Professor Colm O'Cinneide delivers Eason-Weinmann Lecture at Tulane Law School

Professor Colm O'Cinneide, Professor of Human Rights Law at UCL Laws, delivered the Eason-Weinmann Lecture at Tulane Law School on Wednesday 18th September, on the topic of 'Rescuing Human Rights: Against the New Minimalism'. This Lecture is organised annually by the Eason Weinmann Center for International and Comparative Law at Tulane, and is designed to showcase cutting edge research into comparative law. 

The abstract for Professor O'Cinneide's lecture is as follows:

'Human rights are in a time of crisis. For decades, the importance and validity of international human rights standards has been acknowledged across the democratic world. But, now, their legitimacy has come under sustained challenge. The claim is increasingly made that human rights standards have "gone too far", that their scope and substance has developed beyond what is reasonable and needs to be cut back. In this lecture, I challenge some of the presumptions underlying this "new minimalism". I argue they are based on false premises about the nature of human rights, how they take effect within national law and policy, and their relationship with democratic first principles. Human rights are facing fundamental challenges. But the appropriate response should not be to retreat into the fake security offered by the new minimalists.'