Book launch: The UN Commission on Human Rights ‘A Very Great Enterprise’

Join the Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG, Professor Megan Davis and Professor Justine Nolan for a conversation with author John Pace.

By The Australian Human Rights Institute

Date and time

Wed, 2 Jun 2021 12:00 AM - 1:00 AM PDT

Location

Online

About this event

The UN Human Rights Council faces a critical phase in its development. Between 2021 and 2026, the Assembly is due to review its status, with a view to determining, to quote Kofi Annan at its inauguration in 2006, whether its work has “so clearly established [its] authority that there would be a general will to amend the Charter, and to elevate it to the status of a Principal Organ of the United Nations”.

A new book by former Secretary to the UN Commission on Human Rights John Pace is intended to aid the process of review by furnishing, in one volume, the entire record of the Commission and the Council since the inception of UN work in human rights in 1946.

Former High Court Justice the Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG and Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous UNSW and Professor of Law Megan Davis will join the author in conversation about his new book, moderated by Director of the Australian Human Rights Institute Professor Justine Nolan.

This event is co-hosted by the Australian Human Rights Institute and the International Law Association Australia

Link to join this event: https://unsw.zoom.us/j/83132171928

About the author

In the course of a career spanning more than 50 years in the field of human rights, John Pace has worked in a wide range of human rights activities at the international and regional level.

He has headed several sectors of the human rights programme and was Secretary to the Commission on Human Rights (1978 to 1994) and Coordinator of the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights (1991 to 1993).

He has a long association with UNSW, where he has taught and headed the Australian Centre for Human Rights in the early 2000s. He is currently Senior Visiting Fellow in the Faculty of Law and Justice and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Diplomacy Training Programme.

His work, The UN Commission on Human Rights: ‘A Very Great Enterprise’, was published by OUP in 2020. Event attendees are eligible for a 30% discount on purchase of the book.

Organised by

The Australian Human Rights Institute

The Australian Human Rights Institute at UNSW Sydney is dedicated to interdisciplinary research in three priority areas; business and human rights, health and human rights and gender justice.

By bringing together researchers in different disciplines, the Institute will produce innovative solutions for human rights violations. It will have a meaningful social impact, with responses to rights challenges that can be applied by governments, industries, and communities across the globe.

The Institute builds on the outstanding legacy of the Australian Human Rights Centre, which since its establishment in 1986, has increased public awareness and academic scholarship on human rights through research, public lectures and events, and publications.

Sales Ended