Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Conference: International Human Rights Fact-Finding in the Twenty-First Century

On November 1-2, 2013, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law will host a conference on "International Human Rights Fact-Finding in the Twenty-First Century." I noted the call for papers here. The program is here. Here's the idea:

The conference is part of a major initiative by the Center to further research, scholarship, and debate on the role of fact-finding in the human rights field. This conference will bring together leading practitioners and scholars to facilitate a critical and constructive discussion about the key challenges and opportunities in international fact-finding, a subject that is fundamental to human rights, but has thus far received far too little scholarly attention or critical analysis.

Conference panels will address a range of key topics, including: Human rights fact-finding: politics and imperialism; Victims and witnesses in human rights fact-finding: empowerment or extraction?; Fact-finding for advocacy, enforcement, and litigation: purposes and cross purposes; Understanding and improving fact-finding through interdisciplinary expertise and methodologies; Fact-finding case studies: cross-cutting themes; Fact-finding with crowd sourcing, social media, and big data; and Does human rights fact-finding need international guidelines?