The Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Conference took place on July 12, 2024 in St. Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands at St. Peter’s Centre. This was an in-person event.
Speakers (listed in alphabetical order):
The Effectiveness of the ICESCR in Protecting the Environment in Times of Armed conflict and occupation
Waad Abualrob
Dr. Waad Abualrob holds a PhD in International Law from the University of Westminster. He earned his LLB in Law from An-Najah National University, a Diploma in Business, Law, and Social Science from Kaplan College London, and an LLM in International Law from the University of Westminster. His research interests focus on environmental protection and natural resources in times of armed conflict and occupation.
The right to a basic bank account? Local and international perspectives and challenges
Dr. Claire de Than and Dr. Jesse Elvin
Professor Claire de Than is a senior legal academic of more than 25 years’ standing, and a Jersey Law Commissioner, currently working on a Criminal Code. She has over 85 legal academic publications in total, including articles in leading national and international journals, and over 15 books. Her research fields include criminal law, comparative law of tiny jurisdictions, and human rights law. She has advised many governments, charities and organisations on criminal law, human rights and law reform issues.
Dr. Jesse Elvin is a Senior Lecturer in Law at City, University of London. He has published in a number of leading journals, including the Cambridge Law Journal, the Law Quarterly Review, the Modern Law Review, and the Criminal Law Review. His research and teaching interests include tort law, criminal law, and contract law.
Time and Its Subjects in the Human Rights Imaginary: ESCR and the Sámi Peoples
Emma Lennhammer
Emma Lennhammer is a PhD Candidate in Human Rights Studies at Lund University, Sweden, and a Guest Researcher in Contemporary History at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. She has a background in interdisciplinary human rights studies, with a BA in Human Rights (Lund University, Sweden), MA in Human Rights (Uppsala University, Sweden), MA in Religion in Peace and Conflict (Uppsala University, Sweden), and LLM in International Human Rights Law (University of Bristol, United Kingdom). Her research concerns the temporalities of international human rights law, focusing particularly on experiences and subjecthood of economic, social, and cultural human rights.
Restoring Children’s Right to Education after War: The Ukrainian Case Study
Dr. Hilly Moodrick-Even Khen
Dr. Moodrick-Even Khen is a senior lecturer of public international law at Ariel University, and chair of Ariel University Center for the Research and Study of Genocide. She also serves on the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) membership committee and on the 2025 bi-annual conference committee. Dr. Moodrick-Even Khen specializes in various fields of international law, including international criminal law, genocide and law, international human rights law and international humanitarian law. Her research also focuses on the integration of the legal and social aspects of genocide. With her academic background and expertise. Dr. Moodrick-Even Khen has made significant contributions to the field. She authored numerous articles, and published several books covering a wide range of topics, including children in armed conflicts, targeted killings, occupied territories, the principles of distinction and proportionality in an armed conflict, the Israeli Palestinian conflict, and the intersection between the legal and social aspects of genocide in contemporary contexts, such as the genocides of the Rohingya, the Yezidis and the Uyghurs. Dr. Moodrick-Even Khen published two books and two edited volumes, the latest is: The Syrian War: Between Justice and Political Reality (co-edited with Nir Boms and Sareta Ashraph, CUP, 2020). She lectures extensively on her scholarly work both at academic conferences and before practitioners in the fields of law.
Bridging Divides: A Plea for Indivisible Human Rights amidst the Climate Crisis
Jakob Nehls
Jakob Nehls (he/him) is a doctoral candidate in the “International Doctorate Programme: Business and Human Rights: Governance Challenges in a Complex World” at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Geography from the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen and a master’s degree in Human Rights and Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). His dissertation on the principle of indivisibility in the Business and Human Rights domain is supervised by Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Heiner Bielefeldt and Prof. Dr. Markus Krajewski. Jakob Nehls has been involved in various organizations and movements concerned with human rights and intergenerational justice. At Amnesty International in Germany, he has been active in various committees and has helped to develop the organization’s climate-related human rights work.
ESCR and Agenda 2030: education as a vehicle for a sustainable society
Vanni Nicolì
Vanni Nicolì is a PhD student at the University of International Studies of Rome (UNINT). Vanni’s interest is in Comparative Public Law and Vanni’s research involves the European Union and the national laws about migration and integration of minorities. In particular, Vanni studies the UK, France and Italy cases. Vanni’s research has a legal and a social point of view.
Catalysts for change: Stock taking on ESCR in Asia
Dr. Narissa Ramsundar and Kristin- Marie Muradali
Kirstin- Marie Muradali is supporting with research into the progressive realisation of economic, social and cultural rights across different states and their link to international crimes and serious violations of human rights on this presentation.
Narissa is a Principal Lecturer within the School of Law, Policing and the Social Sciences. Narissa’s research and legal practice has maintained focus on criminal responsibility and crime suppression. She recently worked as Visiting Professional at the International Criminal Court for 6 months from October 2020 to April 2021 in the Pre Trial-Chambers. In conjunction with other international researchers, she has presented research around violations of Economic Social and Cultural Rights of Rohingya, Kachin, Sentinelese, Tibetan and Uighurs in Asia at the 46th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. She has a PhD from Queen Mary University on “State Responsibility for Support of Armed Groups in the Commission of International Crimes” in 2017 and was awarded a studentship from Queen Mary University to undertake this research. She was examined by the late Professor Robert Cryer and was supervised by Professor Phoebe Okowa, who is currently elected to the International Law Commission. She has an LLM (Distinction) in Public International law from Kings College and a Bachelor of Laws (2:1) Bachelor of Arts (2:1) from the University of the West Indies.
The Interactional Protection of Socio-Economic Rights
Aristi Volou
Dr Aristi Volou is a Lecturer in Law at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is teaching human rights at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Dr Volou is also an Associate Editor of the Oxford University Press Reports on International Law (UN Human Rights Law module). Prior to these, Dr Volou was a Visiting Research Fellow at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (London) and was teaching Public Law at Queen Mary, University of London, where she also completed the AFHEA. She also held a post-doctoral position at the Centre for Fundamental Rights of the Hertie School in Berlin. Dr Volou completed her PhD in International Human Rights Law at the University of Leicester, where she also taught and contributed to a number of research projects on human rights. During her PhD, she also completed a traineeship at the European Court of Human Rights.
Legal status of economic, social and cultural rights in national court: Japanese perspective
Yutaka Watanabe
Dr. Yutaka WATANABE is a Professor of Public International Law at Faculty of Law, Niigata University (Japan). He holds LL.M. in international Law (Hitotsubashi University, Japan) and master recherche in European Human Rights Law (University of Montpellier I, France), before obtaining his Doctoral degree at Hitotsubashi University, Japan. He has published many articles in international human rights law, mainly focusing on economic, social and cultural rights. His latest publications concern the European Social Charter, EU law on social security, and Japanese case analysis on the right to housing.
Job Guarantee Programmes and the Right to Work: The Missing Piece or Missing the Point?
Gaia Zanotti
Gaia Zanotti earned her LLB from the University of Exeter in 2020 and subsequently pursued her LLM in Human Rights Law at Queen Mary University of London, achieving a distinction in 2021. She is currently working on her doctoral thesis at the University of Edinburgh.