UM Law to host Symposium on Inter-American Human Rights Developments. Costa Rica’s former president, Rodrigo Carazo Odio, to speak.
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The Inter-American Law Review (IALR) at the University of Miami School of Law will host its 2009 Symposium – titled “Righting Wrongs: The Inter-American System of Human Rights after 50 Years” – on Saturday, March 7th from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Storer Auditorium at the UM School of Business Administration.
International experts will gather at the symposium to discuss the roles that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights have played in changing the lives of those affected by human rights abuses in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The keynote address will be delivered, via pre-recorded video, by the former president of Costa Rica and founder of the University for Peace, Dr. Rodrigo Carazo Odio. From 1907 to 1918, Costa Rica hosted the Central American Court of Justice, which was the first permanent international tribunal that allowed individuals to take legal action regarding international law and human rights issues. Following that tradition, Dr. Carazo pushed forward with efforts to establish the University for Peace while he was president of Costa Rica. He also helped establish the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the Costa Rican capital.
Additional confirmed speakers include Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International, USA; Santiago Canton, executive secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; Carlos Ayala Coroa, former chairman of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; Rick Wilson, founding director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic at American University’s Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C., and member of the Board of Directors of the World Organization for Human Rights, U.S.A.; Pablo Saavedra, deputy secretary of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights; and Fred Morris, Methodist pastor and torture survivor.
Now in its 50th year, IALR (formerly Lawyer of the Americas) operates as a scholarly international legal periodical run entirely by second- and third-year law students at the Law School. It is dedicated to providing a forum for legal scholars, practitioners, and students to discuss major international and inter-American legal and legally-related developments. With the continuing emergence of Miami as a center of international trade, finance, and law, the focus of IALR becomes increasingly important and relevant to the surrounding environments.
The symposium is being organized in conjunction with the Law School’s International Graduate Law Programs, and is free and open to the public. The Storer Auditorium is located at 5250 University Drive on the University’s Coral Gables campus. For more information on the IALR or to RSVP for this symposium, please email ialr@law.miami.edu or call (305) 284-5562.
posted 03-March-2009
