Wednesday, 3 September 2014

Two ECHR-related Conferences at Ghent University

The prolific Human Rights Centre of Ghent University is organising two conferences this Autumn, both of which are to an important degree about the ECHR:
 
The first is a seminar on Law and Religion on 23 September. The entire afternoon of the seminar will be dedicated to the Court's case-law on the issue. More information and the full programme can be found here. This is what the conference is about in a nutshell:
 
"The seminar will bring together religious scholars and legal scholars to discuss law's conceptions of religion and its reception of different religious experiences. Speakers will address questions such as: Are the notions of religion underpinning the law inclusive enough to attend to the diversity of religious ways in reality? If not, can and should these notions be legally "stretched" so as to become more responsive to such diversity?

The morning sessions will focus on how law, including human rights law, understands and should understand religion. The afternoon sessions will focus on the ways in which a specific court - the European Court of Human Rights - conceives of and should conceive of religion. Religion scholars presenting in the afternoon will unpack the notions of religion underlying selected freedom of religion judgments and examine the extent to which these notions attend to applicants' religious experiences. Legal scholars, in turn, will look at whether applicants' religious experiences can and should be legally translated more fully."
The second is a conference on conflicts between human rights, to be held on 16 October. The title of the conference is: '(How) Should the European Court of Human Rights Resolve Conflicts between Human Rights?'. Several of the former and current judges, including President Spielmann, will be commentators at the event. According to the organisers, this is what it will be about:
          
"The Symposium aims to evaluate the legal reasoning of the European Court of Human Rights in conflicting rights cases and to propose novel methodological tools and frameworks for the judicial resolution of conflicts between human rights in the context of the European Convention on Human Rights.

In order to tackle these challenges, a number of renowned scholars have been invited to present their views on how (specific) conflicts between human rights ought to be resolved. First, a small number of scholars will set the stage for the debate by outlining their general approaches, frameworks and tests for the judicial resolution of conflicts between human rights in the ECHR context. Following these general presentations, a larger number of panels will address specific types of conflicts. To ensure productive and spirited debate, the participants in the specific panels have been asked to present their views on how certain pre-selected ECtHR cases should be (or should have been) resolved.

In order to increase the practical relevance of the Symposium and to offer the speakers useful feedback on the practicality of their advocated approaches, a number of (former) ECtHR Judges have been invited to comment on the practicality and feasibility of the proposed approaches."

More information on this second conference can be found here.