POSTPONED PIL Hub Seminar: Imperialism, Inequality and Human Rights

This event is postponed until Spring term.

The PIL hub lunch-time seminar series aims to provide an opportunity to discuss and debate leading research on contemporary, theoretical and historical issues of international law.

Our next PIL Hub seminar will be held on 27th March, from 13.00 to 14.00 in the Moot Court Room.

We will have the opportunity to hear from Paul O’Connell.

There is a wealth of evidence which attests to the growth and deepening of economic inequality around the world, both within and between countries. There is a corresponding literature addressing the negative impact of economic inequality on the entire corpus of human rights. However, in both cases the dominant perspectives elide the root causes of economic inequality. They fail to take account of how imperialism entrenches and reproduces a system of global inequality. This paper will draw on recent scholarship on imperialism to demonstrate the central, structural role it plays in producing inequality, with all the human rights undermining implications this has. Further, it will be argued that any account of inequality and human rights that does not foreground imperialism, ends up superficially addressing symptoms, while leaving the core problem untouched.

This event will be on a first-come-first-serve basis.