Oxford Amnesty Lectures

Fri 30 March 2012, Tue 24 April 2012, Thu 26 April 2012, Tue 1 May 2012, Thu 3 May 2012, Thu 10 May 2012, Thu 17 May 2012

Amnesty’s watchword, ‘Protect the Human’, is a call to respect existing human life. But in putting humans at the centre of our moral universe, do we imperil future generations; is a call to ‘human’ rights also an imperious claim against our place in the natural order? What of other animals and life forms, the planet itself?

Both climate change and the fight against it have immense human consequences. Do human rights get in the way of an effective response? Or might they form the basis of a new environmental ethics? Can we refashion human rights to acknowledge our interconnectedness with nature? Or should human rights move aside to make room for less human-centred system of values?

Can we protect the human and save the planet? Join an Economics Nobel Laureate, an environmental activist, a UN Special Rapporteur, a political theorist, and others to find out in this year’s series of Oxford Amnesty Lectures.

Single lecture tickets are £8 (£5 concession).

Limited number of early bird season tickets during February - £30 (£20 concession).

Lecturers, titles and dates

All lectures start at 5.30pm in the Gulbenkian Lecture Theatre, St Cross Building, Manor Road, Oxford OX1 3TU.

Tickets on sale now.

Friday 30 March - Avoiding the Tragedy of the Commons
Elinor Ostrom, 2009 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences and Distinguished Professor, Indiana University, Bloomington

Tuesday 24 April - The Human Right to Water
Peter H. Gleick, Co-founder and President of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, Oakland, California

Thursday 26 April - Human Rights and the Post-Carbon Economy
Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food and Professor of Law at the University of Louvain (UCL)

Tuesday 1 May - Human Rights and the Environment - Where Next?
Alan Boyle, Professor of Public International Law, University of Edinburgh

Thursday 3 May - Realising Human Rights in a Finite World
Simon Caney, Professor in Political Theory at Magdalen College, Oxford

Thursday 10 May - Green Rights are Human Rights
Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director, Greenpeace

Thursday 17 May - Gender Inclusion and Forest Conservation - Challenging Linear Narratives
Bina Agarwal, Director & Professor of Economics, Institute of Economic Growth, University of Delhi