Events

New: Briefing on the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Sustaining Peace, Monday 26th March 2018, Palais des Nations, Geneva.
Monday 26th March has been confirmed as the date for a lunchtime briefing on the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights and Sustaining Peace. The briefing will present the project’s work to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) on emerging issues in the field of sustaining peace and ESCRs, in addition to presenting experiences from the field and suggestions for further addressing further sustaining peace in the work of the Committee. Lancaster University will be represented by the project’s lead, Dr Amanda Cahill-Ripley, as well as Professor Sigrun Skogly. Other speakers include Karol Balfe, Head of Tackling Violence and Building Peace at Christian Aid Ireland. This briefing is kindly organised by partner organisations FES Geneva and QUNO. Full details to follow.

 

Knowledge Exchange Symposium: Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Sustaining Peace: Developing New Insights into Peacebuilding

Wednesday 5th and Thursday 6th July 2017, Lancaster University, UK

A successful and ground-breaking two-day knowledge exchange symposium has taken place at Lancaster University Law School in Lancaster, UK.

 

The second event of a collaborative project between the Quaker UN Office (QUNO), Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) and Dr Amanda Cahill-Ripley of Lancaster University Law School, which aims to enhance knowledge and understanding of the role of economic, social and cultural rights (ECSRs) in sustaining peace.

In particular, we aim to:

  • Assist in networking traditional and non-traditional actors in peacebuilding (including ESCRs actors)
  • Advance innovative practice and thinking on peacebuilding and ESCRs
  • Strengthen the relationship between academia, human rights actors and peacebuilding actors and expand space for dialogue about realising rights, building peace and resolving conflict across different institutions and sectors.
  • Develop an enhanced and broader understanding amongst practitioners and academics of promising practices in the peacebuilding and economic and social rights fields.

This event built on a previous workshop held in Geneva in February 2017 which brought together academics and representatives of peacebuilding and human rights organisations to identify the intersections between ESCRs and peacebuilding in theory, policy, and practice. As a result of this workshop, the need for further exploration of ideas and exchange of dialogue in order to strengthen mutual knowledge and understanding was clearly identified. With this in mind, the purpose of this symposium was to provide an opportunity for a wider group of academics and practitioners to present their research and experiences in relevant areas, to further enrich the debate and build upon the initial discussions.

The symposium brought together  participants from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, international NGOs such as the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Swisspeace, Christian Aid Ireland and International Alert as well as academics from University of Edinburgh, Madrid, University of Nottingham, University of Manchester, Coventry University Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, An Najah University and the Transitional Justice Institute, University of Ulster, to discuss their academic, practitioner and policy insights on a theme or experiences related to the central topic of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Sustaining Peace. Topics discussed included,

  • Local /Grassroots Peacebuilding and the Role of Civil Society
  • Women, Peace and Security with a focus on Economic Empowerment
  • Conflict Transformation
  • Rights and Non-Violent Resistance
  • Early Warning, Risk Analysis and Conflict Prevention
  • Transitional Justice
  • Business and Due Diligence Obligations to advance Peace
  • Structural Violence
  • Resilience
  • Human Security
  • Inequality
  • Development
  • Specific ESCRs in a peacebuilding context including Reproductive rights
  • Specific case studies including Honduras, Colombia; Palestine

 

A full report will follow shortly, however copies of the presentations, along with a list of participants and speaker biographies can be found here

For any queries please contact the event organiser:

Dr Amanda Cahill-Ripley, Lecturer in Law, Lancaster University Law School.

Email: escr@lancaster.ac.uk 

 

 

 

Collaborative Workshop I: Shared Practices and Building Bridges between the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Conflict Transformation Communities

17th February 2017, Quaker United Nations Office and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), Geneva

This event brought together academics and representatives of peacebuilding and human rights organisations to share research and discuss theoretical and practice based experiences of using economic and social rights as a tool for sustaining peace. The aim of the workshop was to enable the group to identify common practice and differential practice to date (good practice and obstacles to an integrated appraoch); to ascertain where misconceptions exist between the two fields and to recognise commonalities on which to begin to build shared knowledge and understanding and thus nurture innovative policy and practice of sustaining peace. The full report on this event will be available soon.