galway and Kenny’s Bookshop,
held a one-day conference, undoubtedly one
of the first events of this centenary year, on
the heretofore unexplored theme of ‘Ulysses
and Human Rights’.
A variety of topics were discussed during the conference, including Joyce’s political leanings, the concepts of citizenship and
nationhood and past censorship of Ulysses.
The participants all succeeded in putting a
contemporary spin on these age-old issues,
debating current controversies such as the
citizenship referendum and the Judge Curtain affair.
The conference was opened by Mary
O’Riordan, Vice-President of NUI, Galway.
Speakers included Professor Kevin Barry of
the English Department and editor of the
recent collection Joyce’s Occasional, Critical and Political Writings; Frank Callanan,
a Dublin-based barrister and author of biographies of T.M. Healy and Parnell; Professor Vincent Cheng of the University of Utah
and author of Joyce, Race, and Empire; Anthony Cronin, writer and founding member
of the Bloomsday celebrations and Professor William Schabas, Director of the Irish
Centre for Human Rights.
The conference was followed by a visit
to Nora Barnacle’s family home at Bowling
Green in Galway, which is open to the public as a museum during the summer months.
The delegates were hosted by Sheila Gallagher, owner of the house.
The day concluded with a wine reception, music and exhibition of Joyce-related
works at Kenny’s Bookshop and Gallery.
New Staff Member for the EU-China Project
The Irish Centre for Human Right is most pleased to announce
the appointment of Peter Fitzmaurice to the EU-China Human
Rights Project. Peter joins the Centre from Belfast, where he practiced for the past number of years as a solicitor specialising in the
areas of discrimination, employment, immigration and asylum law.
Peter takes over from Nuala Ni Mhuircheartaigh, who recently
took up a new post with the Irish delegation at the United Nations.
He will also be co-ordinating the Refugee Legal Clinic that has been
established at the Irish Centre for Human Rights.
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V o l u m e 4 , I ss u e 3
ICHR Director addresses the
International Fact-Finding
Commission
“Professor Schabas
described issues of justice
and accountability
arising from the Sierra
Leone conflict.”
Irish Centre for Human Rights:
www.nuigalway.ie/
human_rights
E m a i l :
humanrights@nuigalway.ie
Presentations of the
Transitional Codes
for Post Conflict
Justice have taken
place in Austria,
Spain, Nigeria
and East Timor
In April of this year Professor William
Schabas, Director of the Irish Centre for
Human Rights, presented the academic
seminar at the annual meeting of the International Fact Finding Commission, established in accordance with article 90 of Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
At the meeting, held in Zurich, Professor
Schabas described issues of justice and accountability arising from the Sierra Leone
conflict. He discussed, with the commissioners, the possibilities for involvement of
the Commission with respect to other types
of fact-finding institutions active in the field
of international humanitarian law.
Doctoral Seminar Success
The Irish Centre for Human Rights held
its third annual doctoral seminar in April.
This week-long event has gone from strength
to strength and this year’s event was the most
successful to date.
In the course of the seminar the Centre’s
doctoral students made presentations of their
work, following which they fielded questions
and engaged in discussion with visiting academics, staff and students from the Centre.
This year’s participating visitors included
Professor Andrew Clapham of the Graduate
Institute of International Studies, Geneva,
Professor Ronald Slye of Seattle University
and Professor Douglass Cassell of Northwestern University, Chicago. Each gave a
lecture on a timely human rights topic of
their choice.
Progress of the
Tr a n s i t i o n a l C o d e s
for Post Conf lict
Justice Pr oject
The past three months have been an
eventful and exciting period for the Transitional Codes for Post Conflict Justice Project. As part of the process of public presentation of the codes, Professor William Schabas and Vivienne O’Connor, Coordinator of
the Transitional Codes Project, made a featured presentation to the 13th session of the
UN Commission on Crime Prevention and
Criminal Justice, held in Vienna, on 13 May
2004.
In his opening remarks, Eduardo Vetere,
Director of Treaty Affairs at the UN Office
of Drugs and Crime, said that the partners to
the project had completed a “difficult, if not
impossible task”. Other presentations of the
codes have taken place recently in Spain,
Nigeria and East Timor.
A process of regional consultation and
field work has been running in unison with
the presentation of the codes. The purpose
of the regional consultations is to gain regional input on the issues of application and
substance of the transitional codes in keeping with the aim of creating a cross-cultural
and potentially universally applicable set of
codes.
In March 2004, Vivienne O’Connor facilitated a roundtable discussion on the transitional codes at the University of Melbourne, Australia, which brought together
leading Asian scholars and practitioners
Pictured (l-r) are Professor William Schabas, Director
of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, Vivienne O’Connor, Coordinator of the Transitional Codes Project,
and Eduardo Vetere, Director of Treaty Affairs at the
United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime.
who had worked in missions in the AsiaPacific region.
A similar regional consultation was held
on 7 June in Abuja, Nigeria, gathering together an impressive array of African scholars and practitioners. A consultation with
Islamic scholars will take place on 18-19
July in Siracusa, Italy and at the Max-Planck
Institute for International and Comparative
Law in Freiburg, Germany in September
A User’s Guide to the codes, which will
provide a concise description of the content
of the codes along with a methodology to
approach the issue of determining the applicable law in a post conflict situation, is also
currently being prepared by the Irish Centre
for Human Rights and the United States Institute of Peace, in advance of its presentation at the Office of the High Commissioner
Rule of Law Tools Workshop in September
next.
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CEDAW Shadow Report launched at
the Irish Centre for Human Rights
Publications
A list of publications by
staff and students of the
Irish Centre for Human
Rights can be viewed at:
http://www.nuigalway.ie/
human_rights/publications.htm
In March the Irish Centre for Human Rights hosted the
launch of the Women’s Human Rights Alliance Shadow Report
to Ireland’s CEDAW Report 2004. The report presents a critical analysis of the government's performance in 4 key areas:
health, violence against women, barriers to education and political representation.
Following the reception a public lecture was given by Dr.
Hanna Beate Schöpp-Schilling, a member of the Committee on
the Elimination of Discrimination of Discrimination Against
Women, on women’s rights under the Convention and on how
to access its mechanisms for protection.
Developments of the EU-China Human Rights Project
Irish Centre for Human Rights:
www.nuigalway.ie/
human_rights
E m a i l :
humanrights@nuigalway.ie
Considerable progress continues to be
made on the ongoing EU-China Human
Rights Project. At the end of April, a twoday Network Seminar on the rights to health
and social security was held at the University of Essex.
The project was most fortunate to have
the presence of Paul Hunt, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to
Health, who shared with those present his
considerable expertise in this area.
The next Dialogue Seminar, being
held in Beijing from 28-29 June, will address the issues of the right to defence and
corporate social responsibility from a human rights perspective. This meeting will
be one of the final events of the Irish
Presidency of the EU.
Pictured left are the participants
of the Workshop on "Justice in
Transition: Northern Ireland and
Beyond" held in Onati, Spain
from 19 - 21 May. Professor
William Schabas, Director of the
Irish Centre for Human Rights,
participated in a panel on the
accountability of State and nonState actors for human rights and
humanitarian law violations.
Recent Conferences Papers by ICHR Doctoral Students
Doctoral students from
the Centre have recently
given papers at
conferences in Florence,
Derry and Cork
Over the course of the past few months several doctoral students from the Irish Centre
for Human Rights have delivered papers at a number of academic conferences.
In May, Jeremie Gilbert and Shane Darcy participated in the Inaugural Conference of the
European Society of International Law, held in Florence, Italy. Both had won scholarships
through a highly competitive, peer-reviewed process to attend this prestigious conference,
attended by many leading scholars in the field of international law.
Five students from the Centre, Catherine Kenny, Michael Kearney, David Keane, Daniel
Aguirre and Shane Darcy, gave presentations on various human rights issues at the Irish Association of Law Teachers Annual Conference, held in Derry in April. Between they covered topics as varied as enforcing economic and social rights, the protection of refugees,
discrimination and equality, propaganda for war and membership of unlawful organisations.
Michael Kearney and Daniel Aguirre also delivered papers at a conference held in University College Cork entitled Globalisation and Inclusion – Challenges for Professional
Education in the Third Level Sector.
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Irish Centre for Human Rights Summer Course and July
Lunchtime Seminar Series
Conference to focus on
2003-2004
Accountability and Justice
Recent Visitors to the Irish
Centre for Human Rights:
Dr. Hanna Beate
Schöpp-Schilling
Member of CEDAW
David Miller
Strathclyde University
Public Interest
Research Network
Irish Centre for Human Rights:
www.nuigalway.ie/
human_rights
E m a i l :
humanrights@nuigalway.ie
The Irish Centre for
Human Rights Bulletin is
compiled and edited by
Shane Darcy.
As part of the Irish Centre for Human
Rights’ ongoing lunchtime seminar series,
David Miller of the Strathclyde University
Public Interest Research Institute, delivered
a lecture in May entitled “Information
Dominance: The Philosophy of Total
Propaganda Control”.
Focusing primarily on the current war in
Iraq, he gave an unsettling account of how
the United States and British military establishments currently strive for complete information control, in part, through manipulation of the media.
The Irish Centre for Human Rights was
most pleased to host an exhibition and talk
by Anne Paquier, a graduate of the Centre’s
LL.M in International Human Rights Law.
Anne has just spent six months working
as a photographer and legal researcher for
Al-Haq, the West Bank affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists.
Her work focuses on Palestinian life,
with a particular emphasis on the wall and
the human rights violations its construction
entails. Future exhibitions of Anne’s photos are planned for Ireland and Europe.
In July the Irish Centre for Human
Rights will hold two important events: the
annual Summer Course on the International
Criminal Court and Accountability for
Atrocity – A Conference on International
Accountability and Justice.
Taught by leading experts in the field of
international criminal law, the one-week
residential summer course provides a comprehensive introduction to the workings and
law of the International Criminal Court.
Accountability for Atrocity, being held
on 15 and 16 July will bring together a
number of eminent specialists in the field of
international justice, including several past
and present prosecutors of international
courts and tribunals. Co-hosted with the
United Nations University Tokyo, the conference will address issues such as the discretion of international prosecutors, judicial
independence and the relationship between
criminal prosecution and alternative accountability procedures.
For further information and registration
details for both events visit: http://www.
nuigalway.ie/human_rights/
Pictured at the reception in
Kenny’s Bookshop and Gallery
following the one-day ‘Ulysses and
Human Rights’ conference are (l-r)
Professor Vincent Cheng, University of Utah and author of ‘Joyce,
Race, and Empire’, Professor
Kevin Barry, English Department,
NUI, Galway and David Keane,
Ph.D candidate at the Irish Centre
for Human Rights.
If you wish to sign up for any of the above activities or to receive information regarding the
work the Centre carries out, please do not hesitate to
contact us at:
Irish Centre for Human Rights, NUI Galway, Ireland.
Phone: +353-(0)91-750464,
Fax: +353-(0)91-750575,
Email: humanrights@nuigalway.ie
Website: www.nuigalway.ie/human_rights