Speakers:

Dr. Elvira Domínguez-Redondo, Associate Professor of International Law, Middlesex University London.

Soledad García Munoz, Organization of American States Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights.

Dr Jose A. Guevara Bermudez, member of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Professor of of Human Rights, Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala.

Dr Magdalena Sepulveda Carmona, former UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, Executive Director of the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Chair: Prof. Joshua Castellino, Executive Director of Minority Rights International and Professor of Law at Middlesex University London.

Abstract:

In her book 'In Defense of Politicization of Human Rights: The UN Special Procedures', Dr Dominguez-Redondo argues that the operational flexibility, visibility, status and methods of work of Special Procedures, demonstrates that States' involvement in the functioning of expert-led human rights mechanisms, may be more beneficial than detrimental to the advancement of the international human rights agenda. Mandate-holders of expert mechanisms from the United Nations, the Organization of American State and the African Union will present their vision and experience of how mandate holders have negotiated the political space available to positive effect. The book partly addresses the critique of international human rights law expressed by some scholars, which it argues have hollowed out the movement creating room for its exploitation by populists, to the deterioration of the rights climate. Drawing on nearly seventy five years of UN documents, Special Procedures' practice and State initiatives and responses concerning the objection, articulation, scrutiny and critique of human rights, the book also finds little basis for the popular conception of a progressive 'North' and a regressive 'South' in terms of global politics concerned with human rights.

For further information please email c.rose@mdx.ac.uk

Politicization of the International Human Rights Agenda