On April 14, Erika George, a professor of law at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, will be the keynote speaker at this year’s Anne and Sandy Dolowitz Lecture on Human Rights, presented by the U of U International Studies Program.
George’s address, titled “Beyond Cultural Relativism Toward the Right of Health,” will focus on the issue of South Africa’s HIV/AIDS crisis.
“My lecture will consider how conventional human rights theory and modes of practice are not fully adequate to address some of the more significant contemporary concerns of our time, like the suffering associated with the HIV/AIDS pandemic around the world,” George explained. “Using the example of a cultural practice that has been simultaneously celebrated and condemned in some South African communities as an illustration of the stalemate and unstable compromise that can result from some of the shortcomings in human rights debates, I propose a new mode of discussion moving away from seeing rights as in conflict and present an alternative theoretical framework to improve how human rights can confront the challenges presented by pandemic disease and other unconventional threats to human dignity.”
At the College of Law, George teaches international human rights and humanitarian law, international environmental law, constitutional law, and civil procedure. A graduate of Harvard Law School, George also completed an M.A. in International Relations and a B.A. in Politics Economics Rhetoric and Law with honors, both from the University of Chicago.
George will speak at 7:30 p.m. on April 14 in the Eccles Auditorium at the Carolyn Tanner Irish Humanities Building located at 215 South Central Campus Drive. The lecture is free and open to the public.
For more information, call 801.581.6214 or go to the International Studies Program website ( http://www.hum.utah.edu/intl_studies/).