Announcements: Second Thessaloniki Summer Course; EU’s Response to the Refugee Crisis; Interaction Between Human Rights: 50 Years of the Covenants; AHRI Call for Submissions; CfP Climate Refugees: Beyond the Legal Impasse?

1. Second Thessaloniki Summer Course. The Kalliopi Koufa Foundation for the Promotion of International and Human Rights Law is delighted to announce that the Second Thessaloniki Summer Course to be hosted by the Foundation in the historical city of Thessaloniki from 27 June to 8 July 2016 will deal with the ever-increasing importance of International Environmental Law and is titled “International Environmental Governance: Contemporary Challenges and Prospects”. Registration is now open. Prospective applicants may take advantage of the early-bird application fee. For more information, see here.

2. The EU’s Response to the Refugee Crisis. The International Law Programme at Chatham House will be hosting a meeting on ‘The EU’s Response to the Refugee Crisis: Prospects for Greater Cooperation?’ on 9 March 2016 at Chatham House. The meeting will consider the possible EU policy responses to the refugee and migrant crisis and whether there is a way to reconcile national and strengthen compliance with international refugee law. For further details and to enquire about registering see here.

3. Interaction Between Human Rights: 50 Years of the Covenants. INTRAlaw (International and Transnational Tendencies in Law) is organising a workshop on 29–30 September 2016 on the theme of ‘Interaction between human rights: 50 years of the Covenants’. The colloquium will bring together scholars working on the interaction within the human rights regime on the international, regional and domestic planes. What is of interest is the way that the two covenants have influenced each other in their legal development; and, significantly, the way that different human rights systems have influenced each other in the definition and implementation of these rights. Particular attention will be given to the activities of the Human Rights Committee and the Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, and their role in interpreting and driving implementation of the ICCPR and the ICESCR. INTRAlaw has issued a call for papers for the workshop. See here for further information. Abstracts must be submitted by 15 April 2016.

4. AHRI Call for Submissions. The Association of Human Rights Institutes (AHRI) calls for the submission of proposals for papers to be presented at the general AHRI Human Rights Research Conference held at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on 2-3 September 2016. The title of the conference is “50 Years of the Two UN Human Rights Covenants: Legacies and Prospects”, and the conference will have six thematic tracks: indivisibility and interactions of norms and regimes; citizenship, migrants and refugees; non-state actors and human rights; EU and human rights; the global economy and human rights; and new avenues in human rights research. Find the full call for papers here.  

5. Call for Papers: Climate Refugees: Beyond the Legal Impasse? A One-Day Workshop will be held at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, on 4 July 2016. The aim of this workshop is to address a fundamental gap in academic literature and policy making; namely the legal ‘no-man’s land’ in which the issue of climate refugees currently resides. Papers which address the following areas will be considered: Questions of international rights and responsibilities; the role of international institutions; legal interactions and tools for systemic integration; the relevance of the emerging concept ‘environmental justice’ to climate refugees, and creative future pathways and ways to overcome the impasse. Please send the title of your proposed paper along with a 200-word abstract and your contact details to avidan.kent {at} uea.ac(.)uk by 15 April 2016. For further information please email Dr Simon Behrman s.behrman {at} uea.ac(.)uk . See here for further details.