18 October 2011

NOTICE: Framing Multicultural issues in Terms of Human Rights

A one-day Seminar on ‘Framing multicultural issues in terms of human rights: solution or problem?’ will be held at the Utrecht University Law School on Monday 14 November 2011:

School of Law

Building further on our special issue of the Utrecht Law Review of June 2010 called ‘Human rights law as a site of struggle over multicultural conflicts; Comparative and multidisciplinary perspectives’, we at Legal Theory in Utrecht felt the need to address the question which role human rights play in framing specific multicultural issues. Take for example the refusal to shake hands with the other sex. This ‘problem’ can easily be resolved, as often happens, in an informal and pragmatic manner. It can however also be framed in terms of ‘reasonable behaviour of an employee’, but just as well, it seems, in terms of a ‘horizontal working of human rights’: ‘freedom of speech/expression’ or ‘freedom of religion’ vs ‘non discrimination’ and ‘gender equality’.

We want to investigate whether it makes a difference (for whom, in what sense?) to frame an issue one way or the other, and what the role is that the (human rights) law itself plays. Do human rights, especially the ready availability of for example ‘freedom of religion’ these days, steer towards and thus influence certain solutions? If so, what are the consequences in terms of ‘backfire’ for the human rights system and for social relations (both on micro and macro level)? What are the gains, and for whom? And not the least interesting: what does a comparison between countries teach us? These questions partly need to be addressed empirically, like whether framing multicultural issues in terms of human rights is a recent phenomenon and whether shifts in the use of specific human rights can be discerned.

We would like to invite all scholars in the field of multiculturalism, law, and human rights to the seminar, to be held on Monday 14 November 2011. Participation is free.

Please contact Wibo van Rossum (w.vanrossum@UU.NL) or Titia Loenen to attend.

The papers include:
  • Matthijs de Blois (Utrecht), Animal rights versus Religious Freedom in the Netherlands, the UK, and Switzerland. Commentator Bas de Gaay Fortman (UU)
  • Eva Brems (Ghent, B.), Multicultural conflicts: trap or opportunity for universal human rights? Commentator Jos Philips (UU)
  • Marjolein van den Brink & Jet Tigchelaar (Utrecht), (Title to be set; on Male and Female Circumcision) Commentator Wibren van der Burg (EUR)
  • Marie-Claire Foblets (Louvain-Brussels & Antwerp, B.), Religious Diversity and Secular Models in Europe. Human rights: a remedy for all troubles? Commentator Antoine Buyse (UU)
  • Erica Howard (Middlesex, UK), UK bans on turbans, hijabs and skullcaps - race or religious discrimination?Commentator Peter Rodrigues (UL)
  • Renée Kool (Utrecht) Speak now or forever hold your peace! Penalization of forced marriages: the case of the Netherlands. Commentator Jenny Goldschmidt (UU)
  • Titia Loenen (Utrecht), The role of human rights law in framing headscarf issues as religious, cultural, racial and/or gendered. Commentator Doutje Lettinga
  • Wibo van Rossum (Utrecht), The Dutch discovery of the ECtHR; how the first European Court cases against the Netherlands came to be framed. Commentator Roland Pierik (UvA)
  • Ute Sacksofski (Frankfurt, Ger.), Multiculturalism and religious freedom in Germany: conflicts and struggles. Commentator Sawitri Saharso (UTwente)

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