CHREN Conference 2024

CHREN Conference June 2024

Court Room 600 Palace of Justice, International Nuremberg Principles Academy

Auditorium Maximum Findelgasse, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg

Patricia Wiater, member of the Center for Human Rights Erlangen-Nürnberg (CHREN) of FAU, and the team of the Chair for Public Law, Public International Law and Human Rights organised a Human Rights Conference from 7th to 9th June 2024. More than 100 participants from around the world attended the event, including judges from the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights as well as professors, barristers, post-doctoral researchers and students from FAU and other universities. The conference was also followed by multiple participants online in a simultaneous livestream.

On Friday, 7th June 2024, the Conference commenced with panel discussion on “Human Rights Courts in Africa, the Americas, and Europe: Trends and Challenges”, organised in cooperation with the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, in Courtroom 600 of the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg. Christoph Safferling, Director of the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, gave a welcoming speech followed by a greeting from Joachim Hornegger, President of FAU. On the panel, Judge Tim Eicke (European Court of Human Rights), Judge Verónica Gómez (Inter-American Court of Human Rights), and James Gathii (Loyola University Chicago School of Law) have addressed judicial strategies in dealing with transnational challenges such as climate change and the risk of political resistance on the part of states. The panel discussion was moderated by Patricia Wiater.

On Saturday, 8th June 2024, a symposium on “Expanding Human Rights Protection to Non-Human Subjects? Animals, Nature, Corporations and Robots as (Potential) Human Rights Subjects” took place. Michael Waibel (University of Vienna), Monica Feria-Tinta (Twenty Essex London), Saskia Stucki (Max-Planck-Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law), Patricia Wiater and James Gathii gave valuable presentations on the potential and limits of expanding human rights protection to non-human subjects. The presentations were commented by Judge Verónica Gómez (Inter-American Court of Human Rights), Justice Dennis Dominic Adjei (African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights) and Judge Tim Eicke (European Court of Human Rights), the discussions were moderated by the CHREN members Markus Krajewski, Laura Clérico, Heiner Bielefeldt, as well as by Paulina Pesch (FAU) and Thoko Kaime (University of Bayreuth).

The conference concluded on Sunday, 9th June 2024, with the FAU Human Rights Talks. Three groups of FAU students presented their research on the use of artificial intelligence in government decision-making, the use of Large Language Models in human rights proceedings and open-source investigations and citizen media evidence in human rights proceedings while seeking to answer the question if artificial intelligence should be seen as a chance for human rights or rather poses a challenge. After each presentation, the judges from the regional human rights courts gave their opinion on the matter leaving the audience to reflect on the presentations whilst giving thought-provoking impulses.