SIM Peter Baehr online lecture 2020: Ensuring human rights for all in the digital age

The Netherlands Institute of Human Rights SIM of Utrecht University kindly invites you to attend the SIM Peter Baehr (online) lecture 2020 on the occasion of our 39th anniversary. This year, we are honoured that the lecture will be delivered by Nani Jansen Reventlow, Director of the Digital Freedom Fund.

She will be speaking on Ensuring human rights for all in the digital age.

The ways in which we exercise our fundamental rights and freedoms have been transformed in the “digital age,” with new technologies being increasingly used to make decisions that have a significant impact on our daily lives. How can we ensure our human rights are protected, promoted and vindicated in this new reality? Courts are a crucial forum for upholding and safeguarding human rights, both online and offline, and strategic litigation offers an important means by which laws and practices infringing upon human rights can be challenged and those responsible can be held to account.

Next frontier in digital rights litigation

We have already seen some strong judgments in support of digital rights in recent years. What is the next frontier in digital rights litigation, also taking into account a shifting global landscape in light of the Covid-19 pandemic? And how can we make sure we are guaranteeing a future in which digital rights are protected for all, regardless of their sexuality, abilities, gender identity, age, culture, and social class? 

Drawing on her experience at the helm of the Digital Freedom Fund and as a human rights litigator, Nani Jansen Reventlow will discuss some of the digital rights issues that have come before the courts and will offer her insights on what the trends and outstanding challenges are in this emerging area of human rights practice.

About Nani Jansen Reventlow

Nani is the founding Director of the Digital Freedom Fund, which supports partners in Europe to advance digital rights through strategic litigation. Nani is also an Associate Tenant at Doughty Street Chambers, a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School and Adjunct Professor at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government. 

Between 2011 and 2016, Nani led the litigation practice of the Media Legal Defence Initiative (MLDI) globally, representing clients before the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the UN Human Rights Committee, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and several African regional forums. Nani obtained the first freedom of expression judgment from the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and from the East African Court of Justice.

A Dutch-qualified attorney, Nani graduated in civil law and public international law from the University of Amsterdam and specialised in human rights at Columbia Law School and the European University Institute.

Programme and registration

Venue:

This year the lecture will be an online, livestreamed event due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Once you register, you will get the login info closer to the event.

Prospective programme

17:15 - Opening and welcome by Antoine Buyse, director of SIM  

17:25 - Lecture by Nani Jansen Reventlow, followed by online live Q&A 

Registration

Do you wish to attend the SIM Peter Baehr lecture? Please send an email to: secretariaatIERSBR@uu.nl , with reference to ‘SIM Peter Baehr Lecture 2020’.