Call for Papers: Postgraduate and ECR Workshop with Professor Lois McNay

‘Subjects Before the Law: Membership, Recognition and the Religious Dimensions of Women’s Citizenship.’

We invite PhD students and Early Career Researchers (no more than 3 years post-doc) from any discipline to apply to participate in a workshop, to take place on Thursday, September 9, 2010. The workshop is hosted by the Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights and the Institute for Social Science in the 21st Century, University College Cork, Ireland. The workshop is organised as part of an IRCHSS Thematic Project on Gender Equality, Religious Diversity and Multiculturalism in Contemporary Ireland.

The workshop organisers are Eoin Daly and Máiréad Enright.

Call for Papers – European Group for Study of Crime and Deviance

European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control
British and Irish section conference
14th – 16th April 2010
Manchester Metropolitan University

Standing in the Gaps: Challenging the Entitlement of the Powerful

This conference is dedicated to the life and work of Karen Leander who was a tireless campaigner on the rights of women and who fought against the entitlement of patriarchy and oppressive state power. The conference provides an opportunity to challenge the assumptions of ‘entitlement’, whether it be entitlement born of gender, ethnicity, class, of politi-cal access, of economic resources, to funding, or of sexual freedom. The European Group continues to develop a critical, emancipatory and innovative criminology, to provide a forum for and recognition of challenging research, study and activism.

Conference on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Call for Papers

The Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 (‘The UNCRC’) will be 21 years old in 2010. The School of Law, Magee, University of Ulster, will mark this milestone on June 19-20, 2010 with a multi-disciplinary, 2-day International Conference involving academics, practitioners, and students from the fields of law and child protection. The themes of the Conference include (but are not restricted to) such diverse topics as:

	Domestic interpretation and implementation of the Children’s Convention
	Juvenile Justice
	Child Protection
	Adoption/Fostering and Special Guardianship
	Immigration
	Children’s Health
	‘Family life’ and Children’s Rights
	Children’s Rights as Socio-economic Rights
	Parents’ Rights

This is an International Society of Family Law Regional Conference.

The conference will consist of a number of keynote speaker plenary sessions, round table discussions and break-out panels, with a Gala Conference Dinner on the Saturday evening and a range of sight-seeing and/or social events over the course of the Conference weekend.

Abstracts of around 250 words should reach the Conference Committee by 16th April 2010. Abstracts of paper proposals should be sent to childrensrights@ulster.ac.uk . Individuals will be informed by 23rd April as to whether their paper proposal has been accepted.

Conference Registration Fee  £120
Concessionary Registration Fee (students/unwaged)  £25
Conference Dinner £30
Concessionary Dinner £20

Registration fee includes conference materials, tea and coffee, lunch and breakfast

• Accommodation
• Getting Here

Call for Papers: IJS Symposium at UCC, April 2010

The Irish Jurisprudence Society in conjunction with the Law Faculty at UCC will host a Symposium on Jurisprudence and Legal Theory at University College Cork on 17th April 2010. Papers may be presented on any area of jurisprudence or legal theory; there will be up to 30 minutes for presentation of each paper and ample time for discussion.
It is intended that papers will be pre-circulated to those attending one week in advance of the Symposium.

Those interested in presenting a paper should please send a provisional title and a short (300-400 word) abstract either to Dr Maria Cahill, UCC(maria.cahill@ucc.ie) or to the IJS email address (irishjurisprudencesociety@gmail.com) by 12th March 2010. Any enquiries can also be addressed to same.

For details of the Irish Jurisprudence Society’s  past events see this site.

North South Criminology Conference

6th NORTH/SOUTH IRISH CRIMINOLOGY CONFERENCE
21st – 22nd JUNE 2010
UNIVERSITY OF ULSTER, BELFAST CAMPUS
CALL FOR PAPERS
The 6th North/South Irish Criminology Conference will be hosted by the School of Criminology, Politics and Social Policy at the University of Ulster, Belfast Campus on Monday, 21 June and Tuesday, 22 June 2010.
The aim of the conference is to provide a forum for academics, post-graduate researchers, community activists, practitioners and policy makers in the fields of criminology and criminal justice to come together to exchange ideas and disseminate research. This is of particular significance given the impending devolution of policing and justice in Northern Ireland, and increasing awareness, throughout Ireland, of gender-specific needs within criminal justice processes, and the needs of families and victims.
Panels will include but are not limited to:
• Addressing the Needs of ‘Victims’ and ‘Offenders’
• City Transformation and Crime
• Criminal Justice Processes and Accountability
• Future Directions in Criminology
• Gender and Criminal Justice
• Globalisation, Migration and Immigration
• Policing, Regulation and Surveillance
• Prisoners, Detainees and their Families
• Restorative Justice Practice and Theory
• Crimes of the Powerful
• Children, Young People and Criminal Justice
Abstracts:
If you are interested in presenting a paper at the conference, please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words to criminologyconference@ulster.ac.uk by Monday, 1 March 2010.
Abstracts should include the proposed title of the presentation, the name(s) of the author(s), affiliation, email address and phone number. Notification of acceptance will be provided by Thursday, 1 April 2010.
Registration:
If you would like to register for the conference, please email criminologyconference@ulster.ac.uk by Friday, 30 April 2010.
There is no registration fee for the conference.
Website:
http://www.socsci.ulster.ac.uk/policy/conference/index.html

Call For Papers: Territory and Justice Network

The Territory and Justice network will hold its third conference on July 12-13, 2010, in Dublin. The theme of the conference is Justice and Territory: Immigration, Self-Determination, and Resource Rights.

A panel will be dedicated to each of the sub-themes: immigration, self-determination, and resource rights. Other panels will be open–determined by the topics of the paper presented.

We invite abstract submissions for paper presentations on topics related to any of the sub-themes or on topics related to territory and justice, broadly construed.

Abstracts are due to cara.nine@hotmail.com by March 1, 2010.

Call for Blog Posts: Ireland and Popular Critiques of Human Rights

[The European Convention on Human Rights] was drafted specifically with the appalling abuses of World War II in mind. Do you really think that putting crucifixes on the walls of state classrooms can in any way, shape or form be compared with what the Nazis and others did in World War II? No, I didn’t think so.

David Quinn, Irish Independent, Nov 6, 2009

It will become clear that the actions [of Portmarnock Golf Club] raise very fundamental questions to do with the constitutional rights of citizens to associate with one another, and the powers of the State to regulate, penalise, or discourage such association and cognate matters, including the right to associate for purposes disapproved of by the political establishment, or by the “great and the good” in Government, the media, the quangos and elsewhere.

Mr. Justice Adrian Hardiman in Equality Authority v Portmarnock Golf Club

[Amnesty International’s] Irish manifestation has apparently mission-crept into being an advocate for the entire PC agenda. Though hundreds are starving to death in Mugabe’s jails, the Congo is darkness personified, Iran is an Islamic tyranny, and unspeakable things are happening in just about every country ending in “-istan”, Amnesty Ireland is campaigning for marriage rights for homosexuals.

Kevin Myers, Irish Independent, August 12, 2009

Rights are inalienable, they are not granted at the whim of the state – anything gifted to us by the Dáil, the EU parliament or the courts can just as easily be taken away. If abortion is a right then it must be fought for in open debate, not introduced by the back door through legalistic complaining. Even if the court decides in favour of a change to Irish law it will do no one any favours. State bodies already have too much to say about what goes on in our bodies and inviting the courts to decide what is right and wrong surrenders individual sovereignty.

Jason Walsh, forth.ie, 10 December, 2009

As regular readers will know, every so often we run blog carnivals where we invite academics and researchers to write posts (about 500-1000 words) on a particular theme. (See examples here and here). I’m hoping to curate one on March 17th which will address the topic of Ireland’s human rights culture, or lack thereof. In particular I want us to think about the apparent  popular aversion to institutionalised human rights in Ireland, and to engage with those arguments…creatively (and perhaps not defensively). I am hoping that we will get to think critically about Ireland’s human rights culture, examine its flaws and imagine alternative possibilities. This isn’t a new debate – the outlines are well laid out by scholars such as Zizek, Douzinas, Nedelsky and Brown– but maybe it is one that Irish human rights scholars need to have again.

I’m looking for participants in a blog carnival. So if you would like to join in, please email maireadenright@gmail.com and let me know, with a line or two on the idea you would like to blog about. Some topics I would like to see addressed (this is by no means an exhaustive list) are:

• Judicial activism and human rights.
• The juridification of human rights.
• International and European human rights institutions and Irish sovereignty.
• The incompatibility of human rights discourse with a particularly Irish cultural or religious outlook.
• The usefulness of human rights institutions.
• The subject of human rights discourse and the rights claims of the marginalised.
• The spread of human rights beyond their ‘original’ territory – human rights ‘mission creep’.

What we’re looking for really are coherent, readable punchy posts – from scholars of all disciplines – about ideas which, though they might be quite familiar to you, don’t get much of an airing in the media. It is very important that the posts address head-on standard critiques of human rights law and institutions in a reasoned and balanced way. Posts applying theory to concrete problems are best, but we’re not averse to high falutin’ theory either. Alternative/radical/rejuvenated visions of human rights are also of interest.

Call for Papers: Postgraduate Conference at CCJHR

The Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights at University College Cork is pleased to announce its IV Annual Postgraduate Conference which will take place on Thursday, 29th April, 2010. The conference is aimed at those who are undertaking postgraduate research in the areas of criminal law, criminal justice and human rights.

The theme for this year’s event is “Borders of Justice: Locating the Law in Times of Transition.” The aim is to reflect upon how reactionary law making and the related rhetoric of crisis impact negatively on fundamental rights protection and the criminal law. We hope that this theme will encourage debate on the challenging and complex questions which arise when defining the remit of the law in changing and turbulent times.

This international one-day event will attract promising research scholars from Ireland, the UK and Europe in the areas of law, politics, philosophy and the related social sciences. We are especially interested in papers that relate to human rights, criminal justice, criminal law or the intersection of these fields. However, we also welcome papers dealing with issues outside these areas that fall within the broader theme of the conference. Papers will be streamed thematically, with previous years including such sessions as “Contemporary Discourse in Criminal Law”, “Civil Liberties, Technology and State Security Claims” and “International Law, Human Rights and Development Policy”.

The best paper of the conference will receive a prize of €200 which is sponsored by Griffith College, Cork.

Please submit an abstract (max. 300 words) to the organising committee by Friday, 12th February 2010. Successful conference submissions will be notified by Friday, 26th February 2010. Submissions and further enquires should be directed to ucclawconf@gmail.com.

Journal of Social Criminology: Launch and Call for Papers

Liam Leonard and Paula Kenny of the Institute of Technology, Sligo have just established a new and very exciting publication entitled the Journal of Social Criminology. The Journal is a peer-reviewed international academic journal dealing with issues surrounding criminology, penology and rights and justice. It will publish edited collections of papers from an international pool of academics, relevant professionals and researchers on a twice yearly basis. The journal is an online free access journal aimed at facilitating academic knowledge sharing in the field of social criminology and is an exciting addition to Irish academic journals in this area.
The call for papers for Issue 1 has now been released:

The Journal of Social Criminology is now accepting submissions for its forthcoming edition. Submission details are as follows: Social Criminology will publish a collection of papers from an international pool of academics and researchers on a twice yearly basis.

Peer reviewed with contributions from a diverse range of perspectives, Social Criminology will address relevant criminological issues with a multidisciplinary approach which incorporates criminology, penology, law and rights perspectives. Word Limit: Manuscripts around 8,000 words in length.

Format: Borders of 1 inch all round. Font Times Roman 12pt. Double spaced. Anonymous Manuscript: To facilitate the refereeing process, please ensure that your paper is anonymous by including your name, contact details on a separate sheet. All contact details should also be given separately. Abstract. Include a summary of around 150 words with a list of key words.

Footnotes should be included at the end of the article. These should be numbered consecutively through the text, and presented on a separate sheet of paper, typed with double spacing. Bibliographic citations can appear in text or notes. These should include the author’s last name and the title or year of publication, and may include a page reference: (Leonard, 2009: 12). A separate list of references should be provided, in alphabetical order. Please do not abbreviate journal titles.

Copyright: The editors reserve the right to make editorial changes. Contributors are expected to assign copyright to the publisher; though they remain free to use material in subsequent publications provided Social Criminology is acknowledged as the original place of publication.

Submission of papers: Contributors should submit papers by email, as a Microsoft Word document, to Senior Editors liam_leonard@yahoo.com or Paula Kenny at kenny.paula@itsligo.ie

Inaugural Edition to be published in October 2009

Call for Papers: Global Ph.D/Post-Doctoral and Post Graduate Researchers Colloquium on Disability Law and Policy

A consortium of three leading national and international academic centers will host an inaugural colloquium for PhD candidates and post-doctoral/post-graduate researchers on disability law and policy.  The three centers are:

–          The Centre for Disability Law and Policy (National University of Ireland, Galway)

–          The Burton Blatt Institute (http://bbi.syr.edu, Syracuse University)

–          The Richard Crossman Chair of Social Welfare & Social Planning, University of Haifa (Israel).

The Centre for Disability Law and Policy at NUI, Galway, will host the initial colloquium from 26-27 April 2010.  It will rotate to the other centers thereafter.

Research on disability law and policy reform has never been more urgent given the imperative of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This two-day event will play a significant part in bringing together an emerging community of scholars in the disability field whose ideas will shape the reform agenda for years to come.

The consortium accordingly invites submissions for consideration from PhD candidates and post-doctoral/post-graduate researchers (including JDs) from around the world for papers for the two-day colloquium.  The focus will be on law and public policy challenges and opportunities in implementing the new UN convention.  It is likely selected papers will be published in an edited volume or special journal issue.

Depending on the response to the call for papers, the colloquium may include, but not be limited to, the following subject areas:

• Implementation strategies for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and ties to state law,
• Regional law reform and policy challenges in the field of disability (e.g. Asia, Middle East, Africa, Latin America, North America, Europe),
• Law reform options with respect to legal capacity law,
• Legislative, regulatory and policy options to achieve in areas such as:

1. Independent Living
2. Economic Independence
3. Entrepreneurship
4. Social and Civic Participation
5. Stigma and Discrimination

• Development aid and disability – international co-operation,
• Providing an effective legal and policy basis for inclusive education,
• The information revolution and disability – achieving eAccessibility,
• The built environment – access and universal design,
• Assistive technology developments, research, and markets,
• Employment and disability – the use/limits of non-discrimination and other social policy tools,
• Immigration and asylum law and policy issues,
• The mental health field and the disability field – continuities and discontinuities,
• Issues facing war veterans with disabilities and their families.

Deadline for submission of abstracts is 31 January 2010.   Abstracts should be included in the application form below and emailed to disabilitycolloquium@nuigalway.ie.

For further information, please see the contact details below.  If you have any specific requirements, do not hesitate to contact the Event Office.