Rightsup

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all of us in many ways. States around the world have imposed restrictions of varying levels of stringency to control the spread of the virus. The Central Government in India introduced a nationwide 21-day lockdown on 24th of March 2020. The lockdown saw an almost complete restriction on the movement of people and the closure of all establishments except those providing essential services. India’s lockdown has been described as the world’s biggest coronavirus lockdown and the harshest coronavirus containment measure in the world. The lockdown was declared with a four-hour notice period. It has been extensively reported that the impact of the lockdown has fallen most heavily on those most vulnerable. In this episode, we speak to Professor Kalpana Kannabiran, a professor of sociology and the Director of the Council for Social Development Hyderabad, about the Indian government's response to the pandemic and the impact on rights. Full transcript and shownotes: http://ohrh.law.o

In this episode, we discuss the intersection between the responses to public health crisis and human rights with Luisa Cabal, Acting Director of the Community Support, Social Justice, and Inclusion at UNAIDS. UNAIDS recently published a guidance paper of lessons learned from other pandemics, such as the HIV pandemic, about how to respect and uphold human rights during exceptional times. Download a full transcript: http://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/media/how-to-uphold-human-rights-during-a-pandemic-lessons-from-unaids-with-luisa-cabal/ Interview with: Luisa Cabal (UNAIDS) Hosted by: Mónica Arango Olaya Produced and edited by: Christy Callaway-Gale Executive producer: Kira Allmann Shownotes: Sarah Dobbie Music: Rosemary Allmann

This is a special episode of RightsUp, which takes Sandy Fredman’s new book, Comparative Human Rights Law, as a starting point for global conversation around the role of law, lawyers, courts, and judges in forwarding human rights in different contexts. Each episode will delve into the overarching themes of the book and highlight some specific examples from different jurisdictions -- on issues such as capital punishment, abortion, the right to housing, health, and education, and the right to freedom of speech and religion. In this discussion, Sandy speaks with Colm O'Cinneide, a professor of human rights law at UCL, who also served on the member of the European Committee on Social Rights of the Council of Europe. They discuss the intersections between socio-economic rights and civil/political rights in the context of Europe. Guests: Sandra Fredman and Colm O'Cinneide Produced by: Kira Allmann Music by: Rosemary Allmann

This is a special episode of RightsUp, which takes Sandy Fredman’s new book, Comparative Human Rights Law, as a starting point for global conversation around the role of law, lawyers, courts, and judges in forwarding human rights in different contexts. Each episode will delve into the overarching themes of the book and highlight some specific examples from different jurisdictions -- on issues such as capital punishment, abortion, the right to housing, health, and education, and the right to freedom of speech and religion. In this discussion, Sandy speaks with Justice S. Muralidhar, a judge on the High Court of Delhi, who has delivered judgments in some of the most important housing rights cases in India. They discuss a right to housing and the value of comparing how different legal systems deal with this issue. Guests: Sandra Fredman and Justice S. Muralidhar Produced by: Kira Allmann Music by: Rosemary Allmann

This is a special episode of RightsUp, which takes Sandy Fredman’s new book, Comparative Human Rights Law, as a starting point for global conversation around the role of law, lawyers, courts, and judges in forwarding human rights in different contexts. Each episode will delve into the overarching themes of the book and highlight some specific examples from different jurisdictions -- on issues such as capital punishment, abortion, the right to housing, health, and education, and the right to freedom of speech and religion. In this discussion, Sandy speaks with Judge Edwin Cameron, who recently retired from the Constitutional Court of South Africa after serving for more than two decades as a judge in South African courts. Guests: Sandra Fredman and Edwin Cameron Produced by: Kira Allmann Music by: Rosemary Allmann

The United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. They aim to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all people. The goals provide policy objectives for countries to aspire to meet over a number of years. In this final episode of our SDG podcast series, we talk about how the Sustainable Development Goals and human rights can work together to achieve transformative change in the realm of gender equality. In order for the SDGs to be truly transformative for women, attention needs to be paid simultaneously to four dimensions of equality: first, redressing disadvantage; second, addressing stereotyping, stigma, prejudice and violence; third, facilitating voice and participation; and fourth, achieving systemic or institutional change. Professor Sandra Fredman (University of Oxford) talks about applying these dimensions of equality in her recent report for the British Academy on human rights, the SDGs, and gender equality. **This episode is part of a special series on “Working

