Who is protecting our human rights?

Pavel Molek, Law Faculty, Masaryk University, Czech Republic   Tuesday 23 April 2013

Podcast available HERE (34MB mp3 format)

Pavel Molek, from the Czech Republic's Masaryk University, will present a comparative perspective of human rights protection and explore national, regional and universal instruments and procedures determining traditional levels of human rights protection.

Providing the European approach as a case study, Molek will present an overview of human rights protection at the domestic level, and suggest the necessity for international and EU instruments to be applied in the European context. Molek describes these varying and complex levels of protection as the "brave new world" of human rights protection.

Is this approach applicable in the Australian context?  Molek will question whether the complex European model of human rights protection provides a better system of protection and explores whether Australia should similarly adopt this approach.

Co-presented by The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre and the Global Experience program

Biography

Pavel Molek  is a lecturer at the Law Faculty of Masaryk University, Brno, since 2007, and a permanent visiting professor at Universidade Catolica, Lisbon for the program 'Law in European and Global Context'. He specialises in Human Rights, his favourite topics (theoretically and practically) being freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, right to fair elections and refugee rights. He is a part-time legal clerk at the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic (since 2003).

His main publications are: "Legal Concept of 'Persecution' in the Context of European Asylum Acquis", C. H. Beck, Praha 2010; "Freedom of Expression", Auditorium, Praha 2007 (together with Petr Jager); "Judicial Review in Election Matters", Linde, Praha 2006 (together with Vojtech Simicek); and "Communist Law in the Czechoslovakia - Chapters on the Era of Injustice", Masaryk University, Brno 2009 (as a co-editor and co-author).


Global Experience

This event is jointly presented with UniSA's Global Experience program. Global Experience is a university-wide extra-curricular program, designed to enhance UniSA students' intercultural competence and global employability. Global Experience encourages students from all areas of study to participate in a range of extra-curricular activities to enhance their university experience and future career. The program encourages UniSA students to undertake short-term international study tours, student exchange, local and international conference participation, volunteer for not for profit organisations, meet high profile guest speakers, develop leadership skills and build a portfolio of experiences aimed at enhancing a UniSA degree.

While the views presented by speakers within the Hawke Centre public program are their own and are not necessarily those of either the University of South Australia or The Hawke Centre, they are presented in the interest of open debate and discussion in the community and reflect our themes of: strengthening our democracy - valuing our diversity - and building our future.

The copying and reproduction of any transcripts within the Hawke Centre public program is strictly forbidden without prior arrangements.