Lecture series "Contemporary issues of human rights theory and practice. Global, regional and national perspectives" - "The prohibition of degrading treatment in human rights law: From interpretation to implementation across international and local scales"
Human Rights Department (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń) and Poznań Human Rights Centre (Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences) are pleased to invite you to a 7th lecture of a Lecture series "Contemporary issues of human rights theory and practice. Global, regional and national perspectives". The Lecture series is organized in association with AHRI.
Guest lecture will be delivered by dr Elaine Webster (Strathclyde Law School in Glasgow, Scotland, Director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights Law) who will be presenting a topic "The prohibition of degrading treatment in human rights law: From interpretation to implementation across international and local scales".
Date: 28 April 2022 (Thursday) at 1:00 PM CET.
Lectures are organized online via a BigBlueButton platform. A dedicated virtual room is accessible at: https://vc.umk.pl/b/jul-x4e-92m. No prior registration required.
ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Dr Elaine Webster is a Senior Lecturer at Strathclyde Law School in Glasgow, Scotland, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights Law. Dr Webster has a background in law, international politics and multidisciplinary human rights research. Her broad interests are in interpretation of human rights by different actors, and the concept of dignity within human rights law is a central theme in her work. She has particular interests in interpretation of the right not to be subjected to degrading treatment and its applicability across diverse contexts to a wide range of experiences, and human rights and ‘dignity’ narratives in the environmental governance field. She has widely presented her research in the UK and internationally, including at the European Court of Human Rights. Major publications and projects include a monograph (Dignity, Degrading Treatment and Torture in Human Rights Law: The Ends of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, Routledge 2018), and a current role as co-investigator on a large interdisciplinary UK Global Challenges Research Fund grant examining inclusive and sustainable oceans governance. She has been a Royal Society of Edinburgh/Caledonian Research Foundation European Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Human Rights and Critical Studies at KU Leuven, Belgium. Since 2017 she has acted as Executive Secretary of the global Association of Human Rights Institutes.
ABOUT THE LECTURE
"The prohibition of degrading treatment in human rights law: From interpretation to implementation across international and local scales"
Within the international human rights law prohibition of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, degrading treatment is overwhelmingly perceived to be the ‘least severe’ amongst the prohibited forms of harm and is often overlooked. This lecture begins by arguing that examining the interpretive scope and limits of the prohibition of degrading treatment is of critical significance for understanding one of the most fundamental rights protected in international law. The lecture then provides a snapshot of three sites of interpretation of degrading treatment: firstly, interpretation within European human rights law; secondly, interpretation across regimes of international law (human rights law and humanitarian law); and thirdly, interpretation connecting local and international scales in a national human rights consultation process. The lecture then draws together reflections on what these snapshots of interpretation suggest about implementation of the wider prohibition of torture, and, broadly, about the effective implementation of international human rights law.