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Labour rights: constitutional promises vs global realities

Human Rights lecture at the University of Leicester on 24 November. Free and open to the public

Issued on 18 November 2009

Human Rights will come under the spotlight at the University of Leicester’s School of Law with a public lecture entitled ‘Labour Rights: Constitutional Promises vs Global Realities’.

This is part of a series of events in the Human Rights Lecture Series, a highly successful series of events organized by the Centre for European Law and Integration (CELI) and taking place for a fourth consecutive year at the University of Leicester.

On Tuesday 24 November, Professor Harry Arthurs from Osgoode Hall Law School in Canada, will be visiting the University to give the free public lecture. The event is taking place in the Ken Edwards Building, room KE526, at 5.00pm. It will be chaired by Dr Virginia Mantouvalou.

Professor Arthurs said: “Advocates of labour rights, and other human rights, propose that these rights should be constitutionalized as in America, so that citizens denied them can seek legal redress in the courts. But why constitutionalize rights if litigation does not (and cannot) alter fundamental social, economic and political realities? Proponents of constitutionalisation should focus instead on changing the architecture of government, the structure of the economy, and dynamic of social relations - characteristics of an older British understanding of constitutionalism”.

Harry Arthurs is University Professor, former Dean of Osgoode Hall Law School (1972-77) and President of York University (1985-92). He has also been an academic visitor at Oxford, Cambridge and University College London. He has served as Commissioner reviewing Canada’s labour standards legislation (2004-2006) and as Commissioner reviewing Ontario’s pension legislation (2006-2008). Professor Arthurs has published extensively in several areas, including labour and administrative law, legal education, the legal profession, globalisation and constitutionalism.

The event is free and open to the public, and no registration is required. For further information, please contact Dr Virginia Mantouvalou (Virginia.mantouvalou@leicester.ac.uk).

For more information on the Human Rights Lecture Series, see http://www.le.ac.uk/la/celi/human_rights.html