Human Rights Research Students’ Conference Monday 10 July 2017, 09:00 - 18:00 University of Essex This Postgraduate Research Students’ conference is aimed at students working within the broad interdisciplinary field of human rights and social justice. The conference aims to stimulate research on contemporary human rights issues, problems, challenges and policies, and to facilitate the dissemination of such research. We are particularly interested in inviting papers which go beyond disciplinary boundaries to embrace interdisciplinary perspectives on human rights themes.

The School of Advanced Study is saddened to hear of the sudden death on 10 March of Stefania Barichello, a research student who was well known to both the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies.  Stefania’s work on refugee protection in Latin America meant that she participated in the School’s Human Rights Consortium and Refugee Law Initiative events. She was an inspiring, committed and passionate individual who cared deeply about the refugee cause. Her death affects so many of us but our thoughts are with her family and friends.

Dr David James Cantor, Director and founder of the Refugee Law Initiative based at the Human Rights Consortium has been appointed senior adviser to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). He will work part-time with the UNHCR’s Americas bureau from November 2016. Over the past 12 months, Dr Cantor’s research has helped shape UNHCR’s policy for Latin America. His appointment to this prestigious position follows the completion of a three-year Economic and Social Research Council-funded project, which looked at refugee protection in Latin America.

The Association of Human Rights Institutes (AHRI) issued a declaration on academic freedom on 3rd of September in response to "the actions and threats of actions of an increasing number of States to restrain and even foreclose academic freedom". Utrecht Declaration on Academic Freedom was adopted by the AHRI General Assembly during its annual conference in Utrecht. The translations of the Declaration into the six official UN languages will be available soon on AHRI’s website: www.ahri-network.org