2 minute read
Bonavero news
Despite the challenges presented by the pandemic, the Faculty of Law’s Bonavero Institute of Human Rights (BIHR) at Mansfield has had a busy and stimulating year. Professor Kate O’Regan, Director of the BIHR, reflects on some highlights of 2020/21.
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This year, we’ve commenced a new three-year partnership with the Fund for Global Human Rights to run The Symposium on Strength and Solidarity for Human Rights (https:// strengthandsolidarity.org), which aims to support human rights leaders across the world and build greater organisational strength and resilience in the sector. Twice a year the Symposium will draw together groups of human rights leaders to engage in moderated conversations, based on curricula that will be developed by the team at the BIHR. Ordinarily these meetings will be in person, but because of Covid, they have had to be online. Participants share and learn from one another through the discussion of cases and the review of past experience. You can learn more about the work of some of the participants in the podcast series, Strength and Solidarity (https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts).
Strengthening student engagement with the BIHR
In Michaelmas term 2020, we offered an innovative noncredit course on ‘The Past and Present of Slavery – Developing a Strategic Response’ to 30 undergraduate and graduate students from various disciplines at the University of Oxford. This course was part of the Bonavero Institute’s ‘Gateways to Human Rights Research and Practice’ initiative, which aims to deepen student engagement with the Institute’s research and human rights practice. Partly inspired by the BIHR’s role as one of the six academic institutions forming the new Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre (https:// modernslaverypec.org), the programme was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The course was delivered by leading scholars and practitioners in the field and was followed by a well-attended three-part panel series on the same topic in Hilary term 2021. Those lectures are available on our YouTube channel, accessible as are recordings of nearly all our public events, on our website (https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/centresinstitutes/bonavero-institute-human-rights/watch-listen).
Staff updates
On the staffing front, we were sad to bid farewell to Dr Annelen Micus, our Head of Programmes, who has accepted a position at Amnesty International in Berlin. We wish her well in her new role. We were pleased to welcome Dr Ruth Kelly to work on the Symposium on Strength and Solidarity and Bharat Shivan as Grants and Finance Officer.
Massive Open Online Course
In Trinity term 2021, the Bonavero team delivered its first ever Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in partnership with UNESCO which generously funded the project. The MOOC consisted of five modules addressing different aspects of freedom of expression, released weekly on the delivery platform EdX Edge. It was aimed at judges, prosecutors and legal practitioners from across the globe. Nearly 3500 individuals from 167 different countries and territories participated. Response to the MOOC was enthusiastic and we are fairly sure this will not be our last venture into the format.
If you are interested in the work of the Bonavero, please sign up for our weekly-termly newsletters (https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/centres-institutes/bonaveroinstitute-human-rights/keeping-bonavero-institute), which contain information about our events and programmes. Many of these are open to the public, so you would be very welcome to join us. As always, we remain deeply indebted to the generosity and support of our funders, and we express our sincere thanks to them.
