Call for papers: Human Rights and the Morality of Proportionality

1-2 November 2018

In recent years proportionality has risen to prominence in human rights law across the world. However, it has arguably become victim of its own success.  The more it is being entrenched in the case law of constitutional and international human rights courts, the more it is drifting from its moral moorings. As a result, proportionality analysis is often conducted in a technical and formulaic fashion. In this workshop leading legal theorists from Europe and North America will explore whether proportionality deserves its place as the litmus test for compliance with human rights norms. In doing so they will keep their attention firmly focused on proportionality's moral appeal and its possible connection with fundamental political principles such as freedom, equality, democracy and reasonableness. 

Malcolm Thorburn  (University of Toronto Faculty of Law)

Triantafyllos Gkouvas (Monash University)

George Letsas (UCL Faculty of Laws)

Kai Moller (London School of Economics and Political Science)

Matthias Klatt (Univerzity of Graz)

Mattias Kumm (WZB Berlin Social Science Center)

George Pavlakos (University of Glasgow)

Dr Dimitrios Kyritsis (University of Reading)

Organised by: the Institute of State and Law (Czech Academy of Sciences), Centre for Law and Public Affairs (CeLAPA)  and the Department of Political Sciences and Sociology (Faculty of Law, Charles University). 

To apply for participation, scholars are invited to submit an abstract of their take on the core concerns of the conference (250words).

Deadline for applications: October 15th 2018, by email to: petr.agha@centrum.cz