Annual Harrell-Bond Lecture 2015, Refugee Studies Centre

Lecture title:

‘We do not want to become refugees’: Human mobility in the age of climate change

Speaker:

Professor Walter Kälin (Envoy of the Chairmanship of the Nansen Initiative, and Professor of Constitutional and International Law, University of Bern)

Abstract:

Disaster displacement is one of the big humanitarian challenges of our times and is likely to significantly increase in the context of climate change. Building on the work of the Nansen Initiative on disaster-induced cross-border displacement, the lecture will explore different tools available to address displacement and other forms of disaster-related human mobility.

About the speaker:

Professor Walter Kälin is a Swiss international human rights lawyer, legal scholar, and advocate. Currently, he is professor of constitutional and international law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bern (Switzerland), and Envoy of the Chairmanship of the Nansen Initiative. He served as a member of the UN Human Rights Committee until the end of 2014. From 2004 until 2010, he was the Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons. Professor Kälin is the author of numerous works including The Face of Human Rights (2004) and The Law of International Human Rights Protection (2009). He received his doctor of law from the University of Bern and his LL.M. from Harvard University.

The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception.

Register:

This event is free to attend and open to all but registration is required. To register, please contact the Centre Administrator, Anneli Chambliss Howes, at anneli.chambliss@qeh.ox.ac.uk or on +44 (0)1865 281720.