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UNA NI and the Transitional Justice Institute are jointly organising an event on the theme of challenges to international humanitarian law and the integrity of the UN.
The ongoing violence in Israel-Palestine - involving military attacks on UN schools, hospitals and other facilities harbouring refugees; the killing of more than 150 UN workers; UN agencies being prevented from providing humanitarian assistance and the destruction of UN warehouses and critical food and medical supplies – is the most recent and blatant challenge to the international rule of law and the institutions of the UN. The Security Council is effectively paralysed by members using vetoes.
In other regions, there is evidence of war crimes in the conflict in Ukraine; genocide against the Uighur people in China and closer to home, members of the UK Parliament are advocating abrogation of the UN Convention on Refugees.
The speakers
Professor William A. Schabas
Professor William A. Schabas, who is professor of international law at Middlesex University in London. He is also professor emeritus of international human law and human rights at Leiden University, professor emeritus of human rights law at the University of Galway and honorary chairman of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, and invited visiting scholar at the Paris School of International Affairs (Sciences Politiques). Prof. Schabas is a 'door tenant' at the chambers of 9 Bedford Row, in London. Professor Schabas is the author of more than twenty books dealing in whole or in part with international human rights law. He has also published more than 400 articles in academic journals, principally in the field of international human rights law and international criminal law. From 2002 to 2004 he served as one of three international members of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In 2014 he was appointed chairman of the UN Commission of Inquiry into the Gaza war. Professor Schabas has worked as a consultant on capital punishment for the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, and drafted the 2010, 2015 and 2020 reports of the Secretary-General on the status of the death
Dr Stephen Farry
Dr Stephen Farry is a long-standing member of UNA NI. He has served as Deputy Leader of the Alliance Party since December 2016 and as the Member of Parliament for North Down since 2019. He holds a PhD in International Relations from Queen’s University Belfast and was a Senior Fellow at the US Institute of Peace.
Refreshments
Sandwiches, tea and coffee provided.
Belfast Campus
2-24 York Street, Belfast, BT15 1AP