Sustainable Development Goal 1 is to eliminate poverty in all its forms everywhere. Poverty stands in the way of people enjoying many of their basic human rights and it can also be the product of violations of certain rights, like the right to education. Tackling global poverty requires bridging questions of human rights law and economic development. In this episode Prof Philip Alston (UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights) talks about the challenges of using both human rights law and economic development agendas to address poverty. **This episode is part of a special series on “Working Together: Human Rights and the Sustainable Development Goals,” a British Academy project led by Professor Sandy Fredman, Fellow of the British Academy and Director of the Oxford Human Rights Hub. As part of this project, the Academy convened a roundtable in January 2018 with academic experts, policymakers and practitioners from the UK and overseas to discuss the ways in which human rights and developmental

In September 2015, the UN adopted the Sustainable Development Goals to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all people. The Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, have made an overt commitment to human rights as fundamental to the international development agenda. SDG Goal number 1 is to end poverty in all its forms everywhere. And the targets specifically state that poverty must be eliminated for all men, women and children. But poverty affects these groups differently, and the causes of poverty for men, women, and children also differ. Empirical evidence tells us that women disproportionately live in poverty. So how do we tackle the gendered nature of poverty, when it seems to be missing from both development agendas and human rights frameworks? **This episode is part of a special series on “Working Together: Human Rights and the Sustainable Development Goals,” a British Academy project led by Professor Sandy Fredman, Fellow of the British Academy and Director of the Oxford Human Righ

In September 2015, the UN adopted the Sustainable Development Goals to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all people. For the first time, these goals explicitly aim to bring human rights and economic development into conversation with one another. There are 17 Sustainable Development Goals to be realised by 2030, each with their own targets. Goal number 5 is to ‘achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.’ One of the targets under Goal 5 is to eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early, and forced marriage, and female genital mutilation, or FGM. In this episode, we talk with Brenda Kelly, a consultant obstetrician at the John Radcliffe Hospital and a founder of the Oxford Rose Clinic, which specialises in treating women and girls who have experienced FGM. Brenda shares her insights from working with FGM patients about how the law and medicine interact when it comes to achieving gender equality. **This episode is part of a special series on “Working Together: Hum

The death penalty was written into the colonial penal code in India when the country was under British direct rule, and it stayed on the books after independence. Today India remains a ‘retentionist’ country – meaning that it retains the death penalty in the face of a growing global movement to abolish it worldwide on human rights grounds. At the end of 2017, there were 371 prisoners on death row in India. India is one of the few democracies that retains the death penalty, and it has voted against recent UN resolutions seeking a global end to the death penalty. In this episode, Anup Surendranath talks about the research he and his team at the National Law University in Delhi have conducted on death row inmates in India and what challenges remain on the path to abolition. Produced by: Dr Kira Allmann (University of Oxford) Interview with: Dr Anup Surendranath (National Law University in Delhi) Music by: Rosemary Allmann If you like this podcast, please consider making a donation to the Oxford Human Rights H

There is an unmistakable growing awareness of the ways in which our human lives and the environment are intertwined and interdependent. Unprecedented environmental degradation, resource depletion, and the looming reality of climate change have all drawn anxious attention to the human impact on the environment. Law is critically important here. Countries like Spain, France, Portugal, and Finland have already recognized a human right to a healthy environment. But some environmental advocates are arguing that this isn’t enough. We need to recognize the inherent rights of nature itself. In this episode, we discuss the limitations of human rights in confronting environmental harms and how we could realise the rights of nature. Produced by: Dr Kira Allmann (University of Oxford) Interview(s) with: Mari Margil (Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund) Music by: Rosemary Allmann If you like this podcast, please consider making a donation to the Oxford Human Rights Hub to support the work we do to make human righ

In September 2015, the UN adopted the Sustainable Development Goals to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all people. For the first time, these goals explicitly aim to bring human rights and economic development into conversation with one another. There are 17 Sustainable Development Goals to be realised by 2030, each with their own targets. Goal number 5 is to ‘achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.’ While gender equality stands alone as a goal, it also cuts across many of the other sustainable development goals. This raises some questions – about whether gender equality can ever be realised on its own, in its own right – or whether it has to be realised in context. Inclusion and empowerment of women and girls must take place at every level and in every development target. In this episode, we explore development issues that disproportionately affect women and girls and interrogate how the SDGs can do better to address them. **This episode is part of a special series

In September 2015, the UN adopted a set of goals to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all people. These are the UN Sustainable Development Goals, to be realised by 2030. The Sustainable Development Goals replace and build on the Millennium Development Goals, which were established in 2000 with targets set for 2015. The Sustainable Development Goals make some important changes to the development agenda, and one significant update is that they include an overt commitment to human rights for the first time. But how to integrate human rights into development agendas remains an open question. What will the relationship between human rights and the Sustainable Development Goals look like in practice? **This episode is part of a special series on “Working Together: Human Rights and the Sustainable Development Goals” a British Academy project led by Professor Sandy Fredman, Fellow of the British Academy and Director of the Oxford Human Rights Hub. As part of this project, the Academy convened

Almost exactly a year ago, in January 2017, the UK Department of Education published a report by the Disabled Students Sector Leadership Group (DSSLG) which offered guidance on how universities and other higher education providers could better support disabled students. In short, the report found that institutions of higher education could do much more to make learning and teaching more inclusive for disabled students. This February the University of Oxford will be hosting a conference on Disability Law and Policy to mark the launch of the newly established Oxford University Disability Law and Policy Project, headed by Dr Marie Tidball. In this episode, Marie talks about disability rights and the importance of teaching a new generation of lawyers about disability law. The Disability Law and Policy Project aims to put disability law at the centre of learning and teaching in the law curriculum. This conference will focus on legal issues affecting persons with disability, at the intersection of gender, race, a

The EU has played an important role both internationally and domestically in EU member states, in developing and protecting equality rights in the interest of ensuring peace and security. UK and EU equality law has evolved very much in parallel, with regular exchange and cross-pollination. Today, equality commissions in the UK handle the protection and enforcement of equality law. The present Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is responsible for law in England, Scotland, and Wales, was established by the Equality Act of 2006. The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland was established with the Northern Ireland Act of 1998, a clear recognition of the importance of equality to the peace process. There are undoubtedly unique considerations and concerns with regard to equality in Northern Ireland, which we discuss in this episode with Evelyn Collins, Chief Executive of the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland. For more information about the work of the Equality Commission, please visit: equalityni

Just this morning, news broke that the UK has reached a deal with the EU. Theresa May announced that there would be no hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, the Good Friday Agreement would be upheld, and that EU citizens’ rights would be protected in the UK. Few details about the agreement are available, and there are still many questions about how these very critical elements of the deal will be implemented. What has been clear, however, is that Northern Ireland is center stage right now in the Brexit debates, so we're diving into the issues at stake here and how human rights might also be important in this ongoing conversation. For more information about Professor Colin Harvey's ESRC project on Brexit law, please visit: https://brexitlawni.org Interview with: Professor Colin Harvey (Queen's University, Belfast) Produced by: Dr Kira Allmann (University of Oxford) Music by: Rosemary Allmann [Recorded: 9 October 2017 / Released: 8 December 2017]

There are many ways in which private businesses hold financial and political power akin to states. They also commit violations and abuses of power akin to states. But are they held accountable in the same way that states are? This episode is all about whether corporations should have human rights obligations – should they be responsible for upholding and defending human rights the way that we expect governments to? We interview Boni Meyersfeld, Professor of Law at the University of Witswatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, about corporate responsibility, gender inequality, and human rights in an age of globalization. Interview with: Professor Boni Meyersfeld Produced by: Dr Kira Allmann Music by: Rosemary Allmann [Original release: 20 September 2017]

Following U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, what is the future of environmental justice and human rights in the United States and the world? We talk with environmental human rights expert and lawyer, Nick Stump, about what we can learn from the experiences of the Appalachian region of the U.S. Appalachia is known for coal mining, and it became a focal region in Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, as Trump promised to save a declining and environmentally destructive industry to create more coal jobs. As such, Appalachia has become symbolic of the American economic crisis, along with other industrial regions. We talk about the environmental realities in Appalachia, the power of symbolism, and the prospects for realising environmental human rights. Interview with: Nick Stump (West Virginia University) Produced by: Dr Kira Allmann (University of Oxford) Music by: Rosemary Allmann [Release: 1 August 2017]

In May of 2016, the Obama administration issued federal guidance that stated transgender people are protected according to United States civil rights law preventing sex discrimination in schools. It was a historic move, in response to a wave of cases making their way through federal courts regarding discrimination against transgender people. But in February 2017, the newly elected Trump administration rescinded the federal guidance issued under President Obama, and the legal landscape on this issue instantly changed. In this episode we talk with Corey Stoughton, former Senior Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, about the future of transgender rights in America. Interview with: Corey Stoughton Produced by: Dr Kira Allmann Music by: Rosemary Allmann [Original release: 30 May 2017]

Since the 1973 Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade, abortion has been legal in the United States. But terminating pregnancy remains a controversial issue, and it plays a surprisingly large role in American politics. In this episode, we talk to Carol Sanger, professor of law at Columbia University and author of 'About Abortion: Terminating Pregnancy in 21st Century America' about why abortion is such a prominent political issue in the United States and how we might expect the Trump administration to deal with reproductive rights. Interview with: Professor Carol Sanger Produced by: Dr Kira Allmann Music by: Rosemary Allmann [Original release: 12 May 2017]