Seminar Series Human Rights in Essential Public Service Provision

This series of eight seminars, that will take place from 12 December 2013 till 1 November 2014, explores the role of human rights law in regulating adequate provision of essential public services (including access to water, electricity and healthcare services), from a ‘law and governance’ perspective. A ‘law and governance’ perspective encourages to consider the potentially wide range of available hard and soft regulatory instruments and mechanisms through which various (competing) public and private interests in the delivery of services can be simultaneously assessed, appraised and balanced, including on the basis of human rights.

In this lecture series various researchers from the Faculty of Law of the University of Groningen, working in the Faculty’s research programmes on “Public Trust, Public Law”, “Public Interests, Private Relationships” and “Energy & Sustainability” will come together to share their past and current research efforts on the provision of public essential services based on human rights considerations, as well as to solicit input on the topic from invited external keynote speakers and other interested researchers and experts.

The purpose of the Seminars is as much to present on-going research, as it is to foster cooperative academic communities for furthering the understanding of how human rights law can play a role in guiding essential service provision. Researchers from other disciplines are very much welcomed to attend. The results of all the events together will be published in a special issue of an international law journal or an edited book.

Participants can sign up for the various seminars by sending an email to the secretariat of the Department of International Law at stair rug.nl . Students are also welcome to attend the Seminars upon registration.