The Future of Human Rights Seminar Series with Pembroke’s Fulbright Visiting Professor Alison Brysk

Since 1999, Pembroke College has been hosting a visiting scholar each year as part of the Fulbright programme. This Trinity Term we were delighted to welcome Professor Alison Brysk as our Fulbright Visiting Professor. Professor Brysk is Mellichamp Professor of Global Governance at the University of California, where she specialises in international human rights and is the author of numerous books on the subject.

Professor Brysk delivered a series of six seminars at Pembroke on the theme of ‘The Future of Human Rights’, exploring lessons and debates from a generation of human rights scholarship. Revisiting the analysis presented in her 2018 book, The Future of Human Rights, each week she invited scholars from across the UK to join a dialogue on different questions surrounding human rights.

Prof Brysk and her guest speakers were joined by students and academics from Pembroke and around Oxford who engaged in discussion on topics such as ‘The Future of Accountability’, ‘Communicating Human Rights’, ‘The Future of Migration’ and more.

Following the series, Prof Brysk comments: “The seminar series was a wonderful opportunity to deepen our understanding of the politics of human rights in the wake of the pandemic. The Fulbright exchange advanced dialogue on issues like democratic backsliding, growing challenges to women's rights, and the contested evolution of global governance. I look forward to my next visit to Pembroke to continue the conversation.”

It was a pleasure to host Professor Brysk at Pembroke last term and to hear her engage our community in discussion on these important subjects.

Recordings of the seminars can be found on our Youtube Channel here.