Session 1 – Professor Ben Saul

Human rights, international law and multilateral institutions are under enormous strain due to growing authoritarianism and populism, transactional and dysfunctional geopolitics, and a United Nations liquidity crisis. As the Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, an independent UN expert, Professor Saul will explain how the “Special Procedures” mechanisms of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council work to protect human rights in the current climate.

The talk will explain the purpose, origins and evolution of the system; the functions of experts (including formal communications to States, official country visits, thematic reports to the General Assembly and Human Rights Council, diplomacy, interventions in courts, inquiries and law-making, public advocacy, and engagement with victims and civil society); the role of the counter-terrorism mandate in an era of new illegal “wars on terror” and through engaging with the UN security architecture in New York; and the political, institutional and financial constraints threatening to cripple the system and abandon victims of international crimes and other serious rights violations.