Date: 30Oct 2019
– The Human Rights Seminar Series –
in celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the LLM (Human Rights) Programme: The UN Human Rights System: Current Challenges and Debates
By Sharon Hom (Visiting Professor) Executive Director of Human Rights in China Adjunct Professor of Law, School of Law, NYU Professor of Law Emerita, School of Law, City University of New York
Wednesday, 30th October 2019, 12:30 – 13:30
Academic Conference Room, 11/F Cheng Yu Tung Tower, Centennial Campus, The University of Hong Kong
Abstract: Since the post-World War II creation of the modern international human rights system, human rights norms, mechanisms and practice continue to evolve to address dynamic global developments and ongoing and new human rights challenges. In this talk, Visiting Professor Sharon Hom will examine key current normative and structural debates, with a focus on the UN treaty body system and the special procedures (independent experts and working groups). Discussion of illustrative concrete examples will provide insights into the role of different stakeholders — states and non-state actors, such as international non-governmental organisations (INGOs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and civil society more broadly.
Biography: Visiting Professor Sharon Hom is Executive Director of Human Rights in China (HRIC), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) which aims to promote fundamental rights and freedom through engaging in case and policy advocacy,media and press work, and capacity building with other NGOs, government bodies,and other human rights stakeholders. Professor Hom has been teaching law for more than 20 years and is now Adjunct Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law, and Professor of Law Emerita at the City University of New York School of Law. She was named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the “50 Women to Watch” in 2007. Professor Hom has not only written extensively on international human rights and China but also actively lobbied and participated in the UN human rights system. She has testified on a variety of human rights issues before key EU, U.S. and international policymakers. Most recently, she spoke before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China(CECC) in Washington DC on Hong Kong’s summer of discontent.
