Program
Conference Program:
Intersections of Law and Culture: Human Rights
Abstracts
Friday, September 23, 2011
8:30-14:00 Registration, North Campus Villa
8:30-10:00 Welcome Coffee (registration area)
10:00-12:00 Concurrent Sessions
Session I: North Campus Conference Room
Chair: Roberto Cordon, Franklin College Switzerland
Vernacularization of Human Rights in the Context of Agricultural Modernization in Papua
Irene Hadiprayitno, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
The Discursive Shift from “Aid” to “Reparations” by the African Union: Analysis of the Legal Logic and Media Coverage of the Case for Climate Change Reparations
Tyler Harrison and Abigail Selzer King, Purdue University, U.S.A.
When Culture and Human Rights Clash: A South African Perspective
John Cantius Mubangizi, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Session II: North Campus 6
Chair: Sara Steinert Borella, Franklin College Switzerland
The Burqa Is Just Like a Maxi-Dress: Young Muslims’ Perspectives on Human Rights, Popular Culture and Media Influences
Lieve Gies, Keele University, U.K.
Ban the Burqa and Other Practices? Issues of Personality in Human Rights Law
Jill Marshall, Queen Mary University of London, U.K.
Language, Cultures and Identity: Education Rights of Immigrant and Other Linguistic Minority Children
Rosemary C. Salomone, St. John’s University, U.S.A.
12:00-14:00 Lunch, North Campus Dining Room
14:00-15:30 Concurrent Sessions
Session III: North Campus Conference Room
Chair: Caroline Wiedmer, Franklin College Switzerland
Western Feminism, African Feminist Critiques and Human Rights Rhetoric about Harmful Traditional Practices: The Example of Female Genital Cutting
Daniela Hrzan, University of Konstanz/Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany
Under the Siege of Terrorism: Media and the Law
Banu Baybars Hawks, Kadir Has University, Turkey
Prosecuting and Defending Cultural Practices: Influence of the Cultural Defense on Criminal Liability in South Africa
Jacques Matthee, Institutional Language Directorate of the North-West University, South Africa
Session IV: North Campus Classroom 6
Chair: Johanna Fassl, Franklin College Switzerland
Domestic Violence, Culture and Human Rights
Ronagh McQuigg, Queen’s University Belfast, U.K.
Women’s Rights in Multicultural Context: A Comparison between Germany and France
Anja Titze, University of Wuerzburg, Germany
Violation of Human Rights in Holocaust/ Post Holocaust Era
Daniela Carpi, University of Verona, Italy
15:30-16:00 Coffee Break, North Campus Villa
16:00-17:30 Concurrent Sessions
Session V: North Campus Conference Room
Chair: Brigitte Schnegg, University of Bern, Switzerland
Calypso Music as a Fulcrum for Law, Culture and Human Rights
Everard Mark Phillips, Independent Scholar, Trinidad and Tobago
Not Just Violence: Signs and Symbols in Justice’s Video “Stress”
Johanna Fassl, Franklin College Switzerland
Session VI: North Campus 6
Chair: Patrick Saveau, Franklin College Switzerland
Human Rights and Female Imprisonment
Esmaeel Haditabar, University of Mazandaran, Iran
Khadijeh Nouralizadeh Khorrami, Iran
The United Nations and Women's Rights: Current Trends and Issues
Frances Pilch, United States Air Force Academy, U.S.A.
The Promise and Paradox of Sexworkers’ Rights
Jane Scoular, University of Strathclyde, U.K.
Session VII: North Campus 7
Chair: Caroline Wiedmer, Franklin College Switzerland
Where the Modern State Rests: Rights and Democracy in L.T. Hobhouse’s Political Thought
Carla Larouco Gomes, University of Lisbon, Portugal
Cesare Beccaria’s “On Crimes and Punishments” and the Construction of Respectability through Law
Marcus Pyka, Franklin College Switzerland
18:30 Welcome: Erik Nielsen, President, Franklin College Switzerland, Auditorium, Kaletsch Campus
Keynote Address:
Witnessing, False Witnessing and the Metrics of Authenticity, presented as a part of the Franklin College Lecture Series.
The motivation for this paper is the eruption of hoaxes, alleged and proven, that attends the contemporary traffic in witness narratives. One possible response is to take the role of cultural police, seeking to prove the veracity of some narratives and the fraudulence of others; another is to re-theorize issues central to testimonial narration. My focus here is not on whether the truth or falsity of witness narratives can be definitively determined. Rather, I am interested in complicating the notion of the first-person narrator in testimony and the authenticity that has come to be the guarantor of that subject position. To do so, I explore how the authenticity of a life story unfolds through certain "metrics" and how different constructions of the narrating "I" in witness narratives relate to the effects of authenticity a text projects as well as the relation of readers to the personal stories of witness. After readings of a few exemplary testimonies texts, I conclude with thoughts on an alternative reading practice to the kind of "rescue" reading often associated with testimonial narratives.
Sidonie Smith, Martha Guernsey Colby Collegiate Professor of English and Women's Studies, University of Michigan
Auditorium Kaletsch Campus
19:30 Reception Holman Hall, Conference Room, Kaletsch Campus
Saturday, September 24, 2011
8:30-10:00 Registration, Auditorium (foyer), Kaletsch Campus
8:30-10:00 Concurrent Sessions
Session VIII: Kaletsch Campus Classroom 3
Chair: Paolo Ruspini, Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Switzerland
Importing Foreign Labor Force: The Case of the Recruitment System of the Catalonian Agricultural Union, “Unio de Pagesos,” and Its Consequences on Workers’ Fundamental Rights
Olga Achon Rodriguez, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain
Migratory Movements as a Cultural Phenomenon: A New Category of Challenges for International Institutions and Norms of Public International Law
Bogumil Terminski, University of Warsaw, Poland
Session IX: Kaletsch Campus 4
Chair: Wasiq N. Khan, Franklin College Switzerland
Not Equal Enough: Legislating Inequality for Indigenous Women in Canada
Pamela Palmater, Ryerson University, Canada
Blind Spots and Filters in Human Rights Narratives: Informers and Dealing with the Past in Northern Ireland
Ron Dudai, Queen’s University Belfast, U.K.
People’s Perception about Law, a Comparative Approach: Canada, Japan and Mexico
Naayeli E. Ramirez, University of British Columbia, Canada
10:00 Coffee Break, Grotto, Kaletsch Campus
10:45-12:45 Round Table Discussion: Migration.
Dangerous Liaisons: Republican Democracy and Human Rights in Switzerland
Moderator: David Cowan, University of Bristol Law School, U.K.
Gianni D'Amato, Institut Forum suisse pour l'étude des migrations et de la population (SFM), University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Brigitte Schnegg, Interdisciplinary Center for Gender Studies, University of Bern, Switzerland
From an historical perspective, the relationship between republican democracies and human rights has not always been easy. In fact, it has often been difficult and controversial, in particular in long-established republics such as Switzerland and the U.S. Despite the differences in their histories, the two “sister republics,” as the two countries were once called, have both had an ambiguous relationship to human rights. The exclusion of African Americans in the United States from full civil rights until after World War II and the exclusion of women’s rights in Switzerland until the early 1970s are only two examples that illustrate the exclusive access to the rule of the Republic and the limited access to a comprehensive citizenship. The rule of the people does not necessarily converge with human rights standards, as the recent acceptance of the Minaret Initiative in Switzerland proved. This session will highlight some critical aspects of the “dangerous liaisons” between republicanism and human rights issues and discuss how the complex relationship between the two can be understood from a legal, historical and political perspective.
Respondent: Peter Rosenblum, Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein Clinical Professor of Human Rights Law, Columbia Law School, U.S.A.
Auditorium Kaletsch Campus
12:45-14:00 Lunch, Grotto, Kaletsch Campus
14:00-15:30 Concurrent Sessions
Session X: Kaletsch Campus 4
Chair: Sara Steinert Borella, Franklin College Switzerland
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the Girl Who Refused to Fail: Subjectivities of Sexuality, Resistance and Justice
Robin A. Robinson, University of Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Reproductive Rights as Human Rights: A Literary Perspective
Valentina Adami, Universita di Verona, Italy
Human Rights and Cultural Relativism
Aysel Dogan, Kocaeli University, Turkey
Session XI: Kaletsch Campus 5
Chair: Lieve Gies, Keele University, U.K.
Culture and Human Rights: Co-Creation of Normative Standards through Deliberation and Capacity-Building
Puja Kapai, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Human Rights and Business: A Clash of Cultures But Not as We Know It
Aurora Voiculescu, Westminster University, U.K.
The Bifurcation of Judicial and Cultural Discourses on Rape in the United States: The Curious Absence of a Dialogue on Human Rights in the Domestic Setting
Holly Jeanine Boux, Georgetown University, U.S.A.
15:30-16:30 Coffee Break, Grotto, Kaletsch Campus
16:30 Keynote Address:
Rethinking Human Rights through Competing Historical Narratives
We are in the midst of a surge of writing about human rights by social scientists including, most recently, historians. The work adds valuable nuance to the histories that are frequently mobilized by practitioners and theorists. At the same time, while starting from a premise that human rights are important enough to merit a history, they almost inadvertently focus attention on a profoundly unresolved question: what 'human rights' are we talking about? Is it a theoretically consistent, ideologically informed, normative movement? Some messy combination of groups, individuals, governments and organizations? Or something else, entirely? An imposition of the Western/Northern ideologies that deflect concern from profound systemic inequalities? All are argued and all have legitimate roots. This talk explores the stakes involved in the different--frequently competing--histories of human rights from the perspective of a critical participant in the organized human rights movement.
Peter Rosenblum, Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein Clinical Professor of Human Rights Law, Columbia Law School, U.S.A.
Auditorium, Kaletsch Campus
18:30 Dinner, Osteria della Bellavista
(Reservations required, meet outside of auditorium for group departure)
Sunday, September 25, 2011
8:30-10:00 Concurrent Sessions
Session XII: North Campus Conference Room
Chair: Patrick Saveau, Franklin College Switzerland
Application of “Repugnancy Doctrine” to Women’s Customary Right of Inheritance: What Has Changed Since the Supreme Court of Nigeria’s Judgment in Mojekwu v. Mojekwu
Ikechukwu Bernard Okafor, Afe Babalola University, Nigeria
Women’s Rights in India: Separating Facts from Fiction
Archana Shukla, M.K.P. (P.G.) College, India
Amish Children’s Rights: The Wisconsin v. Yoder Case
Andrea Borella, University of Turin, Italy
Session XIII: North Campus 3
Student Panel
Chair: Bethany Wallace, Franklin College Switzerland
Habermas Lost: The Inchoate European Polity
Maggie Humphreys, Franklin College Switzerland
Down and Out in Paris and Wherever: Changing or Deteriorating Conditions of Housing in the Urban Sphere?
Milica B., Franklin College Switzerland
10:00-10:45 Coffee Break, North Campus Dining Room
10:45-12:45 Concurrent Sessions
Session XIV: North Campus Conference Room
Chair: Gianni d'Amato, University of Neuchatel
Rights of the Future Generations
Sule Sahin Ceylan, Marmara University, Turkey
Human Rights: Narrative Arguments
Nirmala Pillay, Liverpool John Moores University, U.K.
Historical Redress in Israel: The Clash of Paradigms
Ruth Amir, Max Stern Academic College of Emek Yezreel, Israel
A Study of the Phenomenon of Medical Tourism within the Context of the General Agreement of Trade in Services
Aishwarya Padmanabhan, National University of Juridical Science, India
Session XV: North Campus 3
Chair: Georges Rocourt, Franklin College Switzerland
Disability Law and Changing Cultural and Historical Perceptions
Ilze Grobbelaar-du Plessis, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Indigenous Peoples and International Law: The Persistence of Colonialism
Adil Hasan Khan, IHEID, Geneva, Switzerland
(Ab)uses of the “Public Colonial Archives”: Comparisons between Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe
David Bargueño, Faculty of Law, University of Cape Town, South Africa
12:45-14:00 Farewell Lunch, North Campus Dining Room
Et al.
The organizers of the "Intersections of Law and Culture" conference would like to thank the Swiss National Fund, Trustee emeritus Willem Peppler and the Franklin College Faculty Development fund for their generous support of this conference.
