Dates and Location:
Wednesday 28 and Thursday 29 September 2022. McGill Law Faculty – Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism
Rationale and aims:
Maximizing human agency and freedom is one of the core values of the international human rights project. The concept of ‘agency’ is anchored in general and, in particular, in specialised international human rights instruments that seek to protect and empower specific marginalised groups (e.g., children, women, indigenous people, refugees, people with disabilities). It is generally understood to be central to the recognition of such groups as subjects of a special set of rights, and with the recognition of subjectivity comes the recognition of all human to act and make decisions on their own behalf.
Despite this ambition, empirical research has exposed patterns of ‘selective agency’, meaning that a subject’s agency is often only recognized and taken seriously when it is considered as the ‘right kind’ by more powerful custodians and implementers of international human rights norms. When persons exercise the ‘wrong kind’ of agency – for instance to engage in sex work, ‘harmful’ traditional practices, child marriage etc. – they are often dismissed for being forced, manipulated, or as being stuck in a false consciousness. In other words, when it comes international human rights, it appears that the recognition of ‘agency’ is generally constraint by the normative parameters of the different instruments, with the result that many remain on the margins of human rights praxis.
This seemingly contractionary practice is indicative of a lack of understanding about how agency is currently conceptualized and about what it actually constitutes in the operationalization of international human rights instruments. It is the aim of this workshop to address this problem, guided by the following set of questions:
- How is agency conceptualised in various international human rights instruments?
- Does, can and should the current conceptualization accommodate the diverse and challenging ways that agency is exercised by so-called marginalised groups?
- Can and should we think of alternative ways to do so?
Format:
The workshop will take place over two days and will bring together six invited scholars from various disciplines who share a keen interest in agency and/or human rights. Each participant will be asked to select one paper or chapter (written by themselves or by another) which relates (empirically, theoretically or methodologically) to the workshop’s theme and questions, and which will be read by all beforehand. Each participant will give a 10min exposé relating to their respective paper, followed by a 30min discussion between all participants. The workshop will end with a general discussion and theorisation of the insights gained from the different presentations and discussions, and will explore potential follow-up projects (e.g., a special issue, edited volume, conference etc.).
Organisers:
Hoko Horii is a lecturer at the VanVollenhoven Institute (VVI) of the Leiden University and specialises in socio-legal studies, legal philosophy, human rights law, and children’s rights.
Edward van Daalen is a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism (CHRLP) of the McGill University, where he works on the intersections of international law and policy making, children’s rights and international development.
Hoko Horii 