Geopolitics and Justice Cluster: Human Security Talk

Dorothy Estrada-Tanck (University of Murcia, Spain)

“Human security and international human rights law in the Mediterranean crisis”

Abstract:

The unspeakable tragedy faced by thousands of migrant persons dying at sea trying to reach the European Mediterranean coast from the Middle East and North Africa has resulted in nearly 2,000 registered deaths in 2018. This situation, deriving from the protection gaps and deficient and unjust migration policies of national, EU and international legal systems, compel us to propose novel theoretical frameworks for thought and action. Human security has been advanced as the protection of the vital core of all human lives in ways that enhance human freedoms and human fulfillment, and safeguarding people from critical and pervasive threats and situations. I make the argument that a human security approach adds significant value to the traditional purely legal analysis of human rights. Drawing on UN and European human rights law and jurisprudence, I will explore the concrete ways in which this may play out in practice. I contend that human security and human rights can act together as a blueprint to address the Mediterranean crisis in a more just and efficient manner, and thus address one of the greatest challenges of our time.

About the speaker:  Dorothy Estrada-Tanck is Assistant Professor of International Law at the University of Murcia, Spain. She holds a PhD in Law from the European University Institute, an MSc in Political Theory from LSE and a law degree (Mexico City). She enjoys broad academic and professional experience in the United Nations, State bodies and NGOs in Mexico, Italy, the U.S. and Spain, focusing on issues of human rights, gender, and socio-economic justice. She is the author of Human Security and Human Rights under International Law: The Protections Offered to Persons Confronting Structural Vulnerability (Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2016).

Contact details: +34 868883259; dorothyestrada@um.es