The development of fresh insights into peacebuilding will be at the forefront of thinking at a Lancaster University Knowledge Exchange symposium and workshop on 5 and 6 July.
‘Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Sustaining Peace: Developing New Insights into Peacebuilding’ aims to enhance knowledge and understanding of the role of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCRs) in sustaining peace.
The realisation of ESCRS often represents a challenge for the achievement of peaceful, just and inclusive societies – goal number 16 of the UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.
The event, funded by Lancaster University, its Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and its Law School, is held in collaboration with the Quaker United Nations Office and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Geneva.
Speakers will include representatives from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Christian Aid Ireland, International Alert, Global Initiative on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Swisspeace as well as academics from Edinburgh, Nottingham, Coventry and Belfast.
The symposium is part of a wider project which brings together academics and practitioners from within the peacebuilding and human rights communities to exchange knowledge and share practices and experiences of addressing such rights in research, policy and programming.
The project aims to influence policy at international and national level and to develop innovative practice and thinking. It supports and strengthens the relationship between academia, human rights actors and peacebuilding actors including the UN Peace and Security Institutions, UN OHCHR, and relevant UN agencies and NGOs. The project also seeks to address the ‘gap’ in research looking at the role of economic, social and cultural rights within peacebuilding and developing new insights into how such rights contribute to peacebuilding in a preventative context, in transition and post-conflict.
Lancaster University Law lecturer Dr Amanda Cahill-Ripley, the Project Lead Researcher, said: “We really look forward to welcoming a wide range of high calibre speakers from both practice and academia. Building on our first workshop that was held in Geneva earlier this year, we are confident that the workshop will encourage deep and broad engagement with the topic and produce interesting and innovative ideas for developing the field, through academic and policy outputs, continued collaboration and the design and implementation of further substantive research projects.”