News

Joint Conference Sept. 23: “Divided by A Common Heritage: Human Rights in Europe and the U.S.”

Event Notice

September 23, 2013

“Divided by a Common Heritage: Human Rights in Europe and the United States”

A Joint Council of Europe – Harvard University Conference

9:30-5:30 p.m.

Milstein East C

Please join us for an all-day conference devoted to commonalities and divergences in approaches to human rights. Topics include privacy and security (in the context of cyber communications) and discrimination and equality (racial and other forms of intolerance). Panelists are Harvard academics and European scholars and practitioners. See full list of panels and panelists below.

This conference is being sponsored by the Council of Europe, the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School, the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard, and the Weatherhead Initiative on Global History at Harvard.

Please RSVP to [email protected].


Schedule

9:30 a.m.                     

Opening and Introduction

Sven Beckert, Laird Bell Professor of American History, Weatherhead Initiative on Global History, Harvard University

Charles Maier, Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University

Gerry Neuman, J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law Human Rights Program, Harvard Law School

Ambassador Piotr Świtalski, Director of Policy Planning, Council of Europe

10:00  a.m.          

“Does Context Matter? How and Why Europe and the U.S. Differ on Human Rights”

Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, former Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe, member of the Executive Board of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

Jan Erik Helgesen, Vice President of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission), Associate Professor, Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, Oslo

Frank Michelman, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Samuel Moyn, Professor of History, Columbia University, and Visiting Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Moderator: Mark Tushnet, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

12 p.m. 

Lunch

Milstein East B

Keynote address by Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, with introductory remarks from Martha Minow, Dean of Harvard Law School

1:30 p.m.    

“Cyberspace: Terra Incognita of Human Rights? European and U.S. Experiences”

Yochai Benkler, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Julie Cohen, Professor of Law, Georgetown Law School, Washington DC

Matthias C. Kettemann, Research and teaching fellow, Institute of International Law and International Relations, University of Graz, Austria

Rolf H. Weber, Professor for Civil, Commercial and European Law, University of Zurich, Switzerland

Moderator: Philip Heymann, James Barr Ames Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

 3:30 p.m.

“Overcoming Intolerance: Addressing Racial and Ethnic Discrimination in the U.S. and Europe”

Lani Guinier, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Jennifer Hochschild, Professor of Government, Harvard University

Sonja Licht, member of the Group of Eminent Persons and co-author of the Report, “Living Together in 21st Century Europe,” Director of the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence, Serbia

Eva Smith Asmussen, Chairperson of the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), Denmark

Moderator: Mary C. Waters, M.E. Zukerman Professor of Sociology, Harvard University

5:00 p.m.   

Conclusions